Rosie's Room

Stress, Creative Mojo, Revisiting the Past, and a New Normal

When things happen that you never saw happening and those things are beyond your control do you lose your creative energies?  I do!  This is what's gone on in my world in less than 8 weeks:


My daughter's marriage did an over-night crash and burn in mid-April.  Her husband cleaned out his bank account and hers(without her knowledge!) and blew their entire wad of cash (nearly $24,000!!!) that they were saving to buy a house, in a fit of gambling frenzy.  Then she found out he quit his job, two weeks prior to his night of binge gambling, and then he left to go back to his parent's house in Indiana.  While he was on his way back to Indiana, I was literally, driving Sal to the emergency room at Bay Care, where Sal spent nearly a week (again!) in the cardiac unit.  Sal is OK again, finally!  To get him to OK again required one more trip to Bay Care following his being discharged from that week in-patient stay.


Due to the stress that my daughter felt she ended up failing chemistry and then she put continuing her schooling on hold so she could get full-time working hours again.  She needs money, obviously.  She is a beloved CNA at the Holy Family Convent at Silver Lake, and she is back to working there full time.  But yes, in case you were wondering, I'm paying for her to get a divorce; money well spent in my opinion.  Though, here I sit typing this and I still can't wrap my mind around what Kham did or why.  We've known Kham for several years and never in a million years would I have thought he'd do such horribly hurtful and destructive things! 


But wait, there's more.  Everyone knows my daughter, soon to be ex-son-in-law, and their son, Milo, lived with us, and that's changed, too.
My daughter and Milo, of course, moved into an upper unit in a duplex in Sheboygan at the end of May.  Jessie and Milo moved in with Jessie's friend - the unit is very close to St. Nick's, where Jessie would be doing her clinical work for nursing school.  Finding this unit was a stroke of luck for Jessie with it being so convenient for her eventually, but, man oh man, I sure didn't feel lucky!


The thought of even trying to be creative was the furthest from my mind.  Several times I opened the door to my craft room but all I could manage to do was close that door again.  I know the energy required to be creative and I just didn't have it.  This is, unfortunately, the way I'm made --- when I'm stressed out to the max all of my creative mojo dries up!  It always returns, all I had to do was wait it out.  Adjust to my new normal of being an empty nester, which was easier said than done.


Some people know that Jessie and I are very close, we always have been.  She is my only child, and it took me many years and two miscarriages, with most of my pregnancy on bed rest, to have her.  I was a single mom for several years, too, following my divorce from my first husband.  That made she and I even closer!  She is a daughter than I am so proud of, and I'm blessed that I have the gray hair I have due to my age, not from her teen age years.  LOL


So last weekend, Sal and I helped her get completely settled into her new home.  She is happy, happier than I've seen her in months!  Milo is happy, and how lucky she is that he's such a flexible, go-with-the-flow little guy.  What more can I ask for?
Milo - aka: Prince Adorable, who I've taken to calling Captain Adorable, because he's a big boy now.  He'll turn 2 on August 25th! 
When Sal and I arrived at their new home last week Saturday, the first thing Milo did was take my hand and show me around the place.  That was so, well, ADORABLE!  That was the first time I saw their apartment and it did my nerves a world of good to see it, seeing it and knowing they're in a good place went a long way to calm me down.  Jessie has many good friends nearby, so between her roommate (who works an opposite shift from Jessie) she has many trusted helping hands to take care of Milo while she's at work.  Her roommate is Milo's primary caretaker while Jessie is at work, it is a fortunate situation for all of them!  Naturally, I'm always available to take care of Milo.  And, naturally, they can always return here, to Sal and my home, any time. 


My house is quiet, and while it was for several weeks way too quiet since Sal and I became empty nesters, I've now adjusted to my New Normal.  I wish I could say that I don't shed any more tears over their departure, but that wouldn't be true, though those tears don't flow too often anymore.  Truthfully, I'll always wish I could love on my daughter and grandson every day, that's just the way I'm made.  But that's OK, she has her own life to live and Milo does too...all in good time.  Which is the same as saying it's time to put my attention back on my own life!


Which is what I started doing...yesterday, when my creative mojo returned!  I worked all day in my craft room yesterday.  I don't have anything new to show you but I got a few projects in the works.


In the meantime, while I complete those new projects, here are some photos of a mixed media page I did last year February.  I hope you enjoy them, and if you've read all this, THANK YOU!!!