Monday, July 04, 2005

Family, Overstimulation and other fun stuff

Yesterday, we spent the day with Scott's family. They are a great group of people, although sometimes I wonder if I fit in with them. They are well-rounded, college-educated, financially secure people. I admire the kind of family they are. Scott's parents have been married 60 years. Her health is failing now. She has alzheimer's, and Scott's dad stands by her every second of every day. He takes care of her with such love and tenderness, it almost brings tears to your eyes. The children all wear nice clothing, eat fine foods and wines and talk about their theories and ideas on the most current events. As much as I admire the Cleaver kind of life my husband has had, it is completely different from how I was raised. My father left us when I was 4. We never heard from him again. My mother worked a few jobs to try and support us, but we always seemed to still fall short of being able to pay all of the bills. We moved alot from one apartment to another. Then my mom went through a period of time where she spent alot of time away from home. My sister and I were about 10 and 11. She would be gone for days and we never knew where she was. Our electricity had been shut off for 6 months and she was never home. Our lives did get some better after my mom met my stepdad (we just call him dad now). But things were really tough for a very long time. I quit school at 16, got my high school diploma when I was 20 and finally did go to Technical school. But I got sick before I could finish. When I'm around Scott's family, I do not feel inferior or less intelligent. Just different. Anyway, that's not exactly where I had intended on going with this.

We spent the day with his family and fun was had by all. My only real problem is that I just recently had a stroke. My brain has slowed down quite a bit and it's very hard for me to keep up with conversations going on between 10-15 different people. I found by the time we were there an hour, I was already feeling overstimulated. When that happens now, the brain slows down, I forget people's names, I forget words. It gets real ugly! We spent a few hours there and when we left, I felt happy, but relieved to be gone.

My son is with his dad for the week. My stepson was still with us. He asked if his cousin could come stay with us, but because I just had a stroke a little over 2 weeks ago, I know I'm not ready for another child here in the house. My sister-in-law nicely asked my stepson to come spend a few days with her. I'm SO glad that happened. Scott and I drove home in glorious silence. We came home to glorious silence and it has been gloriously silent ever since. Sometimes life...is very good.

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