JOURNAL

Well, life has been a gotdamn nightmare since last updating, to put it lightly.

The new job has been a shitshow. Aside from my gripes with the people I work with and the overall office dynamic, I have effectively been off from work for over a week now due to my continuing trainer being out with Covid and there apparently being no one else who can complete my training at my home office. At this rate, by the time I go back I will need to be retrained almost entirely. Makes zero sense to me. I mean, I'm glad they're taking precautions about Covid. But they only have one person who can train me at my location? That seems odd to me, I don't know.

On the other side of the coin, however, I have an interview to drive city bus. Again. It's not the most glamourous work but they have changed the way they do a lot of things since I drove for them before. When I first drove with them, it was a mandatory split shift that was just brutal to deal with. That's no longer the case. Training has shrunk by a couple of weeks, as well. The biggest change is the starting wage they're now paying. It is seven dollars more an hour than when I previously drove with them and it is a full ten dollars an hour more than I am making at the current gig - which I'm not really feeling like I'm even at, at this point. So hopefully the interview goes well and I get the job - I probably will, the deputy director of driving has to review applicants that were previous drivers and if he signs off on proceeding with an interview, that's nearly a sure thing.

My youngest kid, the one who moved out under the most depressing and unfortunate circumstances, wound up in the psych ward on a 72 hour safety watch. Their roommate was alerted to something going on when my kids cat was freaking out at my kid as my kid was cutting and progressively getting more random, haphazard, and deep. Thank fuck their roommate was there, otherwise I don't think my kid would still be alive, in all honestly. They have had a history of cutting and mental health struggles. We got them set up with meds and therapy while they were still living with me and it seemed like it was genuinely helping. Once they moved out, however, they stoppped going to therapy almost completely. They stopped taking their meds almost completely. And they started drinking and using drugs. But mostly drinking. And not beer or even occasionally, it was hard liquor and almost nightly - to the tune of 15-20 shots within a couple hours. Almost every night. Suffice to say, it was a perfect storm for this to have happened. They've been out for a couple days now. The roommates went through and removed anything that could be used for cutting. They all agreed to not purchase alcohol for my kid anymore, as they can't purchase it themselves due to being under age, and to forego drinking and using drugs at all. I hope everyone holds to it and/or that my kid is able to manage if the others don't return to the partying. They seem to have had some realizations while in care, and sound as though they are going to move forward with therapy and meds in earnest. It was so incredibly hard to see just how badly they had harmed themselves. As a parent, all you want for your kids is health and happiness - anything else positive and good is a bonus. To see them harm themselves to such a degree is so sad and hard to see.

In less serious but still miserable news, we had the worst winter storm of the season over this past weekend as well. Every type of precipitation possible within the span of about eight hours. So rain all the way to snow with the hail and freezing rain and sleet in between. Crazy amounts of snowfall on top of frozen sidewalks and roads with winds gusting upwards of 60mph made visibility and travel nearly impossible and certainly very dangerous. And total snowfall amounts in that small eight hour window of time were upwards of twelve inches. It got super nice the following day so a lot of it had already started melting, but travel was still very dangerous and after the plows had come through our alley and street, we were looking at shoveling upwards of two feet of heavy, wet snow mixed with ice and such. Abslute nightmare. My back is still sore and acting up and it's been about 48 hours already. Thankfully it's been melting a lot since and it seems as though spring is officially upon us.