Myspace.me

Sometimes life really takes you places you never thought you would be. A few years ago I thought I had it together (at least on the way). Eyes on the prize. Looking to the future. Moving forward and all that. Home with a yard. Me and the wife employed in fields we went to school for. My car paid off! She in her own. Starting to get the credit fixed. Considering finishing my oft delayed degree. Even considered starting our own business. Just good enough for a black man to start to feel hopeful.

Of course not every story has a happy ending. Or happy middle for that matter. Of course you probably guessed that my means to get them ends stopped shortly after I started getting them good feelings. I lost my job, not because of wrong doing on my part, but because the company needed to cut costs after the bankruptcy filing. They needed to look like they were trying to save the company. Of course if they had tried to do that sooner no bankruptcy would have been necessary. But enough about them...

At the time I thought that being unemployed and Black in America, without a degree and living in a job market with an overabundance of folk like me, POST 9/11 was the worst that it could get. Bad yes. But not the worst.

Worse is having your father's chronic back problems turn into back surgery that he avoided like the devil himself for 30 years. Back surgery that went horribly wrong. Not only was it done wrong, but he contracted an infection so massive that the hospital was at a loss as to how it needed to be treated. This infection was one of those "one in a million" kinda things. The medication that could have killed the infection turned out to be worse than the infection. He had a nearly fatal allergic reaction to that medicine. Another "one in a million" thing. Several bad things happened along the way that made me a very surly and angry person. Some with the medical treatment, some with the family. I may get over all that one day. But after three years of being so drugged up that I though he quite literally lost his mind, or was in so much pain that it made me cry, he finally got the the surgery he really needed. Most of the pain went away and he started walking within a week.

Not long after that even worse did happen. My mother had a rather massive stroke that paralyzed her right side. A few weeks in the hospital and a couple of months in rehab. Then 8 months at another relative's house kept her away from me because of my own fucked up infrastructure problems. That whole 8 months I got shit talked about me like I was the bad son or something. Yet the person who talked it did little more. Mother finally returns home with other family members in tow. I finally get to participate in her care. Shortly afterward the living conditions with two very different families sharing the same space break down. My wife and kids move out. I couldn't get mad at her because I would have moved too but I didn't wanna leave my mom in her condition. My sister and her sons spend little to no time helping out with my mom. Basically my family abandoned me and mom to our own devices (her and dad divorced when I was two).

Fast forward to now. Mom had a second stroke. Fortunately it affected little beyond the first. Sis and nephews are a little more helpful now. But I am still point man. So of course I am basically a shut-in who spends his days taking care of his disabled mother. I am still on the hunt to get career tracked again. I got no money of my own. That pisses me off. My mom is taking care of me again (if I was 14 again that would be cool). That really pisses me off. I can live with it because her taking care of me allows me to take care of her needs and make her comfortable. But still... And she is supporting the sis and neps too! You can probably guess how I feel about that. Me and the wife are still getting along good. But it gets really tiring visiting your spouse. Especially because your spouse ain't comfortable being where you live for too long (works both ways...) We feel like Piper and Leo from Charmed. Hopefully we can pull off going to the Family Reunion down in tha ATL in July. We could use some time away, together.

If ya see me and I seem angry or sad, just know that a brotha needs a hug. I probably will smile for ya if you do!