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Beautiful Boy

My darling son 36 years old went asleep forever on November 18th from melanoma and I just cant cope wit the loss. He was the light of my life and always had a smile for everyone, especially his “mumma” as he called me. I don’t know how to carry on. Maybe someone on here has experienced the same loss and might be able to help. I just cry all day six weeks on. I miss him so much. He was a beautiful son, husband and brother.

Christmas Miracles & Other Assorted Acts of Baby Jesus

In an effort to distract myself from the horrible sadness that always falls upon me right about…NOW… every Christmas, I decided to check the sites that refer other people to my blog. It’s not something I really pay attention to very much because, well, obviously it’s kind of boring. But occasionally, it’ll lead me to some rad blogs I didn’t know existed.

Today, though, it lead me somewhere else.

Back to my very own about.me page.

You don’t know what an about.me page is? Me either. Not really. But I saw someone on The Twitter talking about it a couple of months ago and I was all IMMA GET ME AN ABOUT.ME PAGE, YO to my mirrored reflection. I didn’t know what it was then (it was in beta, which I think means “super awesome”) and I had to wait until this week to be told, “your about.me page is ready, yo.”

Then, I was all, I GOT AN ABOUT.ME PAGE, YO, and everyone was all, what the hell is an about.me page, Aunt Becky? And I was all, *shrugs* I don’t read fine print. I thought I’d figure it out when I got there. Which is my motto for life.

About.me was all, look at these other deep/meaningful profiles to help you make yours, Aunt Becky, except they weren’t like actually talking to me because that would be awkward. So I did, because obviously, and I was all, UGH, really? Because I am anything BUT deep/meaningful. And frankly, if you want someone to click on your profile, you should probably put something fucking INTERESTING on it. Calling yourself a “social media anything” is decidedly not interesting.

Just saying.

Because I take myself very seriously, this is what I came up with (my clickable about.me profile)

I think you can click to enlarge. If you can’t, CLICK THE LINK and it’ll take you to my actual about.me page.

Anyway, it’s clearly not something you should ever take seriously.

So I signed up and mostly forgot about it. I’ve been excruciatingly busy this week (year) and really, I couldn’t figure out what to do with it beyond open it and laugh.

Upon checking my referrals, though, I noticed something FRIGHTENING. About.me had more referrals to my blog than “John C. Mayer,” “sweater kittens,” “boring things,” and “sweater boobs,” COMBINED. I swear to you, Pranksters, I haven’t laughed that hard in weeks. Somehow, people are landing on my about.me and finding their way here.

Sometimes, I really, really love the Internet.

Merry Christmas, Pranksters. From my about.me page.

And this guy:

And who could forget this lovable chap?

Why, it’s Mr. Sprinkles, my fake dead cat! That charming scamp! That lovable lout!

And speaking of charming:

Alex and his Cupcake shirt, FOR THE WIN!

Benner and his picture smile.

And my daughter, Amelia, who has reminded me that even in the darkest darkness, there is always light.

Merry, Merry Christmas, Pranksters.

My Struggle With Sexual Assault

It was October 3rd. I was starting my university life, meeting new people and finding new experiences. I felt like I was finally free from all my problems in the past, and that this was my chance to start over.

I went to a party at the beach, and I just wanted to feel like a normal teenager who hadn’t gone through all the issues I had already gone through so early in life. See, when I was 7 my brother sexually abused me and made me think that playing doctor was something every brother and sister did. This carried on for 3 years, and finally when I turned 15, I told my parents. I was confronted with how I was lying, and how “their son could never do something like that”. I felt pushed aside and worthless. I kept that secret with me for 9 years and I was trying to heal from what happened to me.

Being at that beach led to me drinking, which is something I never did as I grew up with a mother who struggled with heavy substance abuse, who is now skin and bones. I saw this beautiful brown haired boy who i thought would be interested in me, but in the end I woke up in the beach alley, naked with my clothes around me. I had said no, I was drunk, I had no control yet I blame myself for freezing and letting it happen, after I swore to myself I would never let It happen to me again. I thought I was stronger than that, but I failed myself again.

