The Original Firewater's blog: "Life"

It's been a pretty rough night tonight. My son has a friend in town that has been stationed in Germany, but is deploying to Iraq in a few days. It seems to have pushed him over the edge. He came home drunk tonight and tore the house apart. He tore shelves off of the wall, put holes in the wall, broke the porcelain on the toilet, threatend to kill me, etc... Yes, my son suffers from post tramatic stress syndrome. He is not the same small town boy that went to Iraq a couple of years ago. I almost had to call the police tonight to help me get him under control. Fortunately, my neighbor is also an Iraq war veteran from the Gulf war and I went and woke him up. He came over and talked my son down until his best friend could arrive from the next town over. His best friend is here now and is removing all of the weapons from the house. I even have to lock my gun up now. From what I am to understand, he is potentially suicidal. I am sure that part of it is due to the alcohol, but even sober he has issues that he needs to deal with. I think that I need to check him into the veterans hospital for a psych elvaluation. I'm pretty scared at the moment. He needs help. More help than what he can get here. As a family member of a veteran, I have to say that it is hard to watch your loved one go through this. As a mother, it is even harder.

TWO FRIENDS WERE WALKING THROUGH THE DESERT. DURING SOME POINT OF THE JOURNEY, THEY HAD AN ARGUMENT; AND ONE FRIEND SLAPPED THE OTHER ONE IN THE FACE. THE ONE WHO GOT SLAPPED WAS HURT, BUT WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING, WROTE IN THE SAND: TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE. THEY KEPT ON WALKING, UNTIL THEY FOUND AN OASIS, WHERE THEY DECIDED TO TAKE A BATH THE ONE WHO HAD BEEN SLAPPED GOT STUCK IN THE MIRE AND STARTED DROWNING, BUT THE FRIEND SAVED HIM. AFTER HE RECOVERED FROM THE NEAR DROWNING, HE W ROTE ON A STONE: "TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE ". THE FRIEND WHO HAD SLAPPED AND SAVED HIS BEST FRIEND ASKED HIM, "AFTER I HURT YOU, YOU WROTE IN THE SAND AND NOW, YOU WRITE ON A STONE, WHY?" THE FRIEND REPLIED "WHEN SOMEONE HURTS US WE SHOULD WRITE IT DOWN IN SAND, WHERE WINDS OF FORGIVENESS CAN ERASE IT AWAY. BUT, WHEN SOMEONE DOES SOMETHING GOOD FOR US, WE MUST ENGRAVE IT IN STONE WHERE NO WIND CAN EVER ERASE IT." LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE.

Now I try to be a glass is half full kind of girl, but this day seems to be testing my patience. Up until about 5 minutes ago, the glass was still half full. It's amazing how a simple incident can really transgress your happy space. Backing things up a bit to the previous day: My best friend has just returned home from a two week visit with her son in Okinawa, Japan. We are two peas in a pod and cannot go very long without seeing one another, so we have had a lot of catching up to do. We went out last night to chat and have a few drinks and eventually ended up at her place where we sat and talked to the early morning hours. At approximately five in the morning, I decided that it was time to go home and get some sleep, because I was pushing the limits of exhaustion. Since my best friend and I are neighbors the walk home was only a few steps to my door. As I drew near to my house, I noticed a large puddle of water in the street that I had seen earlier the night before, had not dried up with the rest of the surrounding street after the brief rainfall and thunder storm that had passed over us the prior evening. In fact, the puddle seemed to be flowing all the way down to the other end of the street and the water had a ripple effect as it moved down the street. I stepped into my driveway only to notice that the water was coming from my property. I did not remember leaving the hose on, or even using it the night before, but I speculated perhaps my son had used it and forgot to turn it off. Of course the could not be that simple. When I looked for the source of the water, I saw that it was coming from the ground below. By now a nice size hole had formed in my flower bed and the water was gurggling up from below with a steady stream of water flowing freely across my flower bed, down the driveway and into the street. I had a busted water line and my heart sank. This could potentially cost me thousands of dollars to fix. The thought of having to fork out that kind of money did not sit well on my mind. I contacted the city and they sent someone out immediately. Within a few hours the pipe was fixed and the water was turned back on! The good news, was that it was their responsibility and not mine. I was so relieved. Once the large trucks and water crew left, I finally settled down and was able to go to sleep at around 10:00 am. Unfortunately, I slept until just after 3:00 pm and it has managed to completely screw up my day and my sleeping pattern. I did not get done the things that I had hoped to accomplish today and now I will probably be up all night, because I slept so late into the day. The final straw: I had called the pharmacy the day before to refill one of my most important medications. It is the medication that I take for my stomach. This medication not only helps to protect my stomach against the million other medications that they have me on, but it also serves to keeps the esophageal reflux at bay. I cannot so much as drink water without this medication, because of the acid reflux and I cannot take my other medication until I have taken this pill. The pharmacy informs me that my insurance requires a pre-authorization each year on this medication to justify the long term use of the medication. My yearly pre-authorization is due and the information was faxed to my doctors office. My doctors office is now closed for the weekend and I am without this medication until Monday at the earliest. This means that I am unable to take the million other medication that I am on that are used to control my Lupus/Rheumatoid Arthritis, which I might add are life threatening diseases. Suddenly, the glass has become half empty and little Ms. Optimistic has lost her sense of humor. Of course, this could not happen during the week when my doctor is in to fax the paperwork to the insurance company. No, it has to happen on a Friday and the pharmacy does not inform me of the situation until after my doctor's office has closed. That's pretty much my day in a nutshell. Please forgive my ranting, but I just felt the need to vent! I hope everyone has a great weekend! :)