Ahjeez and Nomad, I’m so sorry you had drama and heartache. I hope you can put it behind you for the new year and not let these people destroy your peace.
My Christmas was bittersweet. S is still missing. I’m not even sure if she’s in the state. She hasn’t responded to me since she blew me off two weeks ago when we were going to get together after a road trip she took with a ‘friend’ (older man of course) ended in disaster with her stranded in NYC. She made it back to our home state last I heard but now silence. Her last message to me was she’s ‘sorry but just not ready to get clean right now.’ Then nothing. So that has been overhanging everything. I can’t get her out of my mind.
C did get ahold of me from a friend’s phone and made it to Christmas dinner at my mom’s. He is still sober, by his definition, which I a, pretty sure means no drinking and no hard drugs but does not mean giving up pot in all it’s forms. But he is working and the living situation seems to have stabilized, and he seems much happier and more stable without the booze at least. So I’ll take it. 6.5 weeks now. He was very happy to be with family and really seemed to want to be connected and involved. Which is a huge change - it’s been years.
N and family are 2000 miles away and there isn’t money this year for them to come here or me to go there, but we did FaceTime and I got to see the kids open presents. Baby M (3) actually seems to remember me and talked to me and said thank you for his presents.

N and Y are still together, for now, and seem to,be trying to move past N’s recent backsliding.
E and her husband didn’t make it down - they spent the holiday with her in laws, who live nearby to them. They are going to try to drive down on New Year’s Eve. I hope they make it. I am feeling worried about losing my daughter to her in laws, who are both very overbearing and very, very wealthy. They expect all their boys to be there for all family events and family vacations, even though boys are all adults now. And they can pay for things like trips to Paris or London or to their summer home on the coast. And they very much do not approve of me with my relationship with R, or with the rest of our unruly family here. The wedding was ...stressful. So I’m trying to not feel sad but this Christmas just feels like a harbinger for holidays to come.
It mostly I’m worried and heartbroken about S. It’s the reason I haven’t been posting much here. There is so much more to the story, and every time I tried to write it I got stuck.
I’m hoping for better news to ring in 2019 with. Or any news.