99shadows

It has been a few years since I've posted here. Life happened - some good, some not so good. We lost my mother-in-law; my last post was about her. She passed in 2017. It finally gave me the strength to turn away from my mother, who was still being emotionally abusive. She was trying to pit me and my sister against each other, and when my grandmother passed in 2018, I finally just told her I was done. Haven't spoken to her since Christmas Eve 2018. Life's too short to keep toxic people in my circle of friends and family. My job went to hell, and after 14 years, I started a new one just over a year ago, working in the legal department at an Ivy League university, and it's been such a complete change from where I was a year ago. To be treated like a human again...I didn't realize how very toxic my old employer was until I left. Dealing with PTSD now, I think LOL! My husband had a heart attack in January this year; he's okay now, but it was pretty scary. Now that I'm in a better place

I create sporadically lately. Watching my mother-in-law, who is everything I wish my mother had been and never was, struggle with Alzheimer's is heartbreaking. She is still living in her own home, but we are in the same town and my husband goes to her house every evening. His oldest sister picks her up each morning and brings her back in the afternoon before she goes to work. His other sister picks her up on Friday afternoons and brings her back on Sunday, which gives us our weekends back (for the longest time, we were the only ones going over there regularly). But things had to change, especially when she called 911 at 3:30 in the morning te

I was at work today when my friend texted me in GChat to say "OMG, I'm reading about the explosions." I said..."Um...what explosions?" She replied, "The ones at the Boston Marathon." I panicked. I work in Providence, Rhode Island, live in Southeastern Massachusetts, but I grew up about 20 miles south of Boston, and my family still lives there. My 19-year-old niece goes to school at UMass-Amherst and I remember her saying on Facebook last night that she was going to the Boston Marathon. I scrambled for my phone, my fingers shaking so much I could barely find my way to my contacts, and fumbled trying to dial my sister's number. For the life of