The Most Monumentally Fucked-Up-Beyond-Any-Semblance-of-Recognition Week

It started Sunday with my teenager acting like a teenager. That is probably all I need to say about that other than my entire day was ruined and I questioned why anyone signs up for this parenting gig anyway.

Then there was That Episode of Breaking Bad. If you've seen it, you know exactly what I'm talking about and how difficult it was to function at all either mentally or emotionally on Monday. Knowing that other people were just as shell-shocked as I was got me through the day without overdosing on my anti-depressants.

Next came Tuesday. The day I will forever relate to the Red Wedding episode from this last season of Game of Thrones. Only the blood was shed in the office and it wasn't literal blood but might as well have been. That is what this lay-off felt like. The people that I most admire, respect, and trust all gone in one foul swoop. Until the next day when there was one more. All we've been able to do in the office is huddle together in small groups wiping tears and asking why, why, why? I was able to hold it together in the office until last night when I came home and sobbed for half an hour.

Words like "financial" and "strategy" and "consolidation" were thrown around. Meaningless words to a group of people who have been together for 15, 20, 25 years. At 7 years I am the kid sister of the group. This is a deep loss and it will take time to recover. What comes out of this at the end will forever be changed. Yes, this is a job, but when you work as hard and for as many hours and you come to know the person next to you on a more-than-personal level because you attend their weddings and their funerals and their birthdays and bridal showers and watch their kids grow up, these people become family.

I've spent the last three days processing my feelings. Anger, sadness, insecurity, wariness, a deep loss of trust. It hurts. We're all hurt and feeling bruised and exhausted and drained. And, because I have some bizarre, misplaced sense of needing to be a caretaker, I've made the step to organize a goodbye party so that we can have some form of closure. It's not my job. I haven't been there the longest, I don't know all of the stories and the history. And yet it's the one thing I can do because of the deep gratitude I feel towards these people. I can't change any of it, but I can do this. I can offer a time to say we love you, we honor you, we will miss you.

So, that's enough. Right? Surely that should be enough. If only.

In a moment of weakness I agreed to go to the United Way breakfast this morning. My condition was that it couldn't make me cry. I was promised it wouldn't. I was lied to. The United Way is very good at pulling on your heart strings in order to pull the wallet out of your pocket and they did it again. Because I didn't cry enough last night, I guess.

It's Thursday, we're near the weekend, I might be able to breathe again. I would be very wrong.

Because what did I see when I pulled into the garage at the end of the day? A fucking near-tarantula-sized spider on the wall next to the door into my house. I couldn't even walk into the house. It just sat there, daring me to go past it. If you've spent any amount of time here, you know how I feel about things with eight legs. Thank everything in the heavens above that the Raid was in the garage. Only when I sprayed it, it fell behind a box and now I don't know if it's dead or if it's going to seek revenge on me in the middle of the night in some pesticide-induced craze.

All of this can't be attributed to the full moon, can it? Whatever is going on, the Universe needs to get its shit together. That spider was the last damn straw.

I Didn't Need to Know That

D is dating a boy. Officially. Which in teenager-speak means she can call him her boyfriend but they haven't kissed yet. (And I thought I rushed my last relationship!) He's a ginger and I was briefly possessed by my mother when I said, "Don't have his babies."

Last night she told me that she talked to him about her boundaries. I thought, "Oh, how mature. What a way to communicate." I'm thinking of things like how she wants time with her friends, that she wants him to respect her goals, things like that. He also shared his with her. So when I asked what her boundaries are, she snapped back, "None of your business!" Oh. Gulp.

See, I don't need to know that my little baby girl is having this kind of conversation. With a boy. I do not need those images in my head. Ever.

I swear she just wants to kill me. Only she's making it slow and excruciatingly painful.

Why Teenagers Are Evil and Must Be Destroyed

Me: Did you take my Hydro Flask? The one I put my coffee in EVERY day?
D: ......Maybe.......
Me: YOU are in SO much trouble!!!! I tore the house apart looking for that!
D: Seriously?
Me: Yes, seriously. Do NOT mess with my coffee.
D: I'm seriously in trouble?
Me: Yes. That doesn't belong to you.
D: I didn't have any more water bottles.
Me: Then go without water.
D: Mom, I can't go without water. It won't happen again.

Later that day.....
D: Did you get your precious bottle?
Me: Yes. No thanks to you.
D: You ruined it anyway. Every sip of water tasted like coffee.
Me: HA HA HA!! That's what you get!!!!!!
D: Wow, Mom. Just wow.