Major and Minor Frustrations

Should I start with the Majors or the Minors?

The Majors

º Two significantly difficult work-related situations that I have to deal with. "Working" in adoptions is very personal and the emotional level is always very high. When you are dealing with people there are always stress-related situations, but adoption and the emotions areound it seem to kick it up a notch.

º Mike has already nearly blown his free rent agreement. Last night the landlord was at our house until 10:45 trying to understand why he had done some of the things he had done. The agreement was that he would have nobody there. Bart had advised him to not to even let people know where he was. But last ngiht he had people over. (And I know for a fact that not only did he tell people where he was, but posted his address on several folks' my spaces saying "stop by"). We tried to explain to her how many of the things he told her last night were not really intentional lies and how maybe the fact that he has not met her yet to work for her in exchange for rent might be because he gets confused about time, not because he is trying to get out of it).

(I want to point out that I am sharing these details not to criticize Mike or even to communicate my own frustration, but to give a clear picture of what it is like living with a young adult with FASD. This is a classic example. He signs a rental agreement saying he can have NO VISITORS (becuase of the fact that he was living rent free) and within 48 hours is writing "Hey, I have a new place ... the addresss is ______ ... stop by sometime) all over everyones' My Space Pages). It's that kind of fog he's living in.

º It finally clicked for me last night as to why Mike might not want the job I found for him. I had gotten him a same job with that employer, but he never went to work because he failed the drug test.. I'm wondering now if possibly he knows he would fail it again and for that reason doesn't want the job. That concerns me.

The Minors

º The guys who are responsible for getting the trash out, which is quite important in our world, stayed out late last night at a baseball game. They drove through our neighborhood and saw trash cans in EVERY yard. But do you think that joggled their memory? Of course not. SO now we will have overflowing trash for a week.

º Salinda decided to spend the night where she was hanging out last night at 11;50. So, I had trouble falling asleep knowing she was supposed to be home at 12:50. Would it have hurt her to decide a LITTLE earlier?

º I appreciate it when people help me with the laundry. But remembering to turn on the washer after you load it would help alleviate my frustration when I come to switch it to the dryer and find it all still in the washer, smelly, damp and unwashed.


So there you have it, the beginning of another day in my world.

To end on a positive note, Bart took me to a great restaurant for a wonderful meal last night and then we went to see Evening which most of the critics did not give rave reviews about. However, there were some very interesting parts in the movie. It's about a woman on her death bed and when her friend comes to visit her at the end she asks her, "Have you been happy?" She responsds, "At times, I have been very happy. And at other times, I have been very unhappy."

The tone of the movie is that in looking back it is OK. You make mistakes, but in the long run, they are OK. You live the life you are supposed to live. Your mistakes don't seem as tragic anymore and you realize that you have been both very happy and very unhappy.

And for some reason, this was calming to me.... to know that in the end, we'll all look back and realize that our lives were full of the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, the peaceful and the turbulent, the joyful and the sorrowful.... and it will be OK.