[OffRoad]

From last thread

Thanks for sharing your friend's story, OffRoad. Her MLC seems a bit like mine. No marriage was wrecked, no OM.

The big difference I notice is that I knew how to say no, was not interested in perfection and didn't allow anyone into my life. I was more into having fun, going out dancing, etc. than anything else.

There was also what for me was drinking more than I should since I barely drink, if at all.

I knew why it come, it come with BD. Can't even call it a dark period since most of it was great fun. The dark part was when Liminality hit.

During my MLC, or bumpy MLT, I had a boldness I lost afterwards and that I quite liked and miss. However it does not seem possible to bring it back since it seems to depend of the MLC high.

A MLC without marital destructions, cheating, leaving to live with the alienator, etc. is very different than the MLC most of our spouses are having.  And much easy to deal with afterwards.

Strangely enough, Anjae, you appear to have done the opposite of my friend, and maybe some of the opposite of your normal demeanor? Because that is what my friend did. She liked to dance and stopped. She didn't drink, but then started--not a lot, but more than she ever did before. She used to set boundaries just fine, then didn't. She had her moral code, then pushed past what her own boundaries in that would be. She used to make non toxic friends at the drop of a hat, but then started choosing people who had questionable moral codes (drinking and driving, including with a child in the car; cheating on their spouses and asking her to lie for them-she didn't, but still; leaving their 5 year old alone while they ran to the store) . In her case, she thought she was having fun going out with Toxic friends, until she realized they went out with her, but treated  her badly. When a married man would ask her out, instead of telling him "Hit the road, you are married." she would tell me "I'd never go out with him, of course, but he says he can't afford a divorce." Or "His wife is just terrible to him." or some other inane thing, words she would NEVER say before all this happened. I shut those down immediately with "If he's unhappy, he can get the heck out and then go find someone, not the other way around. It's never acceptable." It's almost like she had lost control of any common sense she used to possess. I  don't know if I helped, hindered, or was just there, but I'd like to think I was a tough love voice of reason for her.

She blew up her own life: Went to live with her brother and be his mother, stopped working enough to support herself, let her car break down and didn't replace it, relying on her brother's car for transportation, allowed her living conditions to deteriorate to the point of rats in the house (just ick). I believe she is looking for the caring she never got from her parents from her brother and he is just as broken as, well, the whole family was. When I look at her, and know her story, I see a person who missed out on some lessons growing up because her parents did not have the tools to teach her, and tried to figure out if her personal code was really hers, or the construct of someone else that she was trying to follow. What did SHE like? She didn't know, so she reverted to what she had been told, yet wanted to break free. Take care of your brother. Family first (which translated to family before yourself). Keep negative emotions to yourself. Whatever is given to you is good enough. Your are just a girl, so you are not as worthy as your brother. Nothing you do is all that great. I could go on.

This is my opinion based on our 27 year friendship, knowledge of her family and observations. I saw when she started to head down the rabbit hole, and knew there was not much I could do except listen, and express my own opinions as such. I just found the things she said as she is starting to come out of it so very MLCish, and yet no spouse. Go figure.

[OffRoad]

Well, I see I'm a bit too late to offer an opinion on the sale of the house! 

Sounds like you have arrived at a decision that sits well with you. 

I was wondering....do you still have the surfboards!??!   

I appreciate your thought, SB. Yes, Surfboards are still here. They aren't in my way, it was the point of the matter. I'm not XH's storage facility. And to answer your questions from the last thread, still working on the estate. Got the house cleared out, stocks sold, car taken car of, closed everything I could think of, put the house on the market and was very surprised at how many offers we have gotten in such a short amount of time (it's priced really low for the area due to the run down nature of the interior of the house). But then it occured to me, how do I get my mothers taxes done? So I called a tax guy and will talk to him on Monday. I need to know how to get all her paperwork forwarded to me. The stuff from the military won't forward, and I don't know if Social security will or not. At least I have learned what NOT to do for my kids. And my mother was fairly organized with the paperwork.

I was going to head out off road last weekend, but then had to work on Friday, so it didn't happen. I am looking forward to an adventure soon.

Somewhere back there I mentioned Mr. Flirty managed to wreck his car and lose his job in the span of a couple of weeks (neither was a surprise to me, IMO he's on the MLC train and it's only a matter of time before he implodes). I only heard from him once right after he lost his job and once when I notified him that a co worker had passed and gave him information on the memorial in case he wanted to attend. If he doesn't want to be outside of work friends, that's on him. I'm certainly not going to chase him down.

