No more tears

I cried twice today. So far.

This has nothing to do with teaching. It has to do with state inspection stickers.

The lovely little state I've moved to requires a "safety and emissions test" once every two years. This is the fifth state I've lived in. Most such inspections are annual, but