|
This place is has helped me keep my sanity and spirits up for decades now, but especially for the past few weeks. My fiancée and I got a call that a dear friend of ours had died. The lady was like a second mother to my fiancée and was supposed to have sat in the mother of the bride's seat at our eventual wedding. After I got back home from work that same day, we got another call letting us know that my uncle had passed. Two in one day, not the best start to the week, but the memorial services came and went without much ado and it seemed like things were about to get back on track for us to move to New Mexico after the 4th of July. Clearly, this didn't happen. Instead, I was getting dressed for work and my fiancée's daughter called in tears and just generally freaking out because her dad had just died from stupidly trying to smoke while on oxygen. We'd spent months preparing for a fight with the man, but now he was just gone. My fiancée was inconsolable because that's the father of her children and, even though they hadn't gotten along in years, part of her wanted all of us to get along for the kids. While she's breaking down and packing clothes, I'm calling out of work, making sure our pets are covered for the week because we're having to go off the assumption that we're driving to New Mexico, staying until the weekend, and then I was driving back to finish out my two weeks at work and bring our pets and some essentials. We got all of that arranged and we were on our way in a couple of hours. Smooth sailing all the way through Tennessee, only to have a blowout halfway between Memphis and Little Rock in the wee hours of the morning. After we got that fixed, we parked at a truck stop to try and get a little nap because I'm the only driver. The daily call from my fiancée's former mother in law woke me up just as I was finally starting to relax enough to sleep, so a full day of traveling began. The goal I had set was Amarillo, or close to it. In retrospect, that was the easiest day we had. Just a pure, straight push westward to get to where we needed to be. Of course, that was also the day that I remembered Oklahoma exists. Nothing against the residents of Oklahoma, I just hate the state in general. Largely a combination of the landscape and weather, but there was no drat way I was going to spend the night there. Luckily, we barely made it to McLean, TX and found a nice little hotel just around the corner. It was at this point that the former mother in law called again, and I was starting to suspect that she just loved calling people at daybreak like some weird rooster that just missed the opportunity to be an AT&T mascot in the 90s. But we had somewhere to be, and we were going to get there today, no matter what. Other than emergency bathroom breaks for upset tummies, the rest of Texas went by quickly. The problems started in Santa Rosa, NM when we stopped for fuel. The air conditioner had been amazing for the whole trip but it suddenly stopped working and the day was already gearing up to be a scorcher. You don't really know how much you love someone until you're both sweating balls in tight quarters with no air and you keep alternating between biting the other's head off and apologizing for it and still wanting to be around each other. Of course, it couldn't just be the air conditioner, so the speedometer shat itself when we got back on the interstate. We were using maps to navigate, so I ended up using that as a substitute. That didn't last long because my phone overheated and had to resort to keeping pace with other vehicles. We made it, though. A little worse for wear, but we were here. The kids had only seen me once or twice when their mom was video chatting with them, so the first meeting was a bit rocky, but it went about as well as you could ask for, given the circumstances. The next morning, the car wouldn't start and we had a laundry list of things that needed to be done. So not only did the kids have a strange man along with their mother, but their dad had just died and now I was going to be driving their dad's car, too. We narrowed down the issue with my car to the starter going bad, but in our haste to get out here, I'd forgotten to pack my socket set. It just so happened that the old mother in law's caregiver is one of those jack of all trades, gentleman scholar types, and without his help, the old starter would still be on. We've been here nearly two weeks, the kids have warmed up to me and are really happy to have their mom back, and are excited that she's with someone who loves her and makes her happy. Of course, our pets and a few things we would have liked to keep are halfway across the country and we have no idea how we're going to get them or even make arrangements for their care for an extended period. We have too much to take care of here and no real way to get them. New Mexico is taking Covid-19 more seriously than any place we went through, so even if I could teleport and drive back with a dog and cats in tow, we'd still have a 14 day quarantine to figure out. Nevermind that the neighbors that I would have counted amongst my best friends a month ago are starting drama and saying that we just abandoned everything in spite of them literally seeing my mom come by every day to take care of the pets. So we don't know what the gently caress. That's neither here nor there. Reading these dumb forums has really just helped me keep my head up and moving forward. Thanks, Goons
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2020 09:31
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 17:36 |
|