It has been more than a year since I left Florida, my birth place and where I have always gone back to.
I don't think I would have kept going back except that my Mother was there and later it was that my children were growing up there.
My Son has since left to go to college and then to start a family. My Daughter has done the same things, but she did them in Florida. I thought that by living between them I would be able to go and visit them and still be here to help Rachel (Mom2) when she needed me, but that just hasn't happened. You know what they say about the best laid plans of Mice and Men?
Well it happens that the help she needed she wont take or follow the Dr.'s orders either and I AM NOT a maid. I will not wait on a person that is able to do for themselves, but doesn't want to. Nor am I willing to watch her waist away because she refuses to get any dang blasted exercise! Can you tell how frustrated I am? No matter how much you love a person, there comes a time when you aren't helping, you are enabling.
Well, I think it's time for me to go home. I hate the heat, mostly because my Tank, I mean truck, has no air conditioning and secondly, there are no real seasons. Every year I miss the changing of the leaves. Spring is really green there and the winters, in recent years, have been pretty cold too, 17 degrees once, but there is virtually no fall foliage to speak of. Having lived in so many places in my life, the one thing that always pulled me away was the seasons and I really love snow. Some times I think that's because I've never had to get to work in it, but that's not true either. I believe in keeping a pantry, and rotating it too. So if you do get snowed in with heat, you can still have food and be happy. It gives you time to read, or knit or even clean. Twenty five years ago I got snowed in, while living in this very neighborhood. Funny, it was January, I'm sure because I watched the Super Bowl. Yes, I am one of those few females that actually loves football, I've even been known to use bad language and yell when the Bucs where making a mess of things, lol. That year I was only one of two that made it to work anyway, so then I stayed home for probably the rest of the week. I got cabin fever so I walked to the corner mart, it's still here, and bought beer, I drank it back then, for watching the game with. My now 28 yr old son was 3. We had fun in that stuff and then a couple years later, literally, we where in Germany where he and his Dad, the one I'm widowed from, made a snowman. Lord it was magical! My daughter was born there too, and I lost their father there too.
I think what I really love the most is to travel. I've said many times that I love to "go", but need to have a good home base. I am also a good daughter, weather I want to be or not. When I'm needed and I can get there, I'll go, but this is wearing me down and it's time again.
Another part of it is also that I can't seem to get a decent paying job. I know for a fact that I am able and skilled, my tests prove it every time. I think the real problem is the recession and even though the law says that we can't discriminate it happens, daily. One of the services I was asked to come in and meet the agent at said that, that was true. I told her that since it was a distance to drive, that if my wearing a scarf was going to make a difference, I'd just as well save the gas if it was all the same to her. Lol, she was very friendly even in person and she agreed that it does happen, but not in her office. I got the feeling, you'd be out of a job if you had a problem.
Of course, then I got a terrible head cold that wouldn't have mattered except that I had pretty much lost my voice by that Monday and we'd met on a Friday just before I went to the Mosque. That ment that the job she wanted me for was out, because one must have a voice to be a switchboard operator :p Back to square one.
My pick up needs seals and it's $300, which isn't bad, but you have to have the extra $300 above and beyond your bills, which a job would give me in a week or even two.
Anyway, ramble, ramble....so once I can earn some extra money, I'll give it to the mechanic, one I actually trust, and then I have a place to go when I get home. Then it'll be a matter of getting a job there, even part time so I can qualify for a place of my own again. At least now I know I can do it on my own.
In Tampa the Islamic community is much bigger and friendlier too. I have friends there that would help me by giving me work or telling others that I need it. That has been one of the hardest things here and even in North Carolina too. The Islamic communities were so small that they were disconnected from each other. Here there are so few females that cover, we don't know each other on sight so we don't know if there are Muslims in the neighborhood or not.
Wow, I guess I needed to get it out, ha? Well time to pray and get some stuff done.
Kathleen
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