A little on what's been happening...

January 26, 2013
Sitting here in my room watching Pure Country, starring George Strait, on the DVD, playing Spider Solitaire, on my laptop, and burning CDs to my laptop so that I can later put them on my phone.  Terry, my most recent ex-husband is downstairs with the rest of the family.  He is uncomfortable in my presence so I come up here to hide away while he is here visiting.  I try to talk to him but he can’t seem to manage more than a yes or no or another one word answer.  He told me last time he was here it is because he loves me too much.
I left him the last time that we parted. Our relationship was always tumultuous.  From start to finish-and possibly still-our relationship was fueled on an energy that never seemed to lessen in intensity.
February 3, 2013
8:40 AM.  I am sitting on my bed, watching Law & Order, and playing Spider Solitaire.  Exciting.  This afternoon we will watch the Superbowl and eat chicken wings and chips.
Things just don’t get better.  Son-in-law B quit his job.  Once again.  Possibly for the right reasons but without appropriate backup plans.  Once again.  I could leave, but then again I can’t.  My name is on the lease.  I pay the utilities.  Without utilities S and the kids would suffer.  My name on the lease means I stay until we all go because B doesn’t take care of places he leaves.  He let Terry bring those puppies (4 pit mixes) here and they have made a huge mess that B doesn’t deal with personally.  It is just like with the boys and their playing outside without rules when he is here.  They make a mess they don’t clean up and they are destructive, as little boys can be.  They are boys so that is somewhat expected but B needs to guide them in the right direction and not fall asleep with no regard for what happens next.
I am depressed, stressed, and anxious and yes planning ways on ending this life that I find so hard and hopeless.  Did I ever have potential?  Did I ever have another destiny possible?  Is there any hope for redemption?
March 18 2013
Motel 6 in Rancho Mirage, CA. Down by Palm Springs.  Another botched attempt at an easier existence.  Nothing has worked out so far.  Been staying in motels for a week now.  Budget being eaten alive by motels and the truck.  No clear idea or plan.  B thinks we can just camp with these kids and no one will bother us.  These kids need a house and school.  They need a father who will bust his ass doing whatever is available to house, cloth, and feed them.  I love B but it pisses me off that he wants to always color outside the lines when it is the kids who suffer.
The septic tank, in the house we were renting, had begun to leak into the back yard.  This meant that we had to pack up and leave the house.  A blessing disguised in a mess.  We moved into a motel and began to plan our next move. That is where we are now.
March 28, 2013
B and S found a rent to own mobile home in Joshua Tree, CA.  We moved in last Thursday.  I am happy for them.  They will have a stable home now.  It needs a few repairs, nothing tremendous, and some paint but it is a home they can stay in for a while and make their own.  They made the deposit and the first month’s rent with the rest of their tax refund. B, of course, does not have a job and no plans on looking for one right now.  He is waiting for his friend to come down and they have plans to open a head shop in Joshua Tree or Yucca Valley.  But that won’t be until May and until then they have no income.  I will be paying next month’s pro-rated rent and the car registration, which is past due.  I have actually applied for a couple of jobs in order to have more money coming in.  S has also put in a job application.
I registered for online classes at Lake Tahoe Community College for the spring quarters and applied to Liberty University for my master’s degree in health and wellness.  Classes for LTCC begin next week.  Liberty will begin in the summer.
Next week I will pick up my granddaughters, who are still in foster care, for an overnight.  Since they are still in Jackson, CA, we will stay the night in a motel.  The motel has a pool for them to enjoy and then we will pick up a few DVDs and some Chinese food or pizza and have a movie night.
Their mother has called me and left a message that she is staying with friends in Placerville, CA.  She sounds better than she has in a while.  There is a court hearing next month where we will learn if the girls will go to West Virginia to my son’s or not.  I do hope so.  It has been so long now.
So much is happening right now.  So many changes.  But then life is about change.  I am trying to keep my hopes up and my anxieties at bay.  One day at a time, right?

Today

Today is the first day of the fall quarter.  I am taking four classes this quarter: Critical Thinking; Medical Terminology; Business Communications; and The Ancient Near East.  All online, of course.  I enjoy taking classes and learning new things.

Heading home.

Tonight my two grandsons and I board a Greyhound Bus and head home.  We have spent five weeks here with my beloved son and his family.  It has been a good visit, it is always a good visit, but home is good too. My son will be flying out to California in the morning with my two granddaughters who will be entering the foster care system tomorrow afternoon.  My heart aches.  I wonder if this feeling of hopelessness, sadness, and heartbreak will ever pass.

Update

My daughter called the police to report that I had taken her children and that she wants them back or she is pressing charges.  The police officer called to talk to me.  He was the same one that did the welfare checks on her and that I had talked to about this situation twice.  I updated him on the situation and my son talked to him and gave him information on what Child Protective Services was doing with the case and where things stood right now.  I wrote a detailed letter and sent it to the officer to include in his report.  Later that afternoon, two days ago now, we got the call we had been dreading.  California CPS was taking the girls back to California and putting them into foster care until they could transfer jurisdiction to West Virginia.  My daughter told CPS she would rather have the girls in foster care than here in West Virginia.  She is angry.  She is cruel and manipulative and selfish.  She is still seriously mentally ill but she is also these other things.  My granddaughters are being hurt over and over again by the actions of their mother.  My son and my other daughters and I will continue to do what we can to gain guardianship of the girls.  Pray for us, pray for them.

