Just when you thought I was going to maybe be on time…

Sorry I’m late!!

Today is really the first day I’ve had completely and totally OFF in about 3 weeks. So I think I just went ahead and collapsed. I slept in until 5AM (!!) — I haven’t done that since before the time change. And then after I went back to bed with my coffee to meditate and get ready for this splendid day, I just did not want to get out of bed.

But here I now am!

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My shift with the retired Minister and his lovely wife and cat was really weird yesterday.

I can’t go into the details. It wasn’t bad, just “challenging.” And more than ever, I am really planning to retire early next year. I really don’t know how much more of the caregiving I can handle.

We shall see.

My primary concern, of course, is my favorite 95-year-old Japanese man. He does not handle new or unfamiliar caregivers very well at all. Plus, he thinks he has known me for years. He thinks I was also freinds with his late wife (by the time I began working with him last October, she had been gone for nearly 6 years).

I know it would be so hard on him if I simply stopped showing up and someone else was suddenly in my place.

My Q-following friend had a good point, though, when we were discussing this very topic on our recent road trip to see my birth mom — she said that if I gave up all other clients and only worked with him, I might be able to handle it better.

It’s something to think about.

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Speaking of road trips!!

So, okay — wow. Am I glad I made that trip, gang.

The night before, I was panicking. It’s part of being born “a mistake” and never really feeling like I belonged anywhere. And there’s always a little voice in the back of my head saying that my birth mom (even after 40 years of having her back in my life) is suddenly going to announce: “I changed my mind and I want you to stay away from me now.”

I called my girlfriend and said that I was canceling the trip. I was too stressed out. I was convinced that my mother didn’t want to see me. That I have no place left in that family — I’m an outsider, etc.

My girlfriend convinced me that I had to make the trip. That my mom wasn’t getting any younger, and if I canceled the trip, I would never re-schedule it.

So I said okay, we’ll go. But I was still stressing.

And then Thursday morning, I was wearing a white pullover that had little pumpkins and fall leaves all over it, and I was wearing a very autumnal-colored pair of rust-colored jeans. And even my coat had autumn colors. And even my earrings kind of matched my shirt.

And even though this is how I actually dress in the fall (!!), I suddenly felt that everyone would think that I dress really weird.

But the trip got underway, and what a gorgeous fall day it was. It was such a great day for a drive on mostly backroads in rural Ohio.

And my girlfriend and I never stopped talking the whole way. It was great.

And when we arrived in Greenfield, I could not believe how pretty that town was. Actually, it has now been downsized to a village, no longer a town. (Like here in Crazeysburg, where I live. This used to be a town — it had a hotel, a billiard hall, some bars, a grocery store, a restaurant. Now it has none of those things and only about 1300 people live here. Greenfield is a lot bigger than here, but it is still smaller than it once was.)

I remembered that I had always liked Greenfield, but I hadn’t been back there in about 40 years. I had been back for my grandmother’s funeral about 12 years ago, but the cemetery is on the outskirts of the town, so I wasn’t actually in the town itself.

But, wow, do they take a lot of pride in it’s history. It is so pretty and they take really good care of the really old buildings (some as early as the 1800s).

My mother’s little senior apartment complex is directly behind the buildings on the left:

I was expecting my mom’s apartment complex to be a lot bigger and sort of non-descript and industrial looking but the complex was tiny, rustic and old, and adorable.

AND — my mother was waiting for us in front of her little apartment and she was wearing a black pullover with tiny fall leaves all over it and matching little fall-leaf-shaped earrings.

This idea that I don’t belong in that family is now, you know, completely over…

And her little front garden was full of little fall stuff that she’d bought at the Family Dollar — which is another thing that I totally and completely do!

Anyway. She said: “I was so nervous about you coming here. I was so stressed out. I’ve been cleaning all morning.”

This was the first time I’d actually seen her apartment. She’s only been there a few years. (She lived forever and ever in a farm house in Jackson, Ohio.) And it was not only absolutely adorable, but the way she had it decorated, it was like walking into a tiny version of my own house.

Oh, also, I had brought $50 to give to her and I kept stressing about that, too. Should I give her money? Is that weird? Will she be offended? But after my brother had gone out, I gave her the $50 and I said, “Here, I just wanted you to have this. I didn’t want to give this to you around Ronnie, because I don’t want him to spend it.”

And, gang, she practically cried. She said, “Thank you so much. “

I was so glad I had brought her that money.

She and my girlfriend and I went out for lunch and the food was fantastic. And we just had the best time. And it was right across from the old (and beautiful) high school :

Both my mom and my birth dad attended this high school, even though both of them dropped out and did not graduate.

But being in that town felt like a part of me was “home” and I remember feeling that same feeling when I used to go there back in the late 80s.

It was just a beautiful feeling. And I felt like my birth dad was there in spirit with us.

Well, the trip was short, but the drive back here was just stunning. We took a different route, wherein I also got to pass by my old alma mater — Ohio Christian University, where I studied for the ministry about 10 years ago. Wow, are they taking great care of that place, too:

And after I got back home, my mom called me to make sure we’d gotten back okay. And she started to cry a little and she said, “I was so stressed about you two coming here to this tiny apartment, but I had such a nice time. I am so happy you came. I just wish I could walk out my door and walk right over to your house and walk inside.”

That made me feel incredible, gang.

And right before I left her house, she surprised me by giving me a really lovely framed Thomas Kincaid print– of a church in the spring. She had originally given it to my grandmother as a gift, but took it back after my grandmother died:

This is the print — with a really beautiful frame

I was blown away! It is so pretty. And the fact that she wanted me to have it, instead of her other daughters or her granddaughters or her great-granddaughters… it just meant so much to me.

It’s now hanging in my kitchen because I wanted to look at it all the time. And now every time I go into my kitchen and see it, I just smile.

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Well, sorry this is so long! But it is safe to say that I no longer feel like I don’t belong in that family.

Okay. So.

Enjoy your Monday, wherever you are in the world!

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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I leave you with this!

Breakfast-listening music. Another one from Mojo, 2010. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ “Good Enough”.

Enjoy, gang.