The humidifier is running in Michael’s room and I am sitting here, listening to both it and his cries. His cries and his coughs.

Damn.

Here we go again.

We have an appointment…a “meet and greet”…with a new family doctor in Middle Town, about an hour away from Janet Land. A new family doctor that I truly believe will bridge the gap between the staff at the children’s hospital and me. A new family doctor that I truly believe will step up to the plate and start on the road of treatment for Michael. I truly believe that with this doctor’s help, Michael will finally start receiving the regular medical attention that he needs.

I am fortunate…so fortunate…to have been tipped off by MellowDee about this doctor who is accepting new patients AND provides a decent level of care to his patients. I’m not sure that she has any idea what this information meant not only to me, but to Michael, as well.

Just smile and say thank you….

Thank you.

And yet, this road is not the route I would have predicted for Michael and I. Dr. Abu Dieh is an hour away (hey! That rhymes!). The children’s hospital is about two hours away. M and the Weirdo are mere minutes away.

And here I am, selfishly dreaming of moving hundreds of miles away.

Rock might be right.

All of the people who care for us are right here, in close vicinity. He can’t leave.

I can’t leave.

I haven’t blogged about Rock and I in a while and I’m sure that I’ve left some of you guessing, yet again.

“What are the living situations? Are they really separating? Was he there for the American Boy’s visit?”

I’ve left Rock out of my posts, quite on purpose because I don’t know what to say. Don’t know what to share with you. I sometimes feel as though all of you are like mine and Don’s personal cheer leaders, rooting us on from the sidelines, giving us hope and support and allowing both of us the freedom to be honest. I don’t want to taint you. I don’t want to lose that spirit.

But the truth is that I’m a natural born fuck up.

Rock is still here. He’s holding Michael in the feeding chair in the living room right now as I tap, tap, tap.

The living situation hasn’t really changed. We are still co-habitating. There is just this odd, silent tension in the house now. Sometimes it explodes, on his part, into something more. Something nasty. Something hurtful.

And I remind myself that he is hurting. And that’s just the way that it comes out.

Sometimes he has an odd grin on his face. A weird smile, like he has some silent, private secret inside of his brain. Something to be excited for. Something to be happy for. He won’t share it and I’ve stopped wondering.

He spent the Friday night…Good Friday…my birthday…the arrival of the American Boy….with a friend of his named Chrissy. He stayed over night and he tells me over and over again that nothing happened. He tells me over and over again even though I long ago stopped asking and stopped caring. I was hoping he’d get laid that night. I was hoping that he’d get a piece of ass so that he could do two things.

One: Stop feeling jealous and start feeling desirable. Get an ego stroke, if nothing else.

And two: Leave me alone.

The secret, silent smile tells me that he got at least a bit of an ego stroke. It tells me that he at least has found someone he can talk to and confide in a bit. It tells me that he’s able to let loose a bit in her presence.

But the nastiness tells me that he’s not ready to leave me alone.

And the only times I’ve ever put up a fight….well, they didn’t end very well. Let’s just leave it at that.

This is what I was scared of.

Because I’m a natural born fuck up.

Everyone I touch, I end up hurting in one way or another. Everyone I love, I end up hurting in one way or another.

Rock is hurting.

So, while he won’t actually leave this house permanently, he will leave again next weekend.

So, that’s the update on the Janet and Rock situation.

Natural born fuck up.

I went back to work on Friday night. It was shockingly easy. Painless, really. I’m tired tonight after three shifts in a row….a little bit to get used to all at once. And it was busy today. Very, very busy. Spring is coming and everyone needs a new wardrobe.

I don’t sit down at work. I thought of all of you bloggers out there who post while you’re working and I have to tell you…I’m jealous.

My whole job is standing in one spot OR walking around and around and around in one area for hours on end. I’m embarrassed that my legs are a bit achey tonight.

But the physical demands of my job were not what contributed to the natural born fuck up realization.

I walked back into my old life on Friday. I quite easily became the person that I used to be and I kinda liked it. It felt comforting in an odd way. To be in charge once again, despite the warnings that I had lost any clout by reducing my shifts so drastically. To know what to do and when to do it when everyone else is running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. To feel in control.

Doesn’t take a deep thinker to figure out why being in control over something right now feels pretty fucking good.

Standing in the middle of department five, ladies wear, this afternoon, I thought, “I can DO this! I can erase the last year and make it history. I can erase the person I’ve become and I can fall back into my role…fall back into that old Janet….I can pretend…”

Pretend for the rest of my life.

I have enough, you know? Enough on my plate. And I can hear my mother’s voice in my head right now telling me that I need to focus on my husband and on my children. Now is not a time to be selfish. Now is not the time to care about anyone else. I don’t have room in my life for any of that.

And maybe she’s right.

I have fucked up at pretty much everything I’ve set out to do since I was a little girl. I have made such huge mistakes, they’re glaring in the light of hindsight. I have made every wrong turn imaginable and have ended up in the last place I ever thought possible.

A natural born fuck up deserves nothing more than fucked up-ness.

I vowed to never have this happen. Once I was married and had a family, everything would be set into place. The wheels of Operation Re-Create Janet would be in motion. And I could fool them all. Trick them all into believing that the life I had was real. Was worth something. That I had FINALLY done something right.

But I fucked up.

Again.