Continued...

My daughter is with him.  Or she had been since his release from jail on August 3rd.  They finished moving their things out of their apartment and into storage and picked up her belongings from the tow yard where they car she crashed is being held.  Then they got a motel room in Auburn, California and spent at least the weekend.  She texted me that she wants her children returned to her.  I told her to call the social worker in charge of the case.  She told me that I was going to ruin her life if I talked to the social worker and that if the girls were not returned to her she would go to the police and report me for kidnapping them.  She doesn't seem to understand what has happened, is happening, or what will happen next.  She wants her family back.  I want her sanity back.  I want him to leave her alone while at the same time I don't want her alone.  I want her safe and getting the help she needs.  I want to rush to her and take her in and never let her go.  But, I can not control the situation and I can not make her better just by wanting it so. 

Sadness

My daughter has a mental illness.  She has bipolar disorder with schizoid affect.  She suffers audio and visual hallucinations.  She doesn't take her medications as directed and instead she self medicates with drugs that worsen her illness.  She has experienced a great personal tragedy this past year, the disintegration of her fifteen year marriage due to her husband's "inappropriate behavior" with their two teenage daughters.  When her daughters told her what was happening she did everything she was supposed to do; she called the police and protected her children.  My daughter and her daughters spent months talking to people from the police, the district attorney's office, the local women's center, and victims assistance.  My son-in-law was eventually convicted, branded a sex offender, sentenced, released with time served, and put on parole.  Then he called my daughter who was in a state of mental deterioration.  She had not been taking her medications as directed; she told me that with her husband gone she didn't need them anymore.  The balancing act she had been practicing for most of the last year was precarious at best and when he called the balance beam tilted and she fell off.  She talked to him as he pleaded with her to believe that he was innocent.  She wanted her family back.  She was hearing voices.  He knows how to manipulate her, especially in her mental state.  She took off with him (he cut off his monitoring bracelet) leaving the two older girls with me and taking the younger girl who is eleven.  She was gone two weeks before they returned to the area and things began tumbling down on her head.  He was arrested and put back into jail where he spent three weeks. The voices in her head were louder and reality slipped away.  She ended up leaving her youngest daughter in a McDonald's and crashing her car.  She spent eight days in a psychiatric hospital then was released without a safe place to go and without proper medications.  My eleven year old granddaughter is now in a children's shelter in California while her two sisters are with their uncle in West Virginia.  My daughter is still hearing voices.  She is convinced that computers are reading her mind and that terrorists are stalking her.  She believes the only safe place for her is with her husband and according to her they are planning to be together after tomorrow.  I am currently in West Virginia and won't be able to get back to California for at least a week.  I text my daughter and call every day and wait to hear from her.  I feel helpless to help her.  I don't know what to do.  I love her and am scared for her and heartbroken thinking about the way she and her children have suffered, are suffering.  I want to cradle her in my arms and tell her that it will all be alright soon, to tell her to give me her pain the way I did when she was small.  But I can't and she can't give me her pain because her pain is wrapped up around her mind holding her hostage.  I pray everyday for answers, for advice, for anything that will help my baby.

Woes

It was a crazy trip from Carson City, Nevada to Charleston, West Virginia but we are here.  Tuesday, July 10, 2012 we headed out from Reno, Nevada on Amtrak's California Zephyr which would take us to Chicago where we transfer to the Cardinal heading to Charleston, WV.   The five of us boarded the train loaded down with luggage and bags of food to get us through the two day and three night train ride.  We had settled into our seats and finished a dinner of turkey sandwiches when the text came from my eleven year old granddaughter, the younger sister of the two granddaughters traveling with me.  She said her mother had dropped her off at a McDonald's in Sacramento.  She was told to call the police and wait right there.  I immediately sent texts to my son and my two other daughters this latest event.  My son and youngest daughter got on the phone and began calling Sacramento police and sheriffs.  My oldest daughter, getting ready to board a plane to Arizona from San Francisco, was on the phone with my son and me.  Then my phone rang.  It was my granddaughter who said she was fine and then handed the phone to a sheriff who told me that after my daughter left her daughter at McDonald's she had apparently crashed the car she was driving.  Physically she was bruised and had some cuts but otherwise okay; mentally she was not.  At that time it was not known whether the crash was accidental or intentional. My daughter was taken to the hospital and my granddaughter would be picked up by CPS and kept safe until arrangements were made.  This all happened a week ago now. 
Since then it has been several phone calls back and forth between all of us and CPS and the sheriff.  My daughter was moved to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation and immediate care.  My granddaughter is currently in a children's shelter until temporary custody arrangements can be made.  There was a preliminary court hearing yesterday and there will be another on Friday.  My daughter will be in the psychiatric hospital for at least two more weeks then I have no idea at this time what will happen.  We are hoping that she will get ongoing care, perhaps an inpatient program for a short while and then a half-way house until she is stable on her medications again.  We will have to figure out a living arrangement for her as she no longer has her apartment and no one in the area to stay with.  We are hoping that her youngest daughter will be joining her sister here in West Virginia but need to go through CPS and the legal system.  We have been able to speak to her in the shelter each day and have sent her a few changes of clothes and a stuffed animal so that she will have something of her own while she waits.  

I can't write anymore about this right now.  My mind and my heart are filled with sadness and worry.