Pick yourself up...dust yourself off...

and start all over again.

Okay.  So I didn't get either of the jobs in my home state.  This is fine.  Really.  I'll keep telling myself this, and eventually I will believe it.  Sigh.  But you know what, that doesn't make it any easier.  At. All.

Now, I'm sure that there are reasons for this.  I'm sure that there will come a time when I can go home.  HOWEVER...now is not that time.

Still and all, it allows me the golden opportunity to see the Demie Diva tell her father to his face that she does NOT like him.  It allows me the far more golden opportunity to watch her tell him "Here Dad, let me show you the door for going out."

If I were a not very nice person, I'd be really gleeful.  But, this isn't about me.  It's about the Demie Diva.  And she needs a relationship with a male role model that is positive, nurturing, and pretty much everything my brother in law is.

I discovered this when we were up north last week.  The Demie Diva has always adored this particular uncle - seriously ADORES the man.  She wanted Analytic Uncle (he's a computer guy with the soul of a musician) to show her the silverback gorilla at the zoo.  She wanted him to hug and cuddle her.  She wanted to be with him at all times.

So, yet again, I have empirical evidence for what I need and for what she needs.

However, the trip up North also a trip of discovery.  The Diva Grandpa is aging.  Significantly.  How much of that is because he desperately needs his eyelids lifted so that he can see the 30% of the world he isn't seeing, I couldn't say.  How much of that is because he's more ADHD than I am, I couldn't say.  But I can say that as a blind as a bat visually impaired person, you don't process when you can't see.  As the ADHD adult that I am, I can say that when you KNOW you're not processing, it exacerbates your ADHD, which then causes  you to miss more, and know you're missing it,.... see the pattern?

So.

The Diva Grandpa is caught in a cycle of physical issues which are impacting his mental state.  He's an aging male, which automatically limits his ability to think outside the box.  He tends to be a bit curmudgeonly anyway, so this is not helping.

The Diva Grandma is a saint.  A saint, I tell you.

The Diva Grandma is also aging...but not as quickly as her sisters.  The Crazy Aunt is battling cancer - and losing.  This is kicking the DG's butt since as she put it "I can't do another funeral lunch."  The simple fact is that of nine, there are now three.  And, there will be two.  And of those two, the Diva Grandma is the matriarch, despite being the baby.  The Bossy Aunt will be 80 this summer, and the Demie Diva and I will head home (which it is) to meet the DD's new cousin, see the old cousin (he's three going on 300...seriously) and have some serious family time centered around the BA's 80th birthday party.

So, I pick myself up.  Commit to another year where I am.  See what the future holds.  And know that for all of the above, and more inarticulable reasons, we still need to be "home", even though, paradoxically, it was good to be "home" after a week away.