I held that in and only told my closest friend, but the day after I couldn’t move out of bed. I tried to bypass the struggle with myself and act like I was okay, because I went through it before yet I was at fault. I couldn’t keep myself together and when I told my parents, I was met with the reaction of “you shouldn’t have been drinking”. These 5 little words made me feel worthless and deserving of the pain because I decided to make the mistake of drinking too much.

I’m 18, and I wonder why I have to go through all this struggle when I want a normal life. I keep trying to feel something but a part of me has been lost since that night and its not coming back. But all I can do now is try to heal from what was taken from me.

 

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I’m Glad She’s Dead

I said it and I meant it.

And take heart, this isn’t one of those “She was in so much pain–” (she was) “– and now her suffering’s ended!” kind of stories, (even though the suffering’s ended, but more on my end) or “It was her time,” “God has a plan”, “It was meant to be,” or any of the other ridiculous platitudes that etiquette has taught us to say when someone is in pain.

By the by, all of those last few statements are damaging. They’re not even worthless, they’re Express Delivery Pain, and they wreck a person who is grieving. Better to say nothing when you don’t know what to say. Moving on.

Naomi was an artiste.

She participated in yoga, dance, performance arts, stage combat and renaissance festivals. Naomi practiced with a few religions and philosophies, loved to read and visit museums. She had a very exotic look (she was born in Russia, and her heritage is of Rom descent), and her tattoos were beautiful. I loved how delicate her skin was, and how her hair shone in the sun. She always managed to look glamorous, no matter what she was doing. Her face was the embodiment of Resting Bitch Face.

Only a few years older than me, but she had some mileage on her. As a teen addict and rape survivor, she’d managed to gain herself a steady income, decent living arrangement, clean and sober (apart from cigarettes; cloves, especially, were her vice). She was very ‘jaded’, as one might say (if one doesn’t have more depth than a teacup).  Naomi was ever so much more than jaded; she was downright grisly. She was overripe with experience. Her font of knowledge was brackish water from a sewer system. Naomi had truly seen the underbelly of American Life as a runaway, and it stayed with her.

And yet we became friends. Fast friends, actually. I was only just twenty-ish when Naomi steamrolled her way into my world via social media. We talked for hours sometimes, and both of us liked to draw Tarot for the other. It became a regular thing for me to travel out to the East Coast to see her. I was the maid of honor at her wedding, and her ex-husband (they divorced shortly after, but remained friends) still keeps in contact with me. I met several of her friends, two of whom I have also now flown out to see, separately from Naomi, although we would send selfies to her.

The thing to keep in mind, though, is that over the years, Naomi never put away That Habit that some broken youths just can’t kick: the need for drama.

It makes you feel significant. You feel like you’re at the center of a play that’s only interesting if you’re speaking or being pandered to. When there’s drama, you feel important and like your life is far more tragic, amazing, complicated, full of hardship or whatever else is on the agenda for the day. Cultivating drama and seeking it out in what would otherwise be considered (by many, not just me) very normal, everyday encounters– that’s an addiction for some kids that have fucked-up backgrounds.

I should know. I am one.

Naomi was the kind of person that, if I was sound asleep in the spare bedroom, she would come into my space unannounced, and flump onto the mattress beside me and sigh. LOUDLY. I fell for it the first couple of times, but after she complained that an author friend of ours (who’d allowed us to stay at his home while we were visiting the township together) hadn’t made a move on her, even though she promised to fulfill his every wish, I’d had enough. I needed sleep. So I pretended to stay asleep. She bounced a little more, took off her shoes and said, “I just need to sleep in here tonight.” I made a quiet noise and turned over. “But I guess you’re asleep and not up for talking, huh?” Naomi said this at normal volume, full of petulance. With another anguished sigh, she picked up her boots and stomped to the couch.

One of the many things we talked about, as the best of friends, was nutrition and dietary specifications. We liked to experiment with replacing ingredients to either cut carbs, help out with digestions, etc. Herbs and supplements were never far from our mind to reach for, rather than a bottle of Aleve. We’re not hippies (hippies don’t hate the way we do), but we try to listen to our bodies and respond to small cues. We exhaust other avenues before seeking out a doctor.

She’d had a hard time kicking a bout of thrush, and had had no real success with a limited-ingredient diet. One morning, she called and said, “Uh… my skin is orange?” and I knew, immediately, that she was extremely ill. “Go to the hospital,” I breathed out, “and call me once you’re there.”

