Blue Monday (LONG entry; Sorry!)

What goes ON during the weekend?!?  The back room was CHAOS!!! LOL LOL LOL LOL  Some idiot made a bale from the compactor with only three straps; the bale broke as they were bringing it outside, and flattened cardboard was strewn from the back door of receiving to the Tire & Lube area of the store....and GUESS which receiving crew was lucky enough to be assigned the task of cleaning it up?!?  We had FOUR trucks to unload today.......dry grocery, frozen food, and 2 general merchandise trucks.  Needless to say, we didn't get much done in the stocking department, and we had gotten off late again tonight!  For some reason, though, this day seemed to fly by REALLY fast.........

We didn't go visit the girls this weekend.  Hubby went to the doctor, and they advised him to treat his injury as a sprain.  They told him to wrap it with an ace bandage, elevate it, and put a hot compress on it.  You know; the same stuff we were doing already!  I wasted an ENTIRE weekend for that?!?  We wound up laying around the house the entire time.  You can guess that I am feeling pretty disgusted.  My husband is aggravated with me, and I am with him.  He'll come around.  You know the feeling, ladies.  The one where you feel like you are more woman than your man can handle.  I try not to get disgusted with him, folks, but I mean.....a pallet fell on my BIG TOE, and I went to work in a matter of days!!!  He was limping on that sucker for THREE WEEKS............

Let me stop here.  I don't like talking about my hubby badly, especially to y'all.  So, that ends the TMI session! LOL LOL LOL LOL  Well, at least I am well rested, and I did go to church.......

For some strange reason, I recently became fascinated with the stories of Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley, the troubled, heroin-addicted front men for grunge-rock's main pioneer groups, Nirvana and Alice In Chains.  I remember them; I was young enough to enjoy their music when they first arrived on the scene.  I was reading their personal histories on the internet.  Both guys were heroin-addicted, yes, but both also had A LOT of free time on their hands as kids, suffered hyperactivity and bipolar disorders (I guess their energy was too much for the mothers to handle alone) and troubled relationships with their fathers.  Layne's dad even encouraged his heroin use by taking advantage of his son, and using drugs with him!  Of the two, I feel particularly bad for Layne, because from what I researched on him, he was just a geeky, sweet, child-like little dude in real life, with an AWESOME voice that seemed too big, too powerful, too painful for his 130-pound frame, who had a nasty habit he couldn't control or break free from.  What I loved most about the songs that Layne sang was that he used words that were able to paint us a picture of what a heroin addict actually experiences, without having to go through it ourselves.  He wanted people to see the ugly side of addiction, in the hopes of helping others kick the habit, or never start it. 

Layne desperately wanted a relationship with his father, and searched for him non-stop for years (His father left him and his mother when he was eight, and this devastated him).  When he became famous, his dad found HIM, and Layne, desperate to have his father a part of his life, let him in.  The man brought his drug habit and troubles along with him, and that combination played a major role in Layne's self-destruction. 

The heroin, which he once used to have "fun" made Layne very sick, causing his liver to fail, constant nausea, lost control of bodily functions, and abscesses in the areas where he used the needle all over his body.   He died, at age 34, of an overdose (speedball; cocaine and heroin mix), all alone, weighing 80 pounds.  No one knew he was dead for two weeks.

My dad didn't raise me.  My mother raised my brother and I alone.  My dad didn't raise ANY of his nine children; the mothers did.  My mom hated him for years, because he didn't help her with me.  But today, I can give that man credit for this; He knew he was no good for me, and he STAYED THE HECK OUTTA MY LIFE.  I am glad that he did, because I am sure that if my dad had been a part of my life, I would have been pretty screwed up.  There are many parents out there who I am sure mean well, but just have too many problems to be fit parents.  Their children suffer greatly at their hands.  I thank God for my mom, and for ALL the single mothers (and fathers) out there who are wise enough and responsible enough to take child-rearing so seriously that they'd rather raise the kids alone, or with a spouse who loves their children as if they were their own.  I also thank God for the grandparents out there who are raising grandchildren.  God, I can only imagine how hard it is for y'all!  But you are dedicated to giving those little ones a stable life, whatever the cost.  I wish that these two young men could have had parents who cared enough about them to offer them stable lives.  And what frustrates me is how judgemental and critical the music world is of these two.  The business is guilty of making money off these kids; BOTH guys were crying out for help at every turn, but the producers and executives (Layne called it a "corporate prison") used, abused and neglected them rather than offered them any real help. 

I am grateful to God for a mother who raised me in a stable home.  Those kids, and many like them, have lives that are full of grief, pain, and unrest.  My heart goes out to them, past, present, and future.                                   

R.I.P. Layne and Kurt

Adrian

P.S.  Mike Tyson and Tupac Shakur also come to mind.  I guess these stories are interesting to me because I suffered with bipolar disorder, too.  Our high energy levels are attractive to employers, but they are lost as to what to do with us when we become unbalanced.