sunflowery's Diaryland Diary

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Feeling Left Out and Grieving a Loss

Happy Birthday Mary and Uncle John

This week at work has started out to be difficult. I don't know if you remember this, and really, why would you? In fact, if you did, I'd be worried. But around the month of April, there was some restructering done in our workplace because of the focus Big Bank Co wanted to place on licensing bankers to sell variable annuitites and mutual funds. So my group got moved from the Insurance department to the Private Client Services department. PCS headquarters are in San Francisco. Insurance headquarters are in the building we work at. So now, my department leases the space we use from the Insurance dept. At the onsight, nothing really seemed to change. We still worked in the same place with the same people, basically doing the same thing we always did. But on Monday, the changes became apparent. Every year the Insurance department likes to use one whole week to show their employees how appreciated they are. There are games, gifts, balloons, and food. Last year we had a gift on our desk every day of the week. It was a blast. This year, this is the week of appreciation but because we are no longer part of Insurance, we are not part of the appreciation. In fact, all the decorations, balloons and festivities stop at the corner to our section of the building. It's an abrupt change and seriously, it hurts. We see the festivities, we hear the fun, we observe the gifts, games and food and we cannot participate. We are now the redheaded stepchildren of Big Bank Co. It sucks.

Bob had a good time last night with his men's group at Red Lobster. He LOVES that restaurant but because of my allergy, we never eat there. The leader of his men's group picked up the tab for the whole group. Then he gave Bob a beautiful leather bomber jacket. It's gorgeous and Bob loves it and looks smart in it. My handsome husband!

While he was gone, I worked out on my new air walker and it's awesome. Though this morning, my muscles are SORE! Also, I realized that by having the airwalker where it is, we don't have room for our Christmas tree. Arg! 740 feet is too small of a space for me to be living in. We need more space. So I don't know what to do with the air walker that I am coming to love so much.

I am grieving the loss of a friendship. In 1987 I met a guy named Bryan at a summer camp we were both working at. Thus began many years of friendship, angst, love, and hate. That summer I fell in love only find out later that he was gay. So instead of pursuing love, we pursued friendship. We were the best of friends for years and years. Bryan transfered to my college and ended up graduating from there. I ended up moving to MD where he ended up proposing to me. I entertained that thought for about a week and then declined for obvious reasons. Still, I carried a torch for Bryan for about 5 more years. When I moved to MN it was about the same time he moved to St. Louis. We began to lose touch around that time. Phone calls and letters started to be few and far between. But sometime around the year 2000, my letters weren't answered, my phone calls weren't returned and I could not get a hold of him at all. That didn't stop me from trying to reach him. I had met Bob and was getting married and wanted Bryan to be part of the wedding. This was communicated but never reciprocated. In fact, the invitation to our wedding was never RSVP'd. Every year I still sent him a birthday and Christmas card and an occational card or letter in addition. Last week I sent him another of my occational letters only this time, it came back as attempted but undeliverable. He has moved and for the first time in 16 years, I don't know where Bryan is. I don't know if I said or did something to upset him. If I did, I don't know what it was. This upsets me. I hate losing touch...especially with someone I shared so much with. He's been on my mind alot lately and I've been praying for him, but now I will never know what happened or how he's been. Until this week, I had always hoped he would write back. That he would contact me again. Now I know that this is truly the end of a formerly beautiful friendship. I know it's been roughly 4 years since our last significant contact. It was before I met Bob that we last talked. Since then I met Bob, got married, have had to deal with Bob's diagnosis and subsequent health problems, had my own health issues, surgery and now that life is settling down and Bob and I are finding a groove to our married life, I was hoping to bring my friend here to meet my husband. It is unbelievable to me that they have never met. But now, they probably won't ever meet. Bryan was so much a part of my life for so long, it seems unfathomable that he won't be part of my life from now on. I am grieving this loss pretty hard right now. It's as if he's died. He's no where to be found at this point and there is little hope of ever contacting him now.

*************************************** A Year Ago Today: November 17, 2003: An Update and an Advertisement

Happy Birthday Mary! Hope it�s a great one! (Also, Happy Birthday to Uncle John!)

The weekend was good. Saturday, as I wrote before, was a good old lazy day. It felt good to have nothing to do but sit around and veg. I did make a phone call to my brother and sister-law. Things are good with them. I even got to talk to my nephews. The youngest one (6 �) started his first guitar lesson on Saturday. He is very musical and artistic, so this is right up his alley. The oldest (almost 9) is a sports fan and plays basketball. He�s my special buddy. When he got on the phone, the first thing he asked me was why we weren�t coming for Thanksgiving. Aw buddy! I had to tell him that I don�t have the Friday after Thanksgiving off, so we could only come down for the one day and it wouldn�t be good for Uncle Sweet Baboo to do that much traveling in one day. I felt so bad. I miss those guys so much. We were going to go to WI for Christmas, but my dad�s family is all meeting up here the day after Christmas, so again, we are staying here but will see everyone at my uncle�s house. So, I don�t know when the next time I�ll be in WI will be. Maybe not until Spring now. Bummer.