Naomi had a very rare form of neuroendocrinal cancer. It essentially starts in your brain and blooms into a tumor in a random part of the body. And the cancer was choking her pancreas. The mass was inoperable, but it responded to radiation, and we hoped to direct the radiation to shrink the mass away from this badly-needed organ just enough to allow for a surgeon to cut away the cancer. Instead, it started to shrink right where it was, and after a shunt was implanted to allow her pancreas to work, Naomi’s body threaded a new artery *through* the tumor, and several other veins as well, so the pancreas could still receive blood flow and remain intact and functional. It was almost as if her body wanted to hang onto the mass, regardless of malignancy.

Once the tumor measured at about the size of a tennis ball, they began chemotherapy. I would fly down to be with her during the week at the suites, and we would lounge with the television for hours together. I’d make her curry, she’d help me craft mocktails, it’d be a nice time. But every single time I visited, she and her husband were fighting. Once, in the middle of a dinner with another friend at the beach, she called me to say that they were getting divorced and she needed me to take my things and go to a hotel. But by the time I arrived home, they were quietly ignoring each other and behaved normally with me. Everything was apparently fine. They divorced shortly thereafter.

When it came time for the annual oncology review, the tumor was still present in the same position, but it also wasn’t getting bigger. As most of her organs were functioning perfectly fine in spite of the tumor, she was cleared to move up the coast to Brooklyn. She invited me to her parents’ house in the country, but I declined. I had just become pregnant with my daughter, and I didn’t want to travel. Naomi said she understood, but there was an edge to her voice.

Within a few months, I can tell you what the vast majority of our conversations were about:

-NYC is filthy
-her roommate is awful
-there are no pretty, single goth boys
-cancer is stupid
-practicing Santeria
-hating her bosses
-hating her job
-hating her new roommate
-hating how she has to beg for attention from a guy she’s dating x6
-hating that nobody is nice to her
-hating the new job
-hating the other roommate, but only slightly less than the newer one, and never saying a thing about it to either of them

There was a notable shift in who she was as a person, and how she interacted with me, after I became pregnant. Perhaps it was because I was no longer available and had had her linked with my Emergency Contacts so my phone would always ring if Naomi called me. At some point, I broke my phone and never set up the Always Ring contacts in the new one. This lead to many impatient messages on the morning after, increasing in resentment the longer it took me to respond.

When my darling baby was born, cheerful and healthy, Naomi asked to be called the witchy godmother, and cooed at my wobbly infant. She sent me pastries from her favorite Jewish bakery, and shipped blankets with chewy spots for the baby. One day she told me that she felt much more attached and close to me and my child than she did her own sister and nephew.

Therein lays our friendship, at its core. We admired and adored the other from a distance, and shared intimate details of our love lives and inner feelings. I had been friends with Naomi for so long, when it became more one-sided, I chalked it up to the cancer and let it go. But I realized that it was just who she was as a person. She would always be the victim, the one who has it worse, who hurts more, who feels things so deeply no one could possibly understand what she’s going through. I began to avoid her questions of, “Do you have time to talk?” and only respond later when I could be more attentive, but by then, the moment (and the drama) had passed.

Finally, when my daughter was 4 months old and I was at the peak of my exhaustion and postpartum depression, Naomi’s gall bladder turned septic and she had to have an emergency surgeon to remove it. I knew she’d been at the hospital for about a week, and her boyfriend was making updates as best he could, but if I’d ever felt the energy to start texting or talking to anyone– not just Naomi– I would always stop before the first sentence left my fingertips. I wouldn’t have time for a conversation, or the energy to listen. I was pretty broken, and my gurgly baby was delightful and adorable and easy to handle but… postpartum depression is a monster. Perhaps I was wrong to think our friendship could survive a month without contact. Maybe I should’ve just sent the one or two-sentence text messages, just to let Naomi know that I was thinking about her.

But I didn’t. And for the better part of 6 weeks, neither of us reached out to the other.

And then she messaged me one day out the blue, opening with, “I am upset and I need to tell you what I’m feeling.” So I settled into Best Friend Mode and prepared myself for an hour or two of new/old complaints with minimal commentary on my part. But I was not prepared for what happened next.

She was pissed. Naomi was so angry at me.

