I know I haven't been around much in the past few months.
Life has become a bit complicated.
I'll try to keep this short and sweet but the past four months have been a relative whirlwind for me.
I previously wrote about one new addition to my extended family. That situation hasn't gone smoothly.
There are issues with child services in the county and some of the rules they insist upon are contrary to state law on the subject. There have also been boundary issues with other family members.
The new arrival lived most of her life with simply a foster mom and dad. Now she's with a group of lunatics that number in the hundreds.
It's been hard to convince the extended family members that we're not just integrating her into our lives. She's forced to integrate all of us into her new world.
There have been harsh words and hard feelings but I've got enough going on now that I don't have time to play diplomat (not that diplomacy was ever a strong suit).
You see, my new granddaughter isn't the only new addition in my life.
Circumstances have dictated that my wife and I also open our home to two new faces.
One face really isn't new. He's my son and he's been a part-time resident at our house for the past 10 years. Now he's full-time. His mom wanted to move him 2,500 miles across the country. I said no. The courts backed me up. She went anyway.
As with above, the transition hasn't been without problems - because he would prefer to live with his mother.
But 250 miles had become increasingly difficult to navigate for visitation and custody. I wasn't about to let the distance be multiplied tenfold.
If I had inkling of what was coming a few weeks later, I might have let him go west with her if only to preserve my sanity.
In mid-September, my wife and I accepted guardianship of yet another child.
A long-time friend was diagnosed with a terminal illness and he was no longer able to provide full-time care to his daughter (not that he really ever did).
The mother wasn't in a position to help. The grandparents had no interest in taking her in.
The girl is 17. She spent the first half of her life with a mother who was addicted to alcohol, painkillers and opioids. She spent the last half of her life with a man who was more interested in career and money than fatherhood.
To say she has issues would be the world's worst understatement and her decisions reflect the lack of structure in her life.
She was busted driving a stolen car and charged with extreme DUI - at age 14!
She can't get a driver's license until she's 21. She won't be off probation until she's 20.
We can no longer have alcohol in the household or even go to visit my daughter without getting prior authorization from the probation department.
Of course, child services in that county is thrilled to death that we're bringing a juvenile delinquent to visit a foster child. (You'll be thrilled to know that the term "juvenile delinquent" isn't just a trite expression from the 1950s; it's a real legal term. At least I was thrilled when that bit of information was revealed).
The terms of her probation mean we can't leave her "unattended" for "extended periods" either. It's a mess and a half.
And she gives less than two shits about it.
Some changes at work had already increased the stress level at home. The addition of my son and the situation with my daughter and her husband added to it.
I thought we were pretty close to the max, to be honest.
Then the stress doubled with the addition of this teenager to the mix.
We'll keep trying to show her that she matters, that she is important. In a few months, she'll be 18 but she has a year-and-a-half of school left (and the probation department won't let her quit unless she wants to do jail time instead).
So, yeah, finishing Azkoval and writing anything new has been pushed down the list pretty far. I'd like to write. I need the distraction; I need to immerse myself into a fantasy world where all problems are solvable, all people are salvageable.
Right now, pretty much every second of the day is spent focusing on things that might not reach a conclusion I like.
My job might go away. My new granddaughter might be sent to live somewhere else. My son might not be able to adapt to living with me full-time and I'll have damaged our relationship for nothing. And our newcomer might just hop a bus one afternoon, bound for a future that's uncertain that will certainly be filled with difficulties.
For now, my family and I are just putting one foot in front of the other until we fight our way out of the forest.
Jay C.