Now I have to find my house interior. After bringing all those quality belongings from my mother's house over here, it's a mess. And I still need to get the fence repaired, the garage door replaced, the old playset removed from the back yard, and the yard landscaped into something maintainable. Thank goodness I got the roof repaired and the house painted before last winter! This is not easy while working full time, but man is it satisfying every time I can check something off of the endless list! Including "Sleeping late" every.single.saturday. Go me!

[PJ Ames]

Along for the ride, OR. Thanks for the humor!

[Seahorse]

OR - Reattaching - It's been awhile.

Sea

[UrsaMajor]

New Thread - new directions...

[OffRoad]

It's good to see you PJ, Seahorse, UM. I must say, I have no idea where some people find the time to post here frequently. I do remember having that time during early days because, hey, who was sleeping anyway, right? I think I work too much. Except I love what I do and I'd do it for free if I didn't need to work, so it is work or not?

The house saga. It's simply interesting (to me, at least). Option 3 on my mother's house waited until escrow started. then decided that they wanted to lower the price by $19,000. Uh, no. I'd sell to someone else for the lower price before I sell to someone who did that to us. Now, if they had a valid reason, like they found a termite nest in the attic, I could see it. But the reason? It was going to be more work than they thought. My thought was "It's the same amount of work as when you made the offer, locked us in so we could not accept any other offers, had us fill out two hours of paperwork and then waited until the last second to back out." My next thought was "Whiny baby." So when the listing agent called back after the offer was cancelled, I said, OK, lets try option 4 (options 5,6,7,8 and 9 had popped up by then, BTW). But first, please  have option 4 go out to the house, inspect it, look at the disclosures, make sure they really want to offer that amount and ask if they will remove contingencies. My list agent said " That's not normally how it's done. " I said, "I don't care. I have better things to do with my life than spend it filling out paperwork that cannot be used, having my house locked up so I can't sell it and having it off the market so no one else can make an offer on it. If the flippers making bids don't know what they are doing, it's not my concern and I am not dealing with another whiny baby." That seemed to take him aback. I know what we have and we will have zero problem selling the house. I just don't want to have to do a lick of work on it if I don't have to. In the meantime, my poor sister is texting "I'm afraid we won't be able to sell it now." And I text back "Ever? Are you insane?" I seem to have lost patience with people trying to make a problem where there just isn't one. We had 5 solid cash backup offers, and a couple of conventional offers for more money, but more likely to fall through on the loan. We talked and agreed to just go through the cash offers one at a time until one stuck.

I think my listing agent pushed a little hard on option 4, because the 4 investors with that offer couldn't get their contractor out to look at the place, and one balked at the cigarette smoke on the walls. Oddly enough, you can put your nose next to the walls and can't smell the smoke unless you are more sensitive than a friend of mine who cannot abide any smoke smell at all (she could not smell it on the walls, but could smell it in the drapes and carpet). The smell of dog urine, however, is overwhelming in the carpet. So they said no, thank you and I cheered. Saved us all at least 8 hours of time. The listing agent asked what we wanted to do and I said, "Offer 5 is next, please ask them the same thing you asked offer 4. Plus, they even have on their offer "All contingencies will be removed if the offer is accepted". They went out to the house, checked all the disclosures, agreed to remove contingencies, agreed to pay for the requirements for low flow toilets and whatever else the government wants, and gave us a $25,000 good faith deposit! However, we have to wait until August 9th or 12th for escrow to close. There is no house payment, so not that big of a problem. I'm crossing my fingers. Escrow papers arrived for me to fill out, but my sister had an angiogram today (confirming a tied off aneurysm had stayed tied off), and she cannot sign legal papers until Sunday. (some rule in case the anesthesia is still in her system or some such thing). We did confirm she could sign non legal papers, and she was fairly sure she had bought a Ferrari in her sleep so she could be Magnum PI. I said I'd get her a Hawaiian shirt to complete the image. 

S went with me to the house last weekend and helped me load the boxes of shredding into my mom's old car (the 2004 CRV with 26,000 miles on it). I am so envious of his youth  What took he and I about 15 minutes would have taken me 2 hours. I took it to the shredders last week and one more thing off the list.

And speaking of the car debacle. So I had offered S the CRV for free (and I was going to give D $5,000 to help pay off her car) OR he had $5,000 my mother had given him (D, too) a few years back and I said he could give me that and he could have the Highlander (for the $10,000 it is worth) OR, he could keep his original $5,000, and I'd give both he and D $5,000, then he could buy whatever car he wanted when he got around to it. He opted for choice 3, so I told him I didn't want to hear another word about how he didn't have a car, and I was punishing him for living with his dad. That I thought he was foolish to pass up the CRV because that car will be good for 10 more years and if he wanted to sell it in 5, it would still be worth the $5000. But his stupidity choice. It is possible that his dad does not want to pay the extra insurance for the extra car, but I can't possibly know if that is true or not. It's a nice little car, just needs a radio that has an aux port and some paint. The interior is like new. I'll keep it for a little while, just because.