“I almost died!!” she raged, “and you couldn’t even pick up the phone! But I’m just expected to remember every stupid detail about your kid!” and that’s about when she lost me. I’d heard about other people saying crazy things when their cancer gets to late-stage terminality, but I had also become (unfortunately) too experienced with people fighting cancer and then dying. And I don’t find this to be true.

My kid had nothing to do with this fight we were about to have. I tried my best to shelve the comment and look for what was underneath: she was in pain, she had no way of expressing it beyond rage and lashing out. I tried to commit to this conversation with everything I had, and I am still grateful that my kid was napping at that precise moment in history.

I listened and took in all of her words. I filtered out some of the hate and attacking phrases, and sent back a heartfelt apology, with a promise to do better in the future and to at least keep Naomi abreast of where I was emotionally. I apologized again, and said that I would understand if she needed to stay mad at me for a while, but I just needed to say the words “I’m sorry” first.

I’m not sure how everyone else on the planet receives apologies, but for me, all I want to hear is:

-acknowledge the pain that was caused, without excuse
-empathize as to how this could have affected you, were the tables turned
-admit fault, apologize sincerely
-have a plan for what to do differently next time (and/or how you intend to make it up)

Pretty sure I’d checked off all those boxes in my reply, but apparently, that’s not how Naomi liked her mea culpas, especially without a genuflection. I had ended my letter with love, but she instantly shot back, “Spare me diplomatic bullshit.”
I bristled, but was more hurt that she thought me insincere.

“I can see you are still very angry,” I responded, “so I’ll leave you be for now.” I was trying to just give her space to be angry without being more hurtful to me, and I thought I had conveyed that it wasn’t in my intention to block her out or turn away from her. I hoped my words had been received with love on some wavelength. That’s not what happened.

“I’ll leave you be for now.”
“what else is new”

That was over a year ago, in May of 2019. A lot has happened in the last 18 months.

Last week, I discovered that Naomi had been found dead in her bedroom by her parents. The cancer had progressed, she had had another emergency surgery, and she succumbed within a month. Her fight was finally over. Our mutual friends were sharing stories and crying over the loss of such a beautiful person, and what must I be feeling, as the very best friend of olde?

Well.. I felt relieved. I felt a tremendous weight fall away from my body.

Ah, yes, yes, I’m a horrible person, I know. Luckily, I also don’t care what anybody else thinks.

Was it surprising? Yes, of course. I hadn’t been in contact with Naomi for over a year.

Was *I* personally surprised? No, not at all.

Part of being the Best Friend meant helping her plan her will, her final wishes for rites and burial, for palliative care and, in case the worst of it came to pass, her plan for suicide. I had promised to assist. More than once, she used the phrase, “I don’t want to live like this anymore,” and I would comfort her as best I could, without asking if she was ready to die. One day, she told me she was ready, because the pain had become too much. I asked her to give me a day to get my affairs in order, and I’d get on the plane to NYC. By the end of the night, she’d messaged to say not to bother coming out, that she was fine.

When I found out Naomi was dead, I felt a deep pain in my heart for the relationship that we had shared. For the actual friendship, the late night talks, snuggling with her dogs, sharing costumes and garb for holidays and vacations. We loved each other, truly. But not everything is made to last forever.

As I scrolled through the memorials and testimonies that people were contributing in her honor, I felt mildly amused, thinking, “I doubt Naomi ever told these people the things she told me.” And it hit me– I’m glad she’s dead.

No more drama.
No more unnecessary calls.
No more seeking out the worst-case scenario and *betting on it*, in every situation.
No more shrieking, no more “Okay, but just five more minutes–” stretching into an hour every time.
No more pity party the size of Houston.
No more of any of it.

As it would have fallen to me, eventually, to untangle and sort through the mess of feelings she’d stirred together and dumped on me in that final conversation, and try to make sense of our friendship going forward, it still wouldn’t have been enough. Naomi always needed grandiose gestures to make her believe that a person was being honest and truthful. And I have never been the person to do that.

It would’ve been my job to fix that mess, because that’s the way it had always been. Helping her to see another’s perspective, and not assuming the worst intention of her lovers. Reminding her to breathe before she speaks, and never say the first thing that comes to mind. These are behaviors that every grown adult must learn to master for themselves, so they can be contributing members of society.

