What can I say?

I haven't been very vigilante in tending to this blog in quite a while. Several reasons for that. And I've debated many a night over whether or not to share what some of the problems have been. But, I think if I don't share, then I won't be able to make any movement forward. This is important because so much has happened to us as a family recently that hopefully will be positive changes.

Two weeks ago, Robbie received an offer from a local college that is expanding rapidly and so he will consequently be leaving retail. Today in fact was his last day. It's been a good job. He's learned a lot from it. But it's not what he's passionate about. College students. Guiding them in their academic lives is what is important. Helping them succeed in their student careers and to reach their full potential .

At the same time he was receiving the phone offer, I received a Facebook message from a woman I had known years ago from the bank I used to work for. My old supervisor was trying to track me down about a possible job for me. So over that weekend I went online and looked at the available job postings, found one that was similar to what I did before we left for Chicago and posted my application for it. On Monday I received an email confirming receipt of my application. On Tuesday I received a phone call for an interview the next day - which is my regular Wednesday day off. That same evening I received a phone call offering me the position. Just this past Monday I received an email confirming the offer and my start day of two weeks from then. It wasn't an easy thing to give notice at a job that I like (for the most part), but the opportunity to have our evenings and weekends back together as a whole family was the deciding factor.

Here's the kicker to all this. My last student loan payment was last month. We just traded in the Trailblazer for a newer Impala with a lot fewer miles and a significantly lower payment. And it gets about 50% better gas mileage. It's been a struggle sometimes financial this past year with both of us in commission retail jobs, but we knew - or at least I did - that we would make it through somehow.

But back to the reasons for the absence from the blog. First was the fact that I hit a depression back in February that I couldn't shake. I ended up on drug therapy to help get me through it. It helped immensely. I was very groggy in the evenings and couldn't keep a thought for more than 5 seconds at a time, but it was worth it if it meant not dragging my family through the hell I went through as a teenager. But the blog suffered as the side effects kicked in.

And that brings me to this: the depression isn't what I've hesitated to talk about, but rather the cause of it. It sounds like a cliche' to blame my mother for it, but in essence she was the cause. Or rather my expectations of what a mother should be versus the reality of who she actually is. February was the first time since last May at Riley's first birthday party that I had heard from her. Not for lack of trying on my part. We sent picture books, birthday cards and other things to her to let her know what was going on in our lives and to see how much Riley was growing. Many phone calls that went unanswered only to find out that she had moved at some point but didn't let anyone know. After six months of not receiving any acknowledgments from her, we gave up.

In February, I finally received a phone call from her. She had just been released from the hospital that morning. I won't go into the details of what she was there for, they aren't important, here's what is. During the conversation I counted at least three to four lies. And no acknowledgment that I hadn't heard from her in over ten months. With every passing second I felt myself getting more and more angry. I finally ended the phone call by letting her know that she was interrupting our dinner. (Sidebar: we eat as a family at the table almost every night that we're home together. That's how important the new jobs are to us.)

Since then I've learned from my aunt that mother has been back in the hospital twice. And the hospital she's been at is only about five minutes from where we live. The first time, in April, my aunt called me while I was at lunch to ask how mother was doing. When I told her I didn't know, she told me what was going on. Back at work, I was debating if I should go see her or not when a woman I work with looked at me and said "Jim, I've never met your mother and I don't like her. If she wanted you there, she would have let you known that she was there. You deserve better than that." And just like that, my guilt was gone. She was absolutely right. If mother wanted me to be there in her life, then she would have included me in things. I know money is tight with her, but a postage stamp doesn't cost much.

The second reason for my absence was the demise of a friend of mine's blog. Haven Kimmel had created an online community purely by chance that was unlike anything else I had ever experienced. It started out as a small little thing where she could break away from time to time as a serious writer and be a little less so. It evolved into an online discussion of favorite books, authors, musicians and artists. And from there it became an inspiration for not just a few of us participants. If it weren't for that spark I caught from her site, this blog wouldn't exist - for better or worse. And I most certainly wouldn't have the small group of people that I've met through there that I consider friends.

But from there it started becoming something else entirely. Some people came into the community with agendas of their own. Some to grab as much attention to themselves as possible by using a popular writers forum as a captive audience. Others to criticize the people who had been longtime participants as not being inclusive to new people. And as one private commenter to Haven said, it was becoming very gynocentric with the constant barrage from some women about their medical woes. It finally got to the point that Haven couldn't control the content any longer even with the help of spam filters and filters to catch outright pornographic postings by some people. So on May 24, 2009 at 5:07 pm, Haven pulled the plug. I hated to see it go, but she really didn't need the aggravation.

Just yesterday I saw a comic strip on line that summed up the whole experience in a four panel joke that I fear is much closer to the truth than actually being funny. In the strip the artist is speaking with one of his characters. The strip is "Pearls before Swine" and here is the link for that particular strip. http://news.yahoo.com/comics/090812/cx_pearls_umedia/20091208;_ylt=AkA8h5R2NQQwFEMclI4rApsD_b4F

If that didn't work, here is what the strip said:
Writer: "What are you doing, Rat?"
Rat: "I am ripping you on your 'Stephen Pastis' Facebook page. Then I am ripping you on your blog. Then I am ripping you on my favoritist Web Site ever, The Comics Curmudgeon."
Writer: "WHY!
Rat: "Because it is fun. And because the Internet was specifically invented so that living beings everywhere could be anonymously rude to one another."
Writer: silent in the next panel
Last panel is of the writer sitting in a box with another character Pig. Pig created the box labeled "Internet Happy Box," a place where Pig can go to escape the negativity of the web.

So the last few months have been me in my own Internet Happy Box. I guess the thing to remember is that the Internet does create a safe, anonymous place for people to trash others, for whatever reason. And really, do I need to care what those people think?

I've missed my online community. I hope you're all doing well. Just remember that while I do read all comments posted to this blog, I don't have to post them. If you feel like you need to criticize, do so in a constructive manner please.