S will be returning to AZ next Saturday. It turns out EXH's parents are flying out to see EXH and S is catching a ride with them for free. OK by me, I don't  have to pay for the flight. I will miss S on the one hand, and on the other, I am looking forward to being by myself again. I wonder sometimes if there is something awry with me, but I go to dinner and movies and Celtic music fests with friends and also on my own. At the end of the work day, I'm kind of talked out and want some down time during the week. And I do enjoy not making dinner if I don't want to. A bowl of shredded chicken at the beginning of the week and some fruit, and I'm good all week long.

It's a fine life, even if it wasn't what I expected. I seem to need less to make myself happy. Go figure.

[Tyks]

OR, reading your thread often makes me smile. I love your no nonsense attitude

[OffRoad]

I'm glad you can enjoy it sometimes, Tyks. Humor is how I get through, though not everyone understands my brand of humor.

I just got home from a memorial service for a co-worker. He passed back in June. It was exceptionally sad because once before he had not come into work without notice, and his manager first called him and having gotten no response, called his mother (who lives in another city). This man called in later that day and was out for 3 days. This time, his manager called him and got no response, but because he had to be on a plane, did not have the opportunity to call the mother. They found him 4-5 days after he had passed. He was likely already deceased when the manager called him, but the manager is feeling badly.

It was an hour and a half drive up and back, so lots of time to think. My deceased co-worker was not yet 39, looked much younger, appeared to take care of himself. There are only two choices of how he died based on the Eulogy from his father: Suicide or accidental overdose of something. I, of course, did not ask as if they wanted the exact cause of death known, they would have said so. I was astonished that the Eulogy consisted of enough information to spell out one of those two causes. I was more astonished to find out that one of his younger sisters had passed the previous year. I actually found out more about him in the hour and a half memorial service than I had learned from him in the 3 years we had worked together. He liked to hike, enjoyed cooking and eating food, at one time thought he'd go to culinary school, had found the "love of his life", was engaged to be married, was working as a server at a job he enjoyed and preparing to buy a house and "lost it all in a short amount of time" right before  he came to work for our company. He loved working at the company, though in the almost three years he was there also lost his sister and his best friend had moved away shortly before my co-worker passed. So in the span of four years, he had lost his love, lost a job, lost a sister, and lost his best friend (to the move). He was quiet and gentle, did everything at 110%, rarely complained and hid whatever addiction he had while at work. He was a good man, from all accounts. We worked on several projects together and I thought him so.

And it made me so sad that this happened. To lose two children so close together. Only five of us showed up from work. It was a distance away, but from the emails that the family sent inviting his co-workers to the memorial, it was obvious they needed to know that the workplace he told them he loved so much had people who cared about him there.

And yet tomorrow at work there will be a round of people who didn't attend the service who have passed judgment on his death without knowing anything about him, really. When he was out for Family leave, as it turns out due to his sisters death, rumors flew all over the place and I said "If he wants to tell us why he was out, he will do so when he gets back". None of the rumors had anything to do with the truth, although I had no idea at the time. I find this happens a lot at work, people would rather make up something to speculate about. I wonder why that is?

Today I wish I were a mind reader and might have been able to do something to stop this. But I'm not. One more thing I have absolutely zero control over, except to pay my respects and maybe give a little solace to his family. It never seems like enough.

[UrsaMajor]

OR,

That is a sad story and I am sorry for the loss of your colleague.

As for those that spread untruths, I guess that a lot of it has to do with the fact that it may make the rumor-monger feel in a position of power because they are the ones starting it. However, as you noted, what it really is is petty and small-minded.... and totally unnecessary... and wrong...

[stillbaffled]

OR - your mother's house!  What a little bundle of work that has been, huh?!  Hopefully in August it really will wrap up and you can close the door on that project. 

I busted right out laughing when you shared your sister's dream about the Ferrari, Tom Selleck, and the Hawaiian shirts!  Man, I loved that show back in the day. 

Sorry to read of your young co-worker's passing.  I hope that his family found some comfort in having a few of you from work be at his his service. 

Have you been doing any off roading lately?  I got another couple hundred miles in on the Harley this weekend.  The summer is going by fast.