And then...

Sometimes, just sometimes, the hanging in there by a thread or a fingernail is made so worth it, momentarily, by the potential outcome. 

I'm a Libra, so, by nature I'm bound to see all outcomes. 

Last February, I had a slip and fall on some ice.  It was the week after the Big Valentines Day storm, for those in the NorthEast who remember...  The neighbor to our immediate right was at the time a guy doing work to flip the house.  Problem is or was, that he would do like a week or two of work, then not show for almost a month or so. 

In 2007, before my Feb falldown, I wanna say the last time we saw him there was about early January.  The big storm came, and ice and show abounded.  Guy didn't even send someone over or contact one of the neighbors to say "Hey can you shovel".  If it weren't his pattern to do on and off work, I'd easily say that maybe he was out of the country on vacation and didn't know.  But throughout the following week, there were two other decidedly minor precipitation events. 

Then the day before my fall, the ice thawed.  We could have put salt down or shoveled, but because it wasn't our property, and the guy didn't really make it a habit of making contact with the neighbors, we didn't know if it would be ok, or if we should use our product.  After all, he was flipping the house.

So, following morning, I'm well aware the ice had refrozen, and am walking along the rampart wall that seperates the front lawns from the sidewalk.  Going along slow and steady till I see the brown of the sidewalk.  I go to step out, slip and fall, fracturing my ankle.  About a week after my fall it hails again.  I waited another two weeks after that before I got in touch with a lawyer. 

Being that I have no insurance (as was the case when I fell) I couldn't handle my med bills.  After three weeks of the House Flipper Guy not showing up, I felt I had to do something.  It was another three weeks before guy came to my door, after having been contacted by the lawyers office wanting to strike a deal.  My mom told him that we had waited three weeks after my fall, which was a month after the big storm, so even if he was on vacation for two weeks, someone should have told him or hinted to him that he needed to have someone do some ice/snow removal in front of the property.

So now, I have an arbitration date set for October 2nd, day before my birthday.  Not sure how this is going to pan out, but I'm hoping for the best.  Here's why...

Over the past few weeks I've come to notice a few things.  Mainly that my mother is psychotic.  She's been on the Zoloft too long.  Also, she's addicted to pills.  She went through a box of prescriptions while I was in the room, and I just out of curiosity started picking up the bottles and reading.  Most of them were at least six months expired.  But she didn't care.   I had her call her doctor to tell him to call me and tell me if the pills were still ok to take.  He said up to a year after the fill date, so I reluctantly handed them back over. 

Also, even after I had the suprise of my century (I wish!) with the whole tax deal (job that's not full time with no benefits, even though I work 35 hpw didn't withhold taxes.  At 12 per hour, you do the math... $2700) my mother still wanted money.  Money motivates this woman.  She is in constant quest for it, only to spend it needlessly. 

Latest bruhaha was the whole Stimulus check deal.  My sister Cindy (foster really but been with us since I was 2) got a $300 dollar one.  I had to bash my head bloody against a brick wall explaining to her that my brother had to actually file in order to receive a check, completely forgetting that I had claimed him on my return, thus making him inelegible.  I had to do this song and dance three times.  I have a patch of hair missing.  And Crescent Noon makes me cry more.

So now, I see the outcome of this whole arbitration deal.  It's not like I'm not going to give my mom a cut, but I'm caught between what's perceived to be doing right by her and wanting to seize my chance to make a break.  So, on the one hand I want enough to pay my bills and get me off my block, but I wouldn't be depressed if I only got enough to cover med and legal expenses.

Either way I slice it, I feel like I'm being a selfish prick.  But I'm not beating myself up about it anymore.  Que sera sera.

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