Cause it is worth repeating:
I feel calm

Fast forward two months:

One late night I sat up thinking all was lost; or was it? Oddly it doesn’t feel lost. I should be in a panic and that feeling does come and go, but over all no one sees the sky falling yet. Personally I have to believe that these delays are happening for a reason. Follow the path! So as I said, it is late and I just know there is a reason so I begin to google R&D in our area. I went over a few pages and I stumble upon this kid with whacked red hair standing beside a robotic arm he had created. I thought to myself that my husband should be working on stuff like that! Where does this kid work, where do they do this type of thing in this area? I moved on to find the name of the company and through other sources found that the company had a machine shop in this area. I was excited to see that they were a research lab, this is the dream job. My husband was made for that type of thing, he has trained for it his whole career. Another bit of research turned up the supervisor's name and email. I quickly shot off an email telling him, (using my husbands email account) that he needed me and I attached his website. Five hours later I wake up briefly when my husband is readying himself for work, "Honey, if someone calls from some company in ___, it was me", crash back down into the pillow. Six o'clock that Am some guy emails my husband back asking him to call him so he promptly calls. The next day he is interviewing and he is told that he has the job. Since there was no job requisition open, this will take a few weeks to set things up. NO Problem!

Plans work out and we acquire the dream job; two weeks notice has been given, albeit prematurely, yet we are so sure...! Reality hits home or rather hits us in the pocket book. Dream job pays a lot less then we hoped but there is hope for a future pay off. Is the work more important then the money cause the horrible job has potential too? Potential buyer (no good awful company) wants to negotiate with my husband and is upset that he has given his two weeks notice.

Our newest plan is to go forward with the dream job since they are insisting we go with a temp agency. This was offensive at first yet now it appears to give us a nice window; we can peer into this dream job and take the time to negotiate with the other guy. The end to all of this has been pushed out another month or so and we obviously do not get to step off the roller coaster; we are physically drained.

Things seem to be a little up in the air and there are a few days of real tension when we discover that the dream job is paying even less than we were told. I don't know what all this is, I just want it to end. I want the damn merry-go-round and I want off this damn roller coaster. I don't think I can take it any more. Fast forward another three weeks and i am sitting calmly in my front room tapping away at my computer after a day with the in-laws and my parents and a successful week at the dream job under our belt.

Roller Coaster ForEVer

My newest personal blog that no one will ever know about but me and anyone else who might read it.  I think that is an oxymoron, ha, I don't care.

I don't remember wanting this when I was a little girl.  What little girl dreams of reaching 50 and not having it all?   Fifty year olds are supposed to have a home with ...  I didn't know how to finish that sentence.  What is a fifty year old supposed to have?  Maybe I am reading too much into this, maybe I should not expect whatever it is that I think I should have attained.  It seems to me that times have changed so much that most people do not enter into a job and stay there for centuries, collect a pension and retire with grandchildren.  Our parents did just that; married, found jobs, bought a home, had children, retired with grand children all around.  Lesson number one, we are not our parents.  

We are not our parents but we are expected to take care of them.  Despite our own struggles, we are expected to stop our lives and make sure theirs are comfortable.  As i suppose we should.  After all it is only our relationships and experiences that we take with us when we pass on.   When we leave this world and our own children have taken time out to tend to us, when we leave, that is all we take.  It also comes to pass that at this point in our own lives, we realize how little time we have to accomplish all this.  Little time to educate ourselves and establish relationships that will last us now and forever through out eternity, if you choose to believe in such things as I do.  Sometimes I feel like I have traveled in a cosmic circle of some sort.  Personally I started late because I was a little busy having a good time.  O yeah I was a good time girl and I have no regrets.  I was almost thirty by the time I married my soul mate and started a family, which really worked out for me.  Time may not be on our side, yet I am most proud of the fact that I did wait to settle down.  That first part of life starts out so slow, it takes forever to reach those magic numbers, 13, 16, 18,  and 21. I sailed on into my twenties and I loved every moment.  Time did have more momentum but I didn't pay attention because I was having a good time.  After marriage, even more so after children, time seemed to go into hyper drive.  Perhaps there is that distraction that keeps one from noticing as time flies, I don't know.  Time is illusive and yet precious and not always consistent no matter what they tell us in grade school.  Lesson number two:  Time is not on our side.