I was 35 years old before I realized that Naomi was completely dependent on me. I had never realized that our friendship had taken that turn, but looking back, it was so obvious.

I’m so very grateful that she is no longer suffering from migraines, nausea, aching all over and weariness. I am happy that Naomi has passed. Her body was terrible to her. But the emotional hellscape in which she lived, every single day, was the real demon, not the cancer. And it was largely her own doing, because she could never back away from being the center of attention. She had to repeat everything she heard or suspected about a person. There was no irritation too small that she couldn’t launch a full-scale critical review, complete with scathing commentary. If nobody had told Naomi that she was pretty at least once a week, she would post a new selfie with a comment: “felt cute might delete later” and then praise every person who complimented her. The reason I know she did this intentionally is because she told me.

I’m glad she is dead. I am relieved that my friend has died. I am happier because she’s dead; a tremendous burden has been lifted from me.

I don’t even know what her family intends to do with Naomi’s remains, but I’m not going to call them and ask, or insist on carrying out her final wishes. That was a promise I made to a friend. The woman who called me names and vilified me at my lowest point is not my friend.

I’m not obligated to fulfill anything on her behalf. I’ll never have to unravel another one of her messes ever again. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m glad she’s dead.

 

Post Script: if this kind of thing truly makes your insides twist, I am pleased that there are still people out there who have only experienced wholesome relationships that are full of goodwill and reciprocity. But since finding my voice about this and learning to say how I feel without needing to justify it, it has been made clear to me that many, many other people feel this way about now-deceased people from their pasts, and for far worse reasons than the ones I claim against Naomi. So to those people who’ve only experienced equitable relationships, I salute you. For everyone else, go ahead and say it out loud. I give you permission to say “I’m glad they’re dead,” and then reflect on any good times you may have shared, or at least share why it is that you are glad they’re gone. It has given me tremendous closure. Maybe your family or mutual friends don’t or won’t understand, but that’s okay.

You can say it to me, here, or you can write about it on your own, or you can tell it to The Band. We are here for you. But either way, go ahead and say it, see if it helps free you the way it did for me.

 

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A Little Hope

Hey Band,

I saw a request for hopeful stories a while back and thought I could write a post. I’m in a pretty good spot lately. Holidays can be dicey for me emotionally, but I’ve largely reclaimed them and have enjoyed them in my own way the last several years. When I was a teen that was not the case.

My parents & step parents had all had their own issues, and holidays were not a joyful experience for many years. There was fighting, too much drinking, domestic violence, emotional abuse and lots of crap. So I really did not look forward to them at all. My stepfather had narcissistic personality disorder and when I was around, I was often the scapegoat. There was a lot of pressure to do things exactly “right” and that just didn’t go well for me (not that walking on eggshells goes well for anyone).

When things got really bad, my mom and I would go to a double feature at the movie theater & hope that he had calmed down by the time we got back home. My dad was often in manic episodes or hospitalized during the holidays and he spent a few years in prison, so, while he was by nature a very kind person, he just wasn’t there for me during those years.

Holidays got a lot better for me once I moved out on my own. I have tried really hard to make my home a safe, stable, and peaceful place to be. I’ve been through some bouts of depression, some great therapy, and many hard years of figuring out how I feel about stuff and how to set boundaries with my family. For me, things got a lot better when I decided to no longer have a relationship with my stepfather. There was a lot of guilt and hard feelings involved, and years of pressure from my mom, but I knew this was the right decision for me. I had an awesome therapist to help me see the guilt trips and gaslighting. Unfortunately, my decision made it hard to maintain a relationship with my mom. Some family members just thought I was making a big deal out of nothing (for the record, they never lived with him).

There were about five years when my relationship with my mom consisted of very brief meetings at restaurants after several hours’ drive and her trying to bully me into seeing him, saying he had changed and was doing better. I’d say I was happy for him but that I still did not want to see him. Part of me would have loved to reconcile, but a wiser part of me knew that he would never be able to change enough for me to have a healthy relationship with him. After 20 years of second chances, my heart could not take any more manipulation.

