A Touch of Sadness

There is sadness in my heart at the moment.
And yet, so many good things have occurred.

My Great Uncle Pete (brother to my maternal grandfather) passed way on the 6th. He was the last of that part of that immediate family. It just seems like they all got knocked down rather swiftly this past year. And it just makes me realize how lucky Marley, Julie, and Ronni (my cousins) are…because they have all these extra years of memories made with their grandfather. My Pop died in 2001 – my first year at college.

I was supposed to work the 7th (Friday) and the 9th (Sunday), but called the Starbucks Store and told the shift manager on duty that I had a death in the family that I couldn’t work my Sunday shift – that’s when the funeral would be. Cory, the evening shift manager told me not to worry about it, and to go ahead and take Friday off as well. I asked him for the names and numbers of my coworkers that didn’t work those days so I could try to find someone to take my shifts. And he told me not to worry about it. He’d talk to Shands (our new, AWESOME store manager) and they would find a way to cover it. And then he told me to go be with my family. And this is a shift manager that I’ve never even worked with. Just shows you how incredibly awesome my coworkers are. THEY are the only reason I could tolerate the bullshit of working under Darrell for so long. They truly are the most amazing people on the planet.

So, seeing as how I had the long weekend off now....and Saturday was Lil Nephew’s first birthday party, and I was now available....I headed down to Houston for that.

Watching my brother with Lil Nephew chokes me up so much. He truly is such a natural and you can see just how enthralled he is with Lil Nephew. And I can’t help but compare it to what I remember of my own interactions with our dad. Did Randy ever look at us with that same adoration? There’s more I want to write there, but I just can’t delve too deeply into it right now. Headspace is going a little bit south and the Randy Territory is very dangerous territory.

I ended up opting out of going to Uncle Pete’s funeral. I can cite a thousand and one justifications for it. But in the end....I’m not quite ready to say good-bye to Uncle Pete. And when I do say good-bye, it will be on my terms and not in front of a crowd.

One forgets that I am the black sheep of the family. I am the Fallen One. Everyone else in my family is deeply religious, Pete’s even more so. Julie and her husband sing a lot of gospel music. Marley works for a large church in the area. And then there is me. The wild child, free spirited gypsy, a Goddess worshipper....one to converses with animals and Spirits galore. So yeah, the next time I am down in my lil hometown, I’ll make it a point to stop at the family cemetery and sit down, and have a long chat with Pete.

And it turns out it was a good thing I didn’t make that crazy all roadtrip all weekend long. I barely made it home before my car started acting up. Took it to the Honda Dealership – two of the sensors on my catalytic converter died…which made my car itself die about 6 blocks from the dealership. Got that fixed to the tune of $1300. It literally killed me to take that money out of my Polar Bear fund. I was a scant $505 away from my BIG goal of ending the year with $5k in savings. So having that BIG goal stolen like that has really taken the wind out of my sails. To reach that goal, I would have to put back $361 PER month (and that includes the month of August). And I know the August paychecks are tiny along with the first one in September, so I would really, really, REALLY have to buckle down to hit that goal.

It just sucks, because the $5k mark is the HALF WAY mark. At that point, I can say with full certainty that I am HALF WAY to my goal of seeing the polar bears in the wild.

Sometimes it’s the little defeats that hurt the most.

Oh, and to continue heaping on more car crap?
- I apparently will need new brakes by the end of the year ($680)
- the Honda Dealership said I needed new “braces” (whatever the fuck that means) and thus will need a new wheel alignment (another $680)…by the end of the year.

::sighs::

I am so ready for the school year to start back up so I can knock out a semester with the two jobs. I’ll get the car stuff squared away as best I can. And then I’ll resume my crazy saving to hit my $5k mark. At that point, I’ll put 10% of each paycheck into savings. The rest of the money will go towards aggressively paying off my last two credit cards.