Halloween, and other scary things this week

First off, go check out the new post at the Froggy Blog to read about Sweet'ums' latest... umm... adventure. :) Trust me, it's worth it.

We're having a rough time. We just got over having car problems and now it's looking like Nice Guy's granny won't make it through the weekend. We've known for a long time now (2 years or so) that this was coming but this will be the first grandparent he's lost. It's hard on him and he's trying to keep it together for his sisters and his cousins. Then Wednesday night he fell ill and hasn't shown much improvement. We don't know if it's food poisoning, stress, a bug, or something else. We're hoping tomorrow is better.

I'm also dealing with another round of anxiety. I'm not sure what exactly has triggered it, unless maybe it's a time-of-year thing for me. It seemed to start when a friend of mine posted something on Facebook that got to me but I don't know if I was already having issues and I just noticed it then, or if that actually started it. I'm tired, worried about everything, and everything feels like a fight. I'm about ready to talk to someone, if I can find a good doctor around here.

I've also been thinking a lot about my uncle. It's been almost a year that he's been gone, and I've managed to not think too much about it until now but it's starting to creep up on me. It has been an entire year since I saw him for the last time. I can't help but think of all the time wasted by hard feelings over his sexuality, of all things. Something that should have mattered only to him and his boyfriend but because the Bible tells us so it was taken as a personal affront. He was plagued by addiction and seemed troubled and conflicted about those lost years too. Now he's gone and not plagued by those things anymore, but I always will be. He will always be the first brick pulled from the wall of religion I put up as a kid. That wall blocked out anything the church or family considered to be "other". That wall blocked anything they deemed sinful. He made me pull out the first brick. Because of him I had to stop and evaluate how in the world we could separate loving the person from condoning a lifestyle. Thanks to him I learned that the world really is far more complex than the simple black-and-white that the folks at church want us to believe. And thanks to him, I was opened to the idea that maybe salvation and spirituality and a person's relationship with God might be much, much more personal and complex than the church wants us to believe. I've thought about it a lot the last day or two and I can't shake it out of my mind.

So yeah, it's been a long week. I'm really ready for a break. Sweet'ums will be staying with my mom this weekend so depending on how things go and what all happens with NG's granny you could be hearing from me again very, very soon.