It's been a busy week?

I don't know anything anymore.

Diva has been doing her shorter school day for about a week now. The special-needs bus brings her home around 1:00 in the afternoon. She hangs around, watches TV, sleeps in the afternoon. I have no gumption to encourage anything else. I don't know what to do with her anyway. If we talk too much we end up fighting, so I'm trying to stay out of her way.

This is fucked up. This is not how I envisioned my life with my adopted children. Things were going to be so much better than this. There have been lots of missteps along the way. I did what I thought was right for a long time, and of course I made mistakes. But at some point a few years ago (probably five years if I had to guess) the balance tipped. I am in over my head with these kids. I don't know what to do and have no confidence to try much of anything anyway.

I read over the past few posts about Diva. I really do sound like a rotten mother. I have a bad attitude, that's for sure.

Sproing has been in jail for three weeks now. Not sure when he'll go before the judge again, but it will probably be within another three weeks. Superman and I had a good visit with him Saturday. He turned 16 a couple of weeks ago and is itching to try for his drivers' license as soon as he gets sprung from juvie. Yeah, we'll see. Really, I don't know. I think there should be an easy answer, that he definitely should (or should not) get his license yet. But I don't know and haven't the mental/emotional fortitude to figure it out. Or to stick with a plan.

And Twitch is home again. I drove down to Charleston last Thursday to get him and all his stuff. He's here. And pretending to look for a job, but not very hard in my estimation. He wants to go to Cincinnati (I don't know where that came from) to get a job, but he has no money, no prospects, nothing to go on. I told him to get a job here, make some money, do a bunch of research and job searching online and when he's got enough cash to make the move and a job to go to, then he'll be ready to go. He's been moping and mumbling around here since Friday. He helped his dad gather firewood on Sunday, that was helpful.

C moved out over the weekend. Twitch is now in the room C and his friend shared. This is the third time, if I recall, that C has lived here then moved away. This time is the worst yet. "How do you mean, Java?" Well, we had to kick him out this time. The other two times he motivated himself to go and had an apartment to go to. Now he moved in with some other friends and the situation is not ideal. It's a fairly small house with way more people than fit comfortably. Of course that could be said about this place. Also, the other residents have three dogs and there's a 5-year-old kid there at least part of the time. C doesn't deal with children well, and he has little patience for dogs (less for cats, but that's another story). C is a cook at the local Shoney's restaurant and doesn't seem to have any further dreams. He almost graduated from college but quit with two classes to go. Or maybe it was one. I don't remember. It looks to me like his life is stuck in idle and no one is at the controls. The clutch operator went out for a smoke break and hasn't returned in a while.

But he's gone from here, so hopefully that will help him kickstart his life again. He was definitely too comfortable here.

So lots of changes in the past week. In all of these things I feel a degree of guilt. Other feelings, too, but definitely guilt. Maybe it's misplaced, maybe not. Doesn't matter. It's what I'm dealing with. And not dealing well, either. On the other hand, I haven't gotten drunk since my last post. I have been eating too much, though. I feel a lot of pain right now, and I'm looking to food for some feel-good. I had a small ice cream thing a couple of hours ago and now my stomach feels unsettled. It didn't taste good enough to make me feel happy, either, so now I'm just sorry I ate it at all. Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who can't eat when they're depressed, but really it's all bad, so whatever.

In happy news (the only happy news around here at all) Light had her Master of Fine Arts oral defense this morning. She passed! And her art show is this Saturday. She says everything is set up and looks good. Superman and Twitch will drive to western Pennsylvania on Thursday to spend the weekend with her, see her show, etc. I'm disappointed that I don't get to go, but Superman hasn't been to see her in nearly two years and I've been twice since then. I'll be here with Diva. Hopefully Sproing won't get out of jail until his dad gets back next Tuesday or Wednesday. So I'm happy as hell for Light, and glad that Superman and Twitch get to see her.

Today, that's all I got.