Dark Times At My Door

I know no one walks through life with out trouble of some kind knocking on their door. This will come as no surprise and alas I am smack dab in the middle of yet another crisis. Nick fell off the wagon. He got himself all messed up on drugs and robbed a drunken Colgate students apartment and is in jail. You know it's really hard living in this college town. Don't let the pretty window boxes and the small country sidewalks fool you. These college kids come here dangling with laptops and other devices. They drive a different vehicle for every season. Not every kid, but many of them. If they make it through the four years, then they are gifted with all kinds of money and lavish gifts from their relatives who all flood into town and want service yesterday. I guess you could say I'm bitter. I have retained a lawyer and at the advice from grieving family members have refused to bail him out. He's dug him self a pretty deep hole. His excuse was to help me out in paying his other fines from the troubles before. I'm wrung out from experiencing every emotion under the sun. My whole family is devastated to say the least. The lawyer is gonna try and get charges reduced but the stupid ass pretty much admitted to the crime being fucked up as he was. So right now the whole thing is out of my hands. I've talked to Nick several times. The first few days he was a crying mess. Yesterday he was ok and accepting to his fate in jail. He just may be there a year or more! I'm heartbroken. I'm hoping to get him back to rehab as there he will get help. Yesterday morning I was watching the news and they did a story on these head shops selling synthetic drugs and they showed several of the different substances, what they looked like and how you do them. One of the drugs looked like a cross of potting soil and chopped up cardboard...exactly the stuff I swept up from the floor of Nicks room several days ago. I don't know exactly what he was on and I'm not making excuses for his wrong doing. There is little wiggle room in this small college town and once you are pegged, you are pegged. I believe Nick has a serious sickness. He's a kleptomaniac. For me to come forth on line to admit this takes everything I have...Trust me. When Steven (my x) came home for mother's day he noticed Nick was on something. He told me this on mothers day and Nick was arrested on my birthday. Lucky me. I'm doing everything I can to stay busy. At one point I almost put in my 2 week notice as I was too embarrassed to even go to work. I discussed this with the manager and he was very understanding and promised me I wouldn't lose my job. (I got thinking they may even find some reason to let me go...I've been let go at other jobs for weaker reasons.) Tips have been awesome during these busy times which has helped greatly. Nick's lawyer is 1000.00 bucks. And he will accept payments. My friend Rich and Steve have been of great support. We are recording once a week and hope to have a cd of covers done by the end summer. There may be some originals mixed in. I thought to go through all my CD's and pick out one favorite from each one and re-do it. Steve really compliments my playing with his mandolin work. I'm very grateful. We did a music video of Grace's Ghost at the Syracuse Post STandard. I have yet to copy and paste it to my blog. I'll work on that today I guess. Should I share these dark times in my blog? Well I've already started. I guess there is no return now. Someone once told me that if everyone hung their troubles on a clothesline to see. They would quickly grab their troubles back as there is always someone with greater ones. Bill is in Florida with his father and I have the house and the next ten days to myself. One side of me wants to crawl into a corner and cry, with the other side begging to find a pack of roving gypsies and take off with abandon to Alaska. I'll likely end up weeding the back flower bed, killing each weed being like the synthetic drugs they are that slowly kill off our kids leaving them in jails and rehabs. I'll get through this one way or another.