We did not talk on holidays, and sometimes she just wouldn’t show up at all and wouldn’t answer her phone. There was a time that I didn’t see her for two years and we don’t live that far apart. I understood that she was in a very challenging relationship, but I still felt rejected and heartbroken. My life was moving forward, but each time a new milestone passed, I felt that rejection come right back in. During this time I stumbled across Band Back Together, and I drew so much support from the posts and resources here.

These days, my relationship with my mom is in much better shape. My stepfather passed away almost three years ago. I am not saying that is a good thing, because I would never wish him or anyone harm, that is just what happened.  It has been very hard on my mom, who is aging and now lives alone, but the silver lining for me is that I get to have a relationship with her again.

There are still lots of difficult feelings there, but she acknowledges that the way he treated me was not okay and he didn’t start to get his shit together at all until I was at least 30. I try not to talk about him.

Now she takes time to visit me (and other family members), and she isn’t worried that he is going to blow up on her for spending time with other people. We are still cautious about holidays. We’ve tried two Thanksgivings together and they went well. We may not be picture perfect, but we do enjoy each other’s company. I’m almost 40 and I still feel like I’m constantly working on boundaries. I still have challenges with anxiety/depression. Sometimes life makes me want to crawl into a blanket cave for a week.

I love that being an adult, I can choose how and who I will spend a holiday with. I am genuinely grateful for the opportunity to have a relationship with my mom. This one thing is going well and I am grateful for it.

 

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I’m Blue…

I am depressed. Very depressed. So depressed that I would like nothing more than to stay in bed all day drifting in and out of sleep.  Thoughts of suicide have flitted across my mind. But don’t worry, I am in no danger of staying in bed all day or committing suicide. I have children – two little boys that I love very much.

My children are the reason I get out of bed every morning. They are the reason that I will never commit suicide. I get up partly because I have to go to work, that place that sucks forty hours from me every week and ensures that I can support my children. The other reason that I get up is because I usually have a small (almost three!) child yelling for me to do so. He’s rather hard to ignore.

The reason I will never commit suicide (other than my dislike of knives, guns, ropes, and overdosing on meds) is that I want to watch my boys grow up. I want to see what kind of men they will become, the people with whom they will fall in love, what kind of babies they will have. I also realize that the only person that suicide “helps” is the person who committed it. Everybody that cared about that person is affected. I don’t want my little boys to grow up without a mom.

So, I’m not going to stay in bed all day, and I’m not going to commit suicide. I’m glad we covered that. So how else could my depression manifest itself? Cutting? Nah – I don’t like pain or blood. Anorexia? Nope, unless giving up all food but cheesecake and chocolate counts, and then I might reconsider… Bulimia? I can’t make myself throw up, but tequila helps (please know that I believe eating disorders are very serious, and am in no way making light of eating disorders or people who have them, I’m just trying to explain why I would not go down that path). And speaking of tequila, what about becoming an alcoholic? I have enough liquor in the house (I think my husband is trying to tell me something). While I have gone out drinking due to depression in the past, I was young and single. I didn’t have children who needed me sober. So that’s out, too.

So what do I do, other than just be depressed all the time? Well, I’m very irritable, I’m tired all the time, I lack motivation to do things I used to enjoy. I want to spend all my free time clicking mindlessly on Facebook (hey, my frontier/city/cafe/island/farm/mafia are all extremely important, they need me). I have stacks of magazines and books I haven’t read. I’ve gained weight. I’m uninterested in sex. I get headaches a lot (including two migraines so far, which are a new development).

I’m exercising and counting calories. I’m depressed that despite my hard work, the scale isn’t really budging. I’m on medication, which I don’t think is working. I see a therapist every other week but I haven’t really delved into my issues, and instead focus on my relationship with my oldest son (which is material for at least a few posts).

Nothing seems to be working. I’m depressed and it isn’t getting any better. There’s nothing in my life that is really a cause for my depression. My marriage is fine, my children are healthy and smart and beautiful, I have a good job, a nice house. So why, why am I so unhappy?

It could be the fact that it’s hereditary (special shout out to my parents). It could be the fact that it’s winter, and a lot of people get depressed this time of year. It could be that despite nothing being really “wrong” or “bad” in my life, nothing is really great, either. The one bright spot is my youngest son, who is totally a mama’s boy, and his hugs and kisses and love is often the only highlight of my day.

I’m so tired of being depressed. I want to be happy.

 

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