So, I probably did not write about this before, but … last week I got an email saying my Employment Authorization card had been ordered. That was last Tuesday. Round about Friday or so, I get another email saying the same thing. Yesterday I get yet another mail that my application was approved and my card ordered. And I am thinking “WTF … these people are crazy!”

Anyway, since yesterday, I have been thinking I should be working on my resume. Despite it unlikely that I will be able to job hunt in earnest before the new year, I should have it ready JUST in case. I gotta tell you … my mother’s continued assertion that I am being watched over is beginning to seem more and more like a divine piece of information than just speculation … because today, there the EA card was – in my mailbox.

Man! I almost jumped and whooped my way into the bedroom to wake hubby, show it to him, get dressed and head out to get the final step done. What step is that? Advise the social security office AND put out my first job application.

He was like “Mmm hmm… lovely! Now go and let me sleep!” LOL – he’d worked night shift, so he was understandably still tired. I ignored him, hauled on some clothes (decent jeans and a nice sweater) and headed out into the day.

Barnes and Noble smelled as good as ever and it took GREAT willpower to sniff, hand in the application and WALK AWAY! But I kept the mantra in my head all through it (Leave once you’re done! You canNOT afford to stay any longer in this place!) It worked, soon as they took my resume, I bid them goodbye and walked out. Stopping briefly to examine an exhibit by the front door and then literally dragging myself the rest of the way out the door.

So … the long and short of it is that today, I feel better than I have in a long time. I can’t explain it, except to say it feels like I have been liberated. Just one more step to REALLY belonging. Know what I mean? Now I can earn!

So, I called Yolospat, ‘cos I have been a wee bit worried, to be honest. Haven’t heard much from her in a couple of days … maybe almost a week or more. Funnily, as soon as I picked up the cellphone to call her, she logs into gchat. Odd … very odd.  I call her, and we chat … until my phone dies. Then we get on gchat and video chat for another 2 or more hours … doing what we used to do so many moons ago … just checking out technology and sharing links and chatting about stuff. I gotta tell ya, it felt good for things to be so … normal again.

All in all, it has been one of the most productive and uplifting days I’ve had …. in a while. Maybe since just before I got sick, while I was giving my hours to the Red Cross and the family care clinic.  I feel GOOD again.

And on that note, off to beddie bye bye for me – no matter HOW empty it is cos hubby is again on nights. I’ll take my meds and just ease away. Talk to you all tomorrow.

/yawn

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My stomach woke me on Monday morning. Sour as old milk. I was anxious like nothing I knew before. It was the final day  that the passport could be ready and NOT have to change our flight information. And I was anxious. Hell, anxious is a LARGE understatement. I was in panic mode.

When hubby2B woke, he also had funky-tummy … tho based on HIS symptoms, I’d have to say that it had to be sympathy rather than anything we had eaten that had gone off. We’d all (mom and dad too) eaten basically the same thing. Except that hubby2B and I had also managed to swallow some caribbean sea spray on our trip out to Palisadoes on Sunday. I can’t imagine that would have caused an upset tummy, if swallowing the damn thing all last week in whole mouthfuls did nothing for me.

…

BTW: anyone else notice that my beloved shipwreck just off the coast by the airport traffic circle is completely broken apart now? =(

…

So anyway, we stayed in most of the morning on Monday. Hubby2B insisted that we head out and get some stuff done in the afternoon though, cos well, if the passport arrived the next day, then we’d have little or no more time to get anything done. At first I was a little miffed because I wanted to stay in and mope. Then after we actually accomplished stuff, I felt like I should listen to hubby2B more often … cos I ended up feeling SO much better getting stuff done. So much so, when we called to inquire whether the passport WAS available, I didn’t blink when we were told it wasn’t.

Today, I held out no hope. So I wasn’t looking forward to calling them today as much as I had been yesterday. I called and gave them the information they needed to search for my case and sat there humming. It wasn’t until the woman came back to the phone and started asking me where insert-road-name-here is that I realized that something was different about this phone call.

My breath caught as the woman asked for what sounded like directions. I didn’t breathe until about a minute or so later when it became clear to me that the passport WAS there and that what this woman was attempting to do was determine where to deliver it.

“Forget that”, I told her, “I’m comin’ down there now!”

I think she was a little shocked. She insisted that the courier would get to me either today or tomorrow morning. I told her that I was out on the road and that I was on my way to her. After a few more seconds of this back and forth, I heard her tell the courier to leave the passport at the front desk for me, then she came back to me and told me to make sure I had my claim ticket.

