Depression Burrito

I have a friend that I have literally known since I was 3 years old.  My family and his family has known each other almost forever.  He is also a shirt-tail relative (3rd or 4th cousin).  We went to Sunday School and Church together...school together.  We were in marching band together.  I don't think I EVER saw him angry. 

He married a woman he met after college when he got a job working on a newspaper.  Their first child was a son born with encephalitis.  Ironically, it was after Burton (my friend) had done a story on the nearby corn processing plants (they lived in Illinois at the time) and the impact they had on human health.  One of the things he had found was a higher incidence of babies born with encephalitis. 

Burton and his wife moved from that area after that.  A few years later they had a healthy baby girl.  As for their son, Josh, the doctors had given him less than a year to live after he was born.  He lived to be 12.  Burton loved him greatly.  He would take him out for walks, read to him and play with him...as much as Josh would play.  Then one day, Josh just passed away. Quickly.  Then a year later, Burton's wife took their daughter and left...ran off with a childhood boyfriend whose wife had left him with 3 kids to raise.  Burton was devastated, understandably.  We kept in touch by email.  He told me that every year, the end of November, when it was Josh's birthday he went into a depression that he had to fight.  I told him, "Why try to fight it?  You know it's coming...prepare for it.  I get so tired of people saying that you need to get over it and fight it off.  I think that advice only makes it worse!  Wrap up in it like a burrito blanket.  Just let yourself be depressed for a few days.  Then you will get tired of being depressed...then throw it off and get back to life."  He reminds me every year of my advice and that he does just that. However, he says he finds his time in the depression blanket has lessened. 

He has since remarried to a wonderful woman with a great sense of humor and he is now a published children's author and having the time of his life!

He knows what I am going through now.  He knows how things have been with Troy all through my marriage and he knows and understands how hard I worked to keep my family together.  He prays for me..and I know he means it.  He truly is a great Christian...a great friend. 

I kinda feel a little sad but at the same time slightly relieved about something...my daughter is taking a semester off from college...at my suggestion.  And her brother got her a job at Foodtowne...where he works.  It is an easy going job and she is actually happy to be earning a paycheck but sad to be away from school for that semester.  He boyfriend Jordan has taken a year off from college to work and earn money to continue.  They will have time together.  I like the kid.  He is smart, motivated, and has the same weird sense of humor that we all have.  He is going to college for dietician technician.  Everything is a technician.  LOL 

Now I will not have to worry about my daughter's expenses anymore.  She can pay for her own cellphone...her gas...her license plates...her hair care...clothes...etc.  THANK YOU!

I will be doing a lot for myself this next week.  If God guides me through things, I will be okay.  I have been looking into a lot of programs and things and without Troy's income, I will actually be a lot better off.  I can get my master's degree and stand a better chance of teaching jobs...some at the college level.  I would be able to get grant money...not just loans. 

My retirement years may be not so great but I might be able to make up for those too.  However...one thing at a time. 

As for the thing about the depression burrito and my advice to Burton...I took my own advice.  I took a couple of days to wrap myself in that depression blanket and feel like crap.  Monster spouse made one pathetic attempt to call me on his way home from work Friday night.  I did not answer.  He has not made any more attempts.  I certainly am not.  I will talk to a lawyer and then HE can communicate with me through legal means.  I am done with the verbal abuse.  I don't deserve it and have no more reason to put up with it. 

My life is truly beginning again.