I have this internet friend. She is going through a really difficult time because of a job situation with her husband. But she keeps on trying: she keeps helping him, she is sticking by him, and she does great by her daughter. She amazes me. She could look at the situation and give up, but she is so strong! She keeps on going.
I have a friend from highschool who is also going through a difficult time lately. Some of her hopes and dreams got dashed in very nasty fashion. She is essentially a single parent, and she has held it all together at a time when I’d sit on a couch with ice cream and cry for days on end. She holds it together for her daughter. She maintains a sense of humor, too. She doesn’t pity herself. She is going to recover from this blow and I am learning so much from her by witnessing how she is doing it.
I have a friend from my work days. She is at the end of her rope. She has some pretty self-destructive habits because she has never been sure of herself. Her ex-husband is trying to take her daughter away from her. Her habits are causing problems now with her current, very supportive husband. She needs to go to the hospital, I think, and is afraid to because of what it might do to the custody case. She did reach out, though, and I applaud her for that. I don’t know how or if she’ll get through this, but right now she is trying. I am so proud of her that she still tries, in the depth of dispair, to hang on.
I have a friend from law school who is completely self-supporting. She lost her job yesterday. But today, she’s in the library, writing her paper. I would be throwing up with fear and anxiety, but she made a plan. She acknowledges she is scared, but she takes action. I think she is the coolest, strongest 24 year old I’ve ever met.
Lastly, our household should have been quarantined this week. Starting about 10 days ago, GMan got very sick with the flu. About 3 days later, DTE was almost literally knocked down with it. (It was almost comical: he got up one morning, walked to the bathroom, turned around and fell into bed and didn’t get up again for 24 hours.) I managed to escape the illness, and went to work and school every day, my usual 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. day. My mom took Lucy to her house so she wouldn’t get infected, and so there was someone around to care for her. Lucy loved it – she had a hot breakfast made for her every morning, got a ride to school, a ride home, a snack after school, and a full meal for dinner every night. By Thursday I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I brought her home; I missed her so much! Now I’m in bed, but I think I only have a cold and not the flu. The point of this rambling paragraph, though, is to give a rare shout out to my mom. She just called me and said she was going to come over and pick up all of my laundry and do it for me. There is a ton of it – I am just too busy to do it and DTE was too sick. What a gross job, and what a wonderful mother.
