Just Reflecting -- Life's Getting Better

Now that FIL has been dead for over 7 years (wow!) and MIL for over a year and a half, life is getting closer and closer to what I would have always considered normal. To have to wait until Hubbie was in his 50s and me in my late 40s.

I don't feel like Evil JB is part of every decision we make, even if peripherally.

1. We have a special day coming. Don't have to worry that we have to make plans before JB hijacks the day.
2. Same as above with holiday weekends.
   
3. We take a trip. Don't have to worry about JB having an emergency and having to cancel or leave early or go there as soon as we get home. I worried about if she knew about the trip or not. She had emergencies when she knew we had trips. Not when she didn't. Hubbie never saw it.
   
4. We make a special big ticket purchase. Don't have to worry about JB having an emergency need of the same thing for herself -- at our expense. Again, wanted to make sure JB never knew about it.
   
5. The telephone rings. Don't have to fear that it's JB on the other end disrupting our lives. Almost a daily occurrence.
6. Bad weather -- hurricanes, floods, and such. Hubbie now focuses on our situation and not on what hers might be. Don't have to worry about him going to rescue them afterwards or help them "hunker down" beforehand.
   

Even as bad as it all was, reading this short list makes it seem so much like a really bad nightmare. I was ALWAYS looking over my shoulder for her interference and jealousy. Now I can look ahead and forward to living.

Bad Weather - Whew

So the whole East Coast from Florida to Canada is being drenched. DH is on a trip to the midwest right now.

The city where MIL lived has been under tornado and flood warnings. To my knowledge, nothing has actually happened where she lived.

One good thing that MIL did for me -- make me appreciate my own situation. While it is stressful to have to practically swim wherever I'm going (OK, I'm exaggerating). It's NICE to ONLY have to deal with how this affects me personally, to NO LONGER be expected to put all that aside to rescue MIL from whatever is going on.

If we happened to have a tree down on our house and water pouring in (which we don't) and if MIL had something to deal with also, MIL would have guilted DH into taking care of her instead, no matter how major or minor her situation was. Even if there was no situation other than the nasty weather, she'd find a way to manipulate him there. She'd even find a way to get him to leave his business trip, which is important. She might would even be working on that way to get him to bring her back to our house, for good. She never openly expressed that and DH being dense denied that she wanted that, but I could see what she was getting at through her actions.

So, when having to deal with extra traffic because of the combination of accidents and slowdowns, water in the basement, etc. I know that I have TIME to deal with those things. It's actually refreshing to be able to live my own life as it comes and NOT be EXPECTED to put whatever I am dealing with aside because MIL's situation is AUTOMATICALLY more important than our situation. The good thing that MIL gave me is that I am able to relax more and realize that no matter how bad things get, they will be OK. They are OUR things and they are not all that major.


All you wet gray clouds up there, you do have a silver lining this time.

New post on other blog!

See link on left side.

GMIL Passed Away Last Weekend

This brought up a lot of stuff.

Firstly, the mother of Evil JB's husband, Evil EJ died at the age 0f 98 last Saturday night. She was one of the few people in the family that I liked. But because of Evil JB, I lost ten years of her.

GMIL, I'll Call her AB, was a generous person with a funny sense of humor. She was a bit salty and would tell people what she thought.

I wanted several times since cutting off Evil JB to go and see her. Unfortunately, hubbie made going to see Evil EJ a condition of visiting their home town. Thinking back, I probably should have taken initiative to go by myself and visit her then drive over to my parent's house from her.

When she first died, I was still paying the price of the cut off. Hubbie at first acted like he did not want me to go with him to the funeral and visitation. Which was difficult since he had accused me of only going down there for funerals. Yes, that is what the last three visits have been, Evil EJ's funeral, then Evil JB's funeral and now Nice AB's funeral. I would not have gone to Evil EJ's funeral if I could have gotten out of it.

I had expected GMIL to pass away before evil JB and I dreaded it because I thought that I would be pushed into attending the funeral and that I would have to be around Evil JB. Instead, it happened after Evil JB's death, and I was not dreading going, but at first DH pushed me away The first day, Sunday, he said that I did not need to attend the visitation Monday night and that I could attend the funeral Tuesday if I wanted to. He mentioned me having to get someone to cover for me at work. I told him that work would not be a problem.

I did want to go. But I did not want to try to stay at anyone's house. I sort of feared that he would want to open up Evil JB's nasty house and stay there.

The other thing that I feared is my overzealous and over-protocol conscious Mom being there telling me what to do and telling me what I was doing wrong. When Evil JB was living, I had planned to not tell Mom when GMIL died. For some reason, it did not occur to me (until later) that this was still a possibility.

The way that he was acting, I was unsure whether or not to go. I wanted to go. But I wanted to do what HE wanted. And I could not tell what he was really feeling and what he was hiding behind his he-man shell. Talked to a friend and she pointed out that I could not undo NOT going and that I should go. So I decided that was what I would do.

Fast forward to Monday. Hubbie, before leaving to go to work then to home town told me that I could go that night if I wanted to and when and where it would be. (I could not actually go with him because he had rented a car for a business trip which he was leaving for directly from funeral. That was part of what complicated this.)