I find myself living through another, my daughter.  I relish in her accomplishments and dream her dreams.  Perhaps I dwell too much on her new found love and all the things she has yet to experience.  When did this happen?  When did my own sense of living stop and become hers?  It is the greatest accomplishment to see your children to a better future than you had.  I like that idea.  Thankfully, I do not experience jealously mostly because I could never do the things that she does.  She is a very different person than I, very creative and whimsical; I might wish that I had some of that artistic ability but much of me is just thrilled that I was part of her creation.  I made her!  Well, part of her anyway.  The possibilities in front of this kid are endless new and exciting things; things that no one I know has ever done.  Every morning I check to see if I got a text or if there is a new comment on one of the social media pages.  What is she doing and why am I so obsessed with her life and not my own?  I have come to a realization that I’ve been neglecting my own possibilities.  I am not dead yet, I have possibilities.  I have a new home to work on and a wonderful garden to cultivate; I have a new neighborhood to discover and new friends to make.  I am missing out on a lot of living and those moments are gone.  Apparently I have forgotten a golden rule of mine to practice living in the moment.  It is important to realize what is around you specifically while you’re right there.  Tonight the stars were out and the sky was clear and I forgot to go out and look.  Lesson number three, don’t forget how to live your own life.

My dad is suffering from dementia and it is getting worse everyday.  He is scared much of the time and my poor mother is the soul caretaker.  She is the one that has to talk him down when he thinks he sees snakes in his bed.  She follows him around all day making sure he flushes the toilet and washes his hands, she brushes his teeth and makes sure he bathes and has his clothes on straight.  I spend two days a week with him and I am exhausted and I leave there wondering how she keeps her own sanity.  The man I visit on Wednesday and Thursday is not my father, he is only the shell of the man he used to be. My personal belief system is so very different from my parents and for what it is worth, I am always trying to interject my views.  For instance, my father is terrified of dying.  The mere mention of the ‘d’ word sends him into a spin.  Recently I had a thought that perhaps he was terrified because he believed in heaven and hell.  Maybe he thinks he is going to hell because of the things that he did.  The last time I was over I asked him if he believed in heaven and hell and he said he didn’t know.  I still think that there is something to my theory.  Mom and I try to tell him that no one lives forever but it always back fires and he loses it for the rest of that day.  I tell him that he fears dying so much that he forgets to live.  I asked him if he had gone outside today to feel the sun or to look at his garden when I knew he had not done much other than get out of bed to eat and go to bathroom.  He just looks over at me with real fear and starts crying, big crocodile tears.  That night, I immediately went outside to view the stars and the next day I look over every plant in my garden.  My dad has taught me that the little moments are just as important as the big events, maybe more so.  It is all the little things that lead us to the big stuff anyway.  Yes, we are not our parents and they are not us.  Time is not on our side but it is vitally important that we pay attention and rejoice in what we do notice because that can dictate how we live our lives.  

I had been told by a women much wiser than myself, that I always try to bend the river.  It wasn’t until just recently that I figured out that she wasn’t complimenting me and that I had a problem.  In the past it was my belief that to “creatively manipulate” a situation was a commendable attribute.  Now I know that I was basically full of shit because now I know that there is nothing creative about trying to bend the river.  It is the quiet person that sees the way.  What is important is to watch and pay attention to subtleties, those things that others might miss or consider a problem.  Those things that appear to be devastating, might just direct us down another path.  Since moving to California, we have learned to listen.  I can honestly say that we have gained some sort of knowledge and have learned to listen.  Recently my immediate family has been experiencing much turmoil and we have allowed the majority of these situations to play out with the thought that it must be happening for a reason.  True enough, when one thing completely failed it was so that another could develop.  I don’t claim to have perfected this new way of thinking because as I write this I am experiencing more stress than ever.  I have this irregular heart beat thing going on that is making me feel very uncomfortable and I am a little worried about it.  Everything has come to a head and we are about to find out if our listening will pay off.  Did we pass up on the other job opportunities because I had a feeling that there was more?  The awful horrible no good place that my husband has had to work at is about to implode and we can only hope that this other place will come through for us.  Oh my goodness we are really putting all our hopes into this one idea just because everything lead us down this path.  The next paragraph will be interesting to write.  If I wake up in the morning and our little plan falls into place as we suspect it will, I will finish this story.  Let’s listen...