Looking for the lesson Pt. 1

The last post was happy because I was recounting a happier time.  More recently, as in two days ago, I've been much more down and sad and whiny and why me and full of self-pity.  I'm trying to pull myself out of it, but I'm not having the greatest success.  I'm holding on to hope that tomorrow will be a better day.  


I didn't expect Mother's Day to be that big of a deal.  It wouldn't have been if God hadn't decided that Sunday would be a great day to test my strength.  Spolier alert:  I didn't pass.


About a week ago, Drew came to me and told me that a guy had approached him while he was in the yard.  The guy, Maurice, asked Drew if he could do any odd jobs for a few extra dollars.  Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens more than I'd prefer.  We live in a very nice neighborhood that is up against the sketchy part of town and we're pretty close to downtown Dallas.  The public bus line runs down our street which means we get people knocking on the door at least once a week.  Usually it's lawn mowing services, sometimes it's door-to-door salesmen, but occasionally they ask for money.  Most of the time they knock and Maya will answer with her huge, ferocious bark.  Then I open the door with her straining at her collar, jumping like an idiot and that usually deters them.  Little do they know that she just wants to lick them to death - it's okay that they think she's a vicious attack dog.


Anyway, Drew told me he wanted to help the guy - Drew is a huge softie.  I'm definitely the bigger hard-ass of the family.  However, I wasn't opposed to helping the guy - at least he wanted to earn it and wasn't standing on a street corner harassing people at red lights.  We were going out of town for the night and he told the guy he could come back on Sunday afternoon to do some yardwork.  I was especially okay with that because it meant I wouldn't have to do it.


Saturday morning we left for East Texas to go to our friend Stan's party that he was throwing for his parents 50th wedding anniversary.  The party was on a lake and Stan had rented a house for his friends coming from out of town.  On the way out there, Drew told me more about Maurice's situation.  There was a girlfriend, they left their small town and came to the big city, thinking that things would be better, that there would be more opportunities.  The two of them were living in a tent under a bridge less than a mile away from our house.  It was private property and I guess they'd gotten permission from the owner - how, I haven't the slightest.  


Oh yeah, and the girlfriend was pregnant.


Of course.  Of COURSE the homeless chick living under a bridge was pregnant.  Naturally.  Because it would be too much like right for the married woman who has a house and a second bedroom just begging to be a nursery who wants a baby more than anything to be able to get pregnant.  Nope, let's give the homeless chick a baby.  I looked out the window and started crying, muttering 'It's not fair.'  Drew looked over at me, squeezed my hand and said "We'll get there baby."  And then I snapped at him.  "Really Drew?  How do you know?  WHEN are we gonna get there?  What magical information  do you have that I don't?  How do you KNOW!!"  I shouldn't have done that and I wish I could take it back, but it felt like I'd been punched in the throat.  Then my good buddy God decided he wanted to chime in.


You should buy her prenatal vitamins.
I'm sorry what?  Sorry God, but HELL no!  No.  She got pregnant just fine, she doesn't need a thing from me.  No.  Actually, why don't YOU explain to ME how it is that a homeless chick gets to be pregnant and not me.
You should buy her prenatal vitamins.
How bout NO.  It's not fair and I'm not going to.
You should buy her prenatal vitamins.
I don't want to.  Why should I help her?  Who's helping me?


Now, don't worry y'all.  This little conversation happened in my head - no need for the white jackets just yet.  That's how me and God are.  I have an open door and He pops in and out - sometimes at the most inopportune times.  Like when I'd rather forget about a homeless pregnant chick.


We arrived at the house with a little time to spare and for the moment Maurice and his pregnant girlfriend were out of my mind.  The party was wonderful - it was really heartwarming to share the evening with two people celebrating 50 years of marriage.  I want us to get there.  I wanted our kids to throw us an anniversary party.  If we have kids.  I have to get pregnant again first.  I have to stay pregnant.  You know who's pregnant?  The homeless chick living under the bridge!  Dammit.  So I went to the bar and kept my wineglass full - sue me.

Stan went all out with the decorations

It was all so tastefully done

The backdrop of the lake was so beautiful and serene

I got to eat a whole slice of cake this time!

The chocolate fountain and the fruit animals were so cool!

The best shot I got of them because they were 
moving and greeting from that point on.

I now know what that's like.

The night played out like a typical wedding reception.  We ate too much, drank too much, danced, laughed and fussed over his mom and dad.  Speeches were made, glasses were raised and it was an overall fun time.

Now did you catch the part where I said we drank too much?  It wasn't me - I'd had a few small glasses of wine but once I was able to make the mental transition from homeless chick to party, I ended up nursing my glass.  Not so Drew.

Not drunk yet.  Just silly.

Eyes starting to go a little sleepy

There it is!

He and Stan broke out a bottle of vodka for friends only the two of them.  Stan's friend Ellen had one cocktail from the bottle, I stuck with my wine, leaving Drew and Stan to do the most damage.  I didn't care - it wasn't going to be me with the hangover in the morning.  I was only starting to get testy because I was getting hungry and they'd run out of food.  Then I got full-out annoyed because we were in East Bumblefuck Texas and the closest anything was eleventy billion miles away.  Of course, that didn't matter anyway because in East Bumblefuck Texas everything closes at nine and it was approaching midnight.

The reception was winding down and the only ones left were the drinkers.  The only problem was that by then, I was pretty well sober and you KNOW how annoying drunk people are when you're sober.  So I just quietly but firmly told Drew that I was ready to go and we needed to wrap it up.  And as is the case when there are a bunch of drunk people around and it's late at night, there was drama.  

So I'm tired, hungry, annoyed and there's drama.  It's no wonder I told Drew that I would be in the car and he needed to come on.  Unfortunately, of the eight people staying in the house that night I was the only sober one.  This made for lots of noise and general nonsense until two in the morning.  Now I'm not judging - I clearly remember recent times in my life when I've been the nonsense-creator.  I used to be able to throw down with the best.  But when I'm sober AND hungry - I'm having none of it.  I got ready for bed and told Drew that if he did anything stupid that I would get up and make the biggest, loudest most ridiculous scene and embarrass the crap out of us both, but mainly him so you can stay up as late as you want and risk that or you can come to bed with me, your choice.  Thank God he chose wisely.

We got up early the next morning, as Drew had told Maurice to come to the house at one and we had a two and a half hour drive ahead of us and we still had to go to Wal-Mart for mulch and other yard stuff.  I was not happy about that.  I wanted to stay and hang out by the lake or at the very least sleep in!  The only reasonable thing about leaving early was that we were both starving and there was no food in the house.

We found a breakfast spot in the next town and devoured our omelettes.  It was Mother's Day and we both talked about being sure to call our moms.  In that moment, I wasn't that upset and naively thought that Mother's Day wouldn't be that big a deal for me.  As we were leaving, I got a text from Heather saying she was thinking of me and praying that we get through the day.  I texted her back, sending her hugs too but in the back of my mind thinking, 'I'm kind of okay actually.'  Famous last words, right?

Driving home was hard because we were tired and now we had full bellies.  I couldn't sleep because Drew was driving and cranked the music to 1000 to stay awake.  When we arrived home, I was super way extra cranky and all I wanted was to sleep.  But we couldn't - we took the bags out of the car and hopped right back in to go to Wal-Mart.  For yard stuff.  And prenatal vitamins.  For the homeless pregnant chick.

Perfect.