WEWT!!!!

Next step was to call the travel agent. Even though hubby2B and I weren’t able to get on a flight out today, we’re still ecstatic. We’re going home! At last! It feels like it has been torture these last few days, even though it really hasn’t been that bad at all. It’s mostly been my high-strung emotions that have made it all so dramatic.

My parents, of course, aren’t all that happy at all. It’s turning me on my ear a bit … I WANT to be happy… but I can’t. I have to be sober for them. But I can’t HELP but be happy, so how do I “hide” it? Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe my being HAPPY will bring them out of that moroseness that they’ve now adopted as their standard veneer. /sigh

Doubt that very sincerely. Especially since my father thinks I was rude to him when all that happened is that he finally heard me react to HIS rudeness. I don’t think he’ll ever realize just how overbearing and intrusive and offensive he is. And I don’t know that I can or will ever attempt to show him. So we part on somewhat tense and distant terms … but maybe he will recognize once and for all that I am separate and apart from him and that he can’t keep pretending like I will always be his baby girl.

One of the things that I keep thinking about with some resentment is that he went out and on his own bought a tree – a miniature June Plum tree – because I like them so much. Now that it is bearing, all I can hear is that I am not eating them and that the tree was bought and planted for me. While I appreciate the gesture and am very flattered that he thinks that much of me, I resent being blackmailed into eating something that was once a pleasure and has now become an obligation. I don’t enjoy eating june plums anymore simply because if I “don’t eat them, they go to waste” …. well hang it … did I ASK for you to go flood me with little annoying june plums that just sit and demand to be eaten?

There is so much I have learned these last 3 or so months. One of those things is that I now can say without guilt that I canNOT live with my parents. Moving out, away from them was never an act of defiance, it was an act of self-preservation and these last 3 months have nearly destroyed everything that I had built for (and of) myself in the last 5 or so years. Imagine that! 3 months taking out 5 years … cold! Ha!

Thank the goddess for honey-sunshine! I would be dead, or stark raving mad by now if it wasn’t for him. Then again, if it wasn’t for him, I’d still be out on my own too. giggle In any case, he has remained my sanity throughout this process. There is nothing that is more rewarding that having someone say to you by their actions that every agonizing step you take toward them is MORE than worth it.

=)

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So, I took my depression on the road with me this morning. I always seem to use my despondency to motivate me into DOING things. Which is a complete turnaround from a few years ago. Back then, I’d sit and wallow and mope. These last few months, I find that it is when I am feeling my lowest that I actually get things done.

I took Mom’s car. And oh yea, was that an awkward journey … she was all apologies, but I still feel she missed the point. I have never been good at expressing what is in my headspace. Maybe that’s the reason … anyway, I took the car and headed straight to the credit union. The discharge of lien was NOT requested, so I had them do so. I should be able to collect that tomorrow and get that done. After that, it’s simply a matter of signing over the car to Dad.

Went to see my good friend over at the insurance company while I was there. She’s about to embark on much the same journey as I … tho with slight differences. She’s under a lot of stress and it is beginning to show in her health …. sounds familiar to me. I was there too – tho apparently, she managed to escape the migraines so far – lucky her. Anywho, I have a cousin there too (yea – cousins all over the place it seems) and I took the time to see her and tell her the news too. Every time I look at her, I wonder how the hell one family can have so many drastically different looks. She looks like Dad. I look more like Dad’s sister. It’s SO odd.

Then I went and got me some choklit muffins and I am back home where I think I will eat something ( including a choklit muffin ) and play a little before I start packing in earnest. Later I go to visit another good friend … the last time we’ll see each other ( maybe ) again. Lots of those these days. /sigh

The GOOD news is this: honey-sunshine arrives on the 23rd HERE IN JAMAICA! Now that his vacation has been approved and the ticket bought I can FINALLY look forward to it. WEWT!!!! We head into the country on Tuesday, but I ain’t gonna tell you where until we get back.  Back to town on Friday and we’ll be hanging with the parents until Monday and we both leave ( assuming I get my passport back in time ) on Tuesday the 1st.

Still fighting back the tears today, but it’s a little easier now. I only know I need to be good for Monday … can’t have honey-sunshine coming to me and I am down in the mouth, now can we?

There, I’ve said it. Now you ALL know.

