Pg 37 - My Life

It seems life is full of hills (good times) and valleys (bad times) as Jimmy puts it. He says if you don’t have
the valleys you really can’t appreciate the hills or the good times of your life.  We were starting this year 2004 in a valley. Jimmy had lost his job; he was very depressed and hard to get along with. It is hard enough to lose your job when you are young and your whole world is ahead of you, but at the age of fifty is tough. At this age we are branded and put out to pasture.  It seems that society thinks we are no longer capable of being useful. The big problem now was what we were going to do. Jimmy was not able to
look for a job in a different state. No one was calling him here in Arizona. We just bought this house and we couldn’t afford to lose it. We also had dad to worry about and how hard it would be trying to move him again.

I noticed a big change in Jimmy. The man who was always trying to be one step ahead, always micro managing his bakery, always providing for us, now had an I don’t care attitude. He didn’t want to get out of bed. He would watch TV all day long and eat. He did send out résumés but sometimes I wonder if he really tried to get a job like when he was younger. He didn’t seem to be on top of the game while he let this depression swallow him up. I would find us arguing a lot and just plain getting agitated with each other. My head would shout, not again, or why is this happening. I tried to help him but I felt like a failure because I couldn’t seem to do anything to cheer him up and sometimes, shameful to say, I would feel like giving up on him. Sometimes I wonder if this was harder to deal with than when he was having an affair. Marriage is so sacred but also one of the hardest jobs you will ever have. The give and take part is sometimes not evened out and it seems to me that I was always giving out a lot more. 

Life doesn’t stop, I still had to go  to work, take care of dad, and try to keep things as normal as possible for Regina and Adias.  I was working midnights at the ambulance company, and would take a short nap in the morning while dad and Jimmy had their coffee and than a couple hour nap before I went back to work.

Jenny was still in the Phoenix but not allowed to leave her unit.  This was hard to know that the year to be away from family didn’t start until she was deployed making her time away from her daughter even longer. This was especially hard on Adias not to be able to see her mother.  So I did my mother thing and would have the girls in the neighborhood come over for dress up and play. I would take Adias to school and tuck her in at night, just like I did when her mother was gone other times.

Jimmy decided that he wanted to change careers.  So as he watched the TV and an ad came on for Chef School, he enrolled.  At age fifty-one my husband was going to culinary school.  When we first were married Jimmy enrolled in a culinary school, but once they got to the baking part of it he quit and went to baking school instead. Many times over the years he would tell me that he made a mistake and wished
that he kept with culinary school and how he would have made a great chef.  Jimmy is a fantastic cook, and I gladly give him my kitchen when he wants it. But I also remember when we were first married and he had a job at a restaurant he hated the hours and that was one of the reasons he decided to go to explore the baking part. Little did he know that bakers have terrible hours also.

When January 20 rolled around Jessica, Regina, Adias, and I celebrated both Jimmy and my father in laws birthday. Yea, their birthday is on the same day.  My father in law was now turning more of a shell of a person than a person now.  My heart would not stop breaking with each day as dad got worse.  I am only human and yes I would get aggravated with him sometimes like when he would repeat sayings from the TV over and over again like a child, but I would also reflect to the man he use to be. This man taught us about what love and kindness was really about.  To this day I am not sure I gave back to him, all the kindness he gave to me, but I know I was trying.

Jessica was on this long distant relationship. She was engaged with Zack who would call her every night.  They are a funny team, to listen to them talk on the phone you would think they don’t really get along. Yet on her twentieth birthday a dozen purple tulips and a dozen pink tulips turned up at the house with a lovely card from her fiancé.

February that year, Jennifer surprised us with a short visit. They had not left yet and so she kind of snuck
home for a few days.  We decided to have a little birthday party for Adias at that time so she could spend her birthday with her mother.  We still had a birthday party for her with her friends on her birthday but this one was special, her mom was in town. Cake, presents, and bowling was in order. Also that is what we met Jose, the new love of Jenny’s life and her now husband. 

Well I think I have to stop. It is really a busy day on the ambulance today, but I hope I am showing a
picture of love and that it takes commitment to still be in love.