Sweet Baboo and I made it to church yesterday. We took the manual wheelchair out of storage and I pushed him to the church and to our seats so he didn�t have to walk and wear himself out. It was a good service. SB was embarrassed to be in the chair, but I don�t think it was a surprise to anyone. It�s actually a good tool for him to use. The doctors are saying now that whenever he walks, he is breaking down muscle and that�s why he was in so much pain.

After church, there is fellowship. Sometimes that is the hardest part of the day. As much as we both enjoy the company of our friends and church family, dealing with the questions and the statements that mean well can be so difficult. For instance, yesterday SB got into a discussion with a man who was telling him about several healing rooms across the state and metro area. The day SB shows up in a wheelchair is the day this guy chooses to discuss the healing issue with him. Not like SB hasn�t been struggling for years with walking or anything. SB said he felt like people finally got how serious this is. That because he showed up in a chair, people understand he is handicapped and not just walking funny to get attention or because he�s lazy. This guy also told SB that he and his wife worry about our weight. He said that Christians don�t show enough self control in the area of food and that he would like to see us have more self control. OK�first of all. What does he know? It�s so easy to make snap judgments about SB�s and my life. About how we eat and what we eat. Yes, it�s true that I struggle with self control in the area of food. Yes, it�s true that I eat too much and usually eat too much of the wrong kind of food. But does this guy know how much I struggle with that part of my life? Does he know how I�ve prayed for help and prayed for change and sought counseling and help in many forms? No, he doesn�t. Does he know that because SB has been losing muscle that his metabolism is slowing down? Does he know that because SB�s muscular dystrophy affects his trunk muscles to the degree that he is not able to hold in his stomach anymore? Does he further know that SB�s back is curved in such a way to make him appear slightly swaybacked? I don�t think he knew these things before, but he does now. SB told him. What was his response? To suggest that SB would still benefit from a healing service and from exercising self control where food is concerned. Yeah. Thanks.

As far as that all goes, I am going to call the doctors my doctor referred me to this week. I need to start pursuing some answers before I make a final decision. Although I�ve pretty much made my mind up to go ahead with it. I will continue to move forward unless I get some answers that don�t make sense for me. So, the phone calls begin. I also have to look at a calendar to see when this could take place.

Several people in our acquaintance are going through SUPER hard times right now. My friend K, who I�ve written about previously, is waiting for divorce papers from her husband of 17 months found out that she has cysts on her ovaries. She is going to have those checked out this week. A gal I work with found out that her dad has stage 4 brain cancer. She was gone for a week, while he was at Mayo, and has been going to visit him every weekend since. She just got a call from her husband this morning and it turns out he�s been fired/laid off from his job. He was in some kind of radio business�I know he still has his job as a temp announcer at a station here, but the full-time gig had him flying around the country, so I�m not exactly sure what he did, but I know it had something to do with satellite radio. Those are just 2 of the stories of the people around us going through tough times right now.

I had a good talk with our pastor�s wife about adoption. They adopted a 10 year old girl from Russia and we talked about the changes it has brought into their family. SB and I have been praying for our children, wherever they are in the world. I figure that I prayed for him before I knew him, why not our future adopted children? They are in God�s hands and we pray for them to be supernaturally protected until they are brought home to us. It�s funny that whenever we think of the children we will one day adopted, SB thinks of Russia and I think of Haiti or Africa. Maybe it will be all three since we decided we want to have 3 children all together.

Along THOSE lines, we are going to look into renting a 2 bedroom apartment at the place we live now. SB�s medical equipment takes up so much room that we are getting a little bit cramped. We would like to see what they would charge us in rent and if we could get out of our current lease without penalty since we would sign a new 1 year lease for the 2-bedroom in the same building. We also realize that this would make it easier to have guests, adopt a child and spread out a little. The 2 bedrooms all come with 2 bathrooms and a lot more space. We also realize that the apartment is really meeting SB�s needs right now. It�s accessible, all on one level, and easy to get around in. So we have put home buying on the back burner for now. Where we live is just so convenient and handy for both of us.

If you ever need glass replacement service for your vehicle and you live in the Twin Cities, please call Noble Glass. They came out, replaced SB�s windshield this morning, and did a fabulous job! They were fast, courteous, and on time. It�s true that Noble Glass treats you like royalty. Check them out.

Thanks for reading.

6:39 a.m. - Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004
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