Dear Roger;A Few Small Repairs

I think we have found a cure for what ailed me. Though I am not foolish enough to believe that all my problems have been magically fixed, I do know that I am doing a hell of a lot better up here than I was doing back in Arizona. Its been almost a month and I have not had a migraine. No familiar smell and taste of blood, no loss of vision in my right eye, no shooting pain in the side of my head that comes in flashes over and over and makes me feel as is I am being repeatedly shot in the side of the head with a shotgun loaded with rocksalt until I puke my guts out. I am sleeping better, in fact, I am willing to bet I am averaging around 5-7 hours a night! That is about a Gosh damned record for me for the last 10 years! I have been able to be in crowds and even approach an speak to men I dont know! Yeah, he was about as threatening as a puppy, but still it was a crowd situation, he was a stranger to me, and I had my child with me, all situations that would have left me a stuttering,twitching mess a few weeks ago, but I didn't to any of those things! I was able to be polite and speak clearly and normally and not fall apart!Chance commented on that after we got home that instead of being tense and stressed that a strange guy had touched my arm, I was actually happy, and that I had a grin on my face for almost the entire day. He even said he could not remember me smiling so much...ever. That is really sad, my son doesn't remember me smiling much, but I am working on changing that and its a lot easier up here. I am still a little wary at times, and I have had some twitchy episodes, but that is usually after I have had to either deal with something ex related or Chance and I have been bickering or just some extreme amount of stress has descended upon me. Counseling for my PTSD needs to be restarted and I need to find some kind of structured physical outlet for myself so I can build an appetite, because my weight loss is worrisome and I cannot afford to buy clothes to accommodate my shrinking frame if I get much smaller. I got down to 101 again and I know I have not been eating properly since we got up here, but getting distracted up here is really easy and I forget to eat and when I lose track of time its really easy to miss meals. The kids seem to be doing good and Stevie is the happiest out of the bunch, though she is pretty spoiled at times, and I take full blame for that one. My guilt over her living in such a dysfunctional and destructive environment for her whole life is not fair to such a sweet girl, and she has the explosive temper of someone who has seen too much. She got made at me yesterday because she wanted to go to another 100 Monkeys concert,"Right NOW!" I told her that they weren't in Portland and she wanted to know where they were and I said that I really didn't have any idea, that I wasn't their keeper and they were big boys that had lives to lead, so they could be anywhere. She said, "When will they be back,I want to see them again!" Soo, I got online and I looked around until I got a list of tour dates and ball-parking it I told her they might be back in around 6 months or so and that they were in California. "We need to go to California then, I want to see them again." I told her that it was 11 o'clock at night, it was past her bed time, she was too young to be a band following groupie and I was too old and that if she was a good girl and stayed out of trouble in school and quit biting her brother, when they came back we would get tickets and go see them again,without Chance. "I WANNA GO NOW!!!" I remained patient with her because I knew she was past tired, and I broke out a map and I showed her where they were vs where we are and then I told her that I would put her cd and that I would get her a t-shirt, but that she needed to go to bed, and then we got to the gist of the issue,"Mom, I miss Conner and Cole and Fergus, I wish they could have gone with us to the concert." Yeah, honey...me too, though I think Fergus might not have enjoyed it as much as we did. I finally got her to go to bed and she settled down and was out in a few minutes, but I realized that she has said a few times that she misses her brothers and our dog, but never her father and that when he calls she always quickly asks to speak with her brothers or the Fergus. Nobody wants to talk to him, he is such a hateful ass and our lives up here are so much happier without him. I think I may end up gaining an inch or two in height because I dont slouch or cringe near as much as I used to, I do know that my smile has returned and hopefully it will stick around.