Things are overall pretty good. Mostly good with a little bit of bad that is going to work for my good. 🤣🤣🤣🤣. Did y'all follow that?
The new job is great, but a little bit more than I expected. There are several fairly extensive functions that I have not had to do before. Like, ever. And they are all really important and accuracy is critical. Like, if I get it wrong or miss something it can cost the facility thousands of dollars. So that’s been stressful, but it’s something I have wanted to do for a long time (diagnosis coding and another piece of the reimbursement equation).
Giving my notice to the old job was exquisite. Just… chef’s kiss perfect. Wanted to know where I was going and said nope, not comfortable sharing that. I am actually working 8 hours every other weekend through April so I can keep my insurance because the new job benefits don’t kick in until May 1. The company overall is really great. Like Bigger said, management was just completely toxic.
My daughter. 
She’s beautiful. She’s lived the life I wanted for her. She was thankful for the items I had been saving since she was born, and especially for a quilt my grandmother had hand made. When she was cleaning out her house to down size, she chose a quilt for each of her grand children and great grandchildren. There was a note in her handwriting pinned to the quilt. And I had a book signed by Johnny Cash when I was pregnant with her, that I sent her. I hope she will be open to actually meeting but if not, this is more than enough.
The "bad" thing is tricky. I’m going to be REALLY careful with my language and would beg you to be equally respectful so we don’t get a guideline violation. I have left the church we’d been attending for the past 8 years. The way they responded to Covid was just atrocious. Because I worked with a very vulnerable population and because I actually give AF about people around me, I tried providing evidence, studies, literature from an epidemiologist who is also a pastor’s wife. Nope. Didn’t care. Not gonna make people wear masks. Not gonna even suggest it. So I gradually withdrew over the past 5 years. Noticed more and more things that made me go 
Racism. Not overt. If you called them racist they’d be 12 kinds of shocked and offended.
A family with a young teen who came out in middle school left after one too many sermon points about "the gays". I’ve known for a long time my values didn’t align with theirs but JM was the chairman of the deacons and the finance committee and all that. He did step down from deacon chairman last year after all of the PTSD chaos.
So I’d really only been to church on Christmas Eve, the only service I’d been to since August when JM assaulted me while in a delusional state. Ask me how many women checked on me, called me, offered to bring a meal. Since last February he was in the hospital 3 times (2 involuntary), all night in the ER once and did a 3 month outpatient program. I’d been working 50 hours a week at that hellhole plus a part time job. My mom had breast cancer. My son had a really bad seizure that sent him to the hospital and there was a shooting in the ER just minutes before they got there. We had a hurricane drop by here and had no power for a week. (And a friend’s 18 year old son, who I used to hold in church and change his diapers was killed when the fire truck he and his chief were in had a tree fall on it. Please pray for Sylvia and her two daughters)
I don’t typically talk about politics with too many people. Certainly not here, lol. What I will say is that with this drifting away/deconstruction/reconstruction process, a lot of my previously held views have changed. And some things I thought I believed, turned out to not be MY beliefs at all. I started with a trauma therapist after the assault and she’s been wonderful for me. It’s been a time of unpacking, discarding, repacking. As the writer of Ecclesiastes said, there’s a time to gather stones and a time to throw them away. And you don’t always gather the stones you threw down.
I have become more vocal on Facebook over the past 2 months. I’ve lost a LOT of "friends" and family. But the last straw was that JM was chastised by the preacher because "his house wasn’t in order." Ie, I wasn’t behaving properly or some such shit. Apparently what I was writing was inappropriate and offensive and unbecoming for a deacon’s wife. But they weren’t MAD. No, no, no. They were CONCERNED for me. One woman actually did message me and ask if I was okay because I seemed to be in a lot of pain. I will be grateful to her because idk if I’d have made it through without knowing at least one person gave AF. I went scorched earth. Deleted and blocked everyone I’d ever even seen walk through the door at that place. Told JM he could go report back that I was properly chastened and they would not have to worry about seeing anything offensive from me again. He could tell them his house was once more "in order."
But I think I maybe scared him a little bit. Because he resigned as deacon. The next day started a 5 day PTSD adventure that saw me get kicked in the eye, dx with corneal abrasion, he hit the nightstand and tore HIS eye up. Thank God no permanent or serious damage. But he decided to act like an asshole and got himself involuntaried AGAIN. As it happened, Reverend I Got Rights was in the hospital to visit someone and JM wanted him to come. But by the time he got there, the ER had already enacted their psycho protocol (idk what they actually call it) and I was escorted to the lobby while police officers stripped him and put paper scrubs on him.
I spent about 2 hours talking to the preacher. Told him exactly what’s gone on and why I don’t belong there. He got real defensive a few times. I never raised my voice. Just calmly repeated myself and went through what I wanted to say. At one point he leaned wayyyyy in and I am so proud of me. Because I said, calmly, "I need you to back away from me." He was so stunned I don’t think he understood me. I repeated myself. He said he was trying to give me privacy. 
I said privacy was not what I needed. I needed him to get up out my face. That I felt physically intimidated and threatened. He backed up. We left peacefully. I visited a lovely church last weekend and have a few more I want to try. I am loving this new person that I am becoming. Not sure JM or my older son quite know what to think and they certainly don’t know what to do. They skitter around and treat me like I’m either mentally deficient or unstable and might just literally explode.
So that’s my thing. What these people did was shitty. And I called them out on it. The right way. Everyone in leadership knows why I left. If they want to clue in all the flying monkeys who started this shit, idgaf. It was hard. But it was right. And I’m finding my way to peace with myself and with God. So everybody play nice. It’s not a religious debate. I’m not even criticizing religion or anyone’s views/beliefs. Just describing the appalling and unacceptable behavior of some human beings. And being proud of me for finally taking care of ME.