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I got there an hour early, just because I didn’t want to get caught up in minor details and ish that would delay me getting to the window. Ya … .right.

All told, they spent a grand total of 15 minutes with me spread out over just over 3 hours. What a joke.

I get to the door outside and tell the guard I am there for an interview. He asks for my appointment letter and then proceeds to insist that I can’t take my cell phone in with me. I guess it didn’t occur to him that I could have known this, because I said to him “I left my cell phone in the car” and he looked stunned.

Incidentally, there were these 2 women hanging around the entrance trying to surreptitiously tell me that cell phones weren’t allowed. They kept calling to me and telling me this. Maybe it’s me, but all I could think about was “What business is it of yours anyway?” Then I remembered hearing about a scheme where people would keep your belongings for you for a small fee. Gawrsh! Are people THAT desperate for money? Ugh.

Anywho, after they x-rayed my handbag and document case, the searched through my bag so thoroughly, I almost wondered whether they had been TOLD to expect something to be in there. Oh wait, right. I didn’t slap my forehead with agony outside and go “Yuh serious seh mi cyaan cyarri my phone in deh?” so clearly, I must have the phone in my bag. Ugh.

Once they were certain that I had indeed not taken this dastardly cell phone into their precious compound with me, they directed me inside to some glass doors. Going in, I saw no one but 2 other lackeys like me frantically writing something. Then a woman came in and loudly told me to take out my photos and passport and appointment letter and to sign the back of all my photos. She handed me a number after this first encounter and told me to wait for my number to be called.

So in I go and wait. After about 40 minutes, I get called and a very sullen woman tells me to give her all my paperwork. So I hand her everything. A nice big wad of paper and silently wished her well wading through it all – cos I had had hell with the sheaf – and an entire sheaf it seemed to have been to me. She has me sign something and sends me to wait some more for my number to called again.

About 30 minutes later, they call my number again. Fingerprinting time. Ok. Nothing more. Go sit and wait again for my number.

Finally, after sitting through something like 30 minutes of THE noisiest twin girls and their mom, I get called again. And this is the big joke part:

She goes: “Hi. I’ll be just one sec.” Me:  Sure She: Do you have divorce papers? Me: Yes. It should be right there. She: Oh. Pfft, I’m looking at it. Me: smile She: So you got divorced in 2000? Me: Yes She: Ok. another 30 seconds pass She: Ok, I’m going to have you sign these 2 application forms and give me your passport. Me: signs the forms and hands over passport She: Ok. Have you ever been to the States? Me: Yes She: Do you have a current visitor’s visa? Me: Yes She: Did you have a visa before this one? Me: Yes She: Ok. Well, I’m just going to go ahead and cancel this one since we can’t have you having both visas now, can we?

….

I take a moment to gather my jaw up off the ground and cradle it gently in my arms and then I tell her “Ok”.

The rest of the “interview” was formality. She asked why honey-sunshine wasn’t here, what he did, whether we had a date, whether I’d had problems with the police or courts, whether I had medical problems and then she sent me off to arrange for delivery of my passport in “up to 3 weeks”.

Gah. All that stressing over NOTHING. What a joke!

My jaw is back on the ground, by the way.  My arms are tired from throwing them up so many times in the last 2 months. I got tired of lugging it around.

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So, today is the day I venture out into the country with my parents. We’re planning to give Castleton a shout, have me take a last look at Dad’s childhood home, Firefly …. and maybe, if I am feeling up to it, cousins in Galina Pt and Walkers Wood with a drive through Ocho Rios and Fern Gully. That’s the plan.

This morning, I am feeling a little wobbly on my feet …. I know why, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. The honey-sunshine and I hatched a plan that MIGHT have him actually being able to come collect me for my first foray into the States under a new status. MIGHT. Big MIGHT. We’ll see. That put me in high spirits too.

I’ve been reading a lot, 2 books this week. The shrug isn’t finished. As is usual, I got distracted and demotivated when I found that the sleeve is WAY too small for me OR Mum to wear. Even if I finish it, it’ll only ever be for show. (Unless we can find some slim-armed, broad-backed woman to wear it.)

Anywho, I will not tarry … I have to get ready, eat something, brush my teeth, and head out. We wanna get an early start … altho at this point, I don’t know how that will work. We’ll just have to see.

Look out readers – photos coming your way with many good stories to boot.

See y’all laterz.

YUSH

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