So that was my final decision to go although I had decided after talking to friend that I would go. I decided that I was going to stay in a hotel. I send emails to cover my usual Tuesday on-call shift. Went downstairs to talk to other friend. She thirded my decision to go to both funeral and visitation. I was thinking that I needed to leave at noon so I could buy new dresses to wear. Until my friend pointed out that I did not have to tell my Mother. So I didn't. Solved the dress problem too. Had a dress that was OK based on the redneck aspect of the family, but would not be OK based on the nose in the air of my Mother. And I could use the same dress for both.

Oh yes, I wasn't going to tell her before Evil JB died, why should have to tell uptight Mother now?

So I could leave at 2:00, pack and go. Next thing: Hotel. Found the hotel online that I wanted to stay at. Started to make reservation. But there was no cancellation allowed. There were rooms available of all types so I said, OK, they will have rooms available at walk-in.

Fast forward again, to lunch time. Hubbie is getting nicer and more relaxed. He is starting to realize that I only wanted to be supportive of him. He was getting ready to leave. I told him that I was going to leave in a couple hours. He asked if I was going to stay with him. I told him that I was getting a hotel room and I would stay with him if he stayed with me. He asked what hotel. I told him. He said what about other hotel where he has frequent traveller program. I was shocked. But said that was fine if he set it up. He said OK. There was such a weight off. When he got there he called and said he had a room and for me to call when I got to the area.

So I get there and he meets me at the hotel. So far so good.

VISITATION
For the visitation, He wants to go casual instead of dressed up for wake. It's his Grandmother, so that's fine. We went casual. There were people there dressed from one extreme to the other. Just glad my Mom wasn't there to not see me in a dress!!! Good decision to not invite my Mom.

Hubbie wanted to eat afterwards. I had already eaten but told him I could go anywhere he wanted and I could get some dessert. He was suspicious until I followed through.

His family was OK to me and I managed to not to say much about his family, but only to talk about his Grandmother who I liked.


THE SERVICE
So the funeral, it went OK too.
There were a lot of good memories of GMIL, and a lot of tears. GMIL had a cute sense of humor and some of her funny remarks were repeated, and I could hear her saying just those things. She was also very generous that was mentioned as well. This contrasts with MIL's funeral which the service was generic, with very few memories presented, and no tears.

BEING BACK IN Hubbie's HOME TOWN
I used to go to Hubbie's hometown a lot as when growing up it was near where my own Dear Maternal Grandma lived, and had previous good memories of it. But after the problems with Evil JB started, I got a feeling of dread when visiting there. This is my first trip there since Eveil JB's funeral. Her funeral was tense for me because I wasn't sure how it would be.

This trip -- the one to GMIL's funeral was the first time I have been to that town in over 20 years that I entered that city without a feeling of dread, that I was relaxed instead. This includes a trip where I was driving THROUGH her city to another city with a friend of mine. When I was close to driving by her house, that time I got butterflies in my stomach. And I KNEW that time I that wasn't going to see evil JB. No more!!! Now I can freely go back to the city without a feeling of dread.

I'M GONNA GET IT
As I said own Mom is very formal and a what you should do type person. As I said earlier, I have not told my Mom that GMIL passed. I did not need the stress of her to add to what I thought I would have (but ended up not having after Monday) The advice from friend is to just mention whenever Mom mentions GMIL again to say that she died a long time ago. My Mom will be angry that I didn't tell her so she could go to the funeral and make the proper appearance. I'll deal with that when I have to deal with it. Hubbie never mentioned my Mom through this so he probably has not thought about whether or not she was informed. I later mentioned to Hubbie that I was going to be in trouble for not telling Mom. He asked why and I told him that she would think that she should have been told, that she would have attended had she known, and that she will be angry for not having been told. He said "well, don't tell her then." I mentioned that given GMIL's age, Mom would figure it out sooner or later. But since in-laws are a forbidden topic with Mom, it could be quite a while. At which point, I can say that she passed a long time ago.

CONCLUSION
I think the whole two days did something to bring some of the lost trust back between us. Maybe even a new start for us. Once there, and he saw that I was going to just be myself, he seemed happy that I was there.

A Yard Sale Realization

I used to use church and other yard sales as a way to get rid of junk that came into this house by way of Evil MIL JB. Why did I want to get rid of the stuff? First, most of it was junk. Second, did not want her negative energy in my home. Third, related to the second, didn't want to think of her when seeing the junk.

I remember one church yard sale where I filled up a SUV with stuff to leave there.

This weekend was the second yard sale since she died. It was the first one that there had been no Evil MIL JB around to re-junk me after I had dejunked.

It hit me when I started gathering stuff to take: I only had ONE BOX of stuff to take. Yes, this time there were not items in that box that came from Evil MIL JB!!!!

Does that count as another Ahhhhh moment?

Just Realized that Mother's Day is Coming Panic-Free

This is the second Mothers day without having to worry about evil JB. I can go visit my Mom in peace and not worry how badly evil JB is draining from my sweet hubbie.

The ahhh about it is that it's taking me longer and longer to realize that I was not worrying. The worrying part is so far in the background. I was looking at the MIL's board and saw people panicing about Mother's Day, how their MIL's were making demands of their DIL's. And I remembered, Oh, yes, I used to panic about Mother's day. It wasn't even thinking until now how nice it was not to panic, that the panic has moved that far off my radar.

I see that I posted on Mothers day last year. I'll be going back to read what I said last year.

Double ahhh!

First Mood From Hubbie

I was worried about all of the first this and first that's after JB died. He was really pretty even in his moods over the year, even Christmas and the various anniversaries of deaths and birthdays.

OK, so right after Easter, he's in a really crabby mood. When Hubbie went to visit Evil JB and her Evil hubbie EJ, he always came home in a rotten mood, kind of a mean mood. I called it the "in-law hangover."

Sunday and Monday he was in that particular mood. I remember being at work thinking how I used to always be able to blame it on his Mother when he was in that mood, but now I couldn't. Later in the day, I remembered that it was right after a holiday. Not only that, but my Dad had been in town Friday night. I decided that perhaps because of the holiday, he had his parents on his mind and got into that mood he gets into with me after he'd had involvement with them.

I posted about this on the message board and got some interesting feedback:
From one:
"Men like your husband don't truly have mothers, instead they have a self surviving burden in the place of a mother."

And another response which really sums it up in a way that I never considered:
"Not only is he NOT coping with the emotional mess of a lifetime of dysfunction, but he's also lost his 'hero' badge. Every holiday of his life, from the sound of it, was spent 'rescuing' people, and now he doesn't even have the good feelings from bailing someone out on the holiday."

One Year

As today comes to a close, it's been uneventful. One year ago today, the witch bit the dust. Now that the first year is over, it seems time to get on with life. Not to worry about the first this or the first that any more.

Peace to all of us.

Drats

But, I guess it will be OK.

Next Monday is the 1 year anniversary of evil JB's death. When I got the call that she had died, I was sitting in line to get stuck to give blood after registering.

I was going to celebrate by doing something positive, giving blood that day. And then I was going to have champagne later that night.

But, I am sick. Possibly pneumonia. I am on antibiotics. That means that I cannot give blood on Monday and given some of the drugs I am taking, I should stay away from the alcohol as well.

Well, good intentions......

The Calm After the (snow)storm

I blogged yesterday about how it was nice that hubbie was not calling evil JB every couple hours to see how she is making out in the winter storm.

This is the first snow storm since she died.

Something else that I noticed today.

It used to be that as soon as it started snowing, hubbie was trying to shovel out. I thought it some kind of cabin fever. Digging out was never any big deal to me. I am perfectly satisfied to stay put until the roads are safe.

This time, it was almost 36 hours in before he did anything until almost 48 hours into the event. And he just did a little knocking snow around. He was not trying to dig out of the neighborhood.

Makes me think.... In the past was he trying to make sure he could get out to get to his Mama in the past?

Whatever it is, hubbie is definitely more relaxed now than he has been in any past snow storm.

Winter Weather Event is Peaceful

Today is another ahhhhhhhhhh day. We have a snowstorm here. Not horrible, but the roads are impassible. We have the things we need to get by for a couple days, even if the power goes by.

Where evil JB lived, on the other hand, they are having an ice storm and power outages. If it had been a year ago, hubbie would be on the phone with her, making sure she had what she needed, and making sure her power was on.

If her power was to have gone off, he would have likely been trying to figure out how to get our generator to her house. THat is, our generator that he has said is too big to take back up the hill that it had to go down to put in our basement. And getting it up that hill that happens to be ice covered, to get it to his truck. Then to drive to her house on roads that only a few are on and the governor has told us to keep off of, to get it to her.

He used to talk about wanting a second generator to back up the one we have. I know that he was really wanting a second, smaller generator that he could "loan" to his parents when they "needed" it and would have been left there and either ruined or sold (or both). I objected to him buying the second one and he never did. No event ever came up that caused him to want to bring them one during that time he was thinking about it.

Now that the evil ones, JB and EJ are gone, I no longer have to worry about him going to them when the weather is bad, risking his life to get there. Also leaving me here to fend for myself, but unlike JB, I can fend for myself.

So instead of a tense day of him checking on his Mom every hour and her whining about how much worse of she is than she really is, we are having a relaxing, almost boring day, snuggled in our house, looking out the window and wondering when we will get out of here again.

Ahhhhhhhhhh................

Another Anniversary

OK, so a week ago was the anniversary of the death of Kay Yow. I attended her public memorial service at NCSU and there was not a dry eye in the place. I only met her a couple times, but I really was upset when she died. I remember when she died, thinking how unfair it was. How unfair it was that a great lady like Coach Yow was gone. How unfair it was that my friend who had died a month before had gone. And MIL, who was a complete waste of space lived on. I cried intently at both of these funerals. So did everyone else around. Not a dry eye at either service. Little did I know that in a few short weeks, evil JB would also be gone. More on what that was like when the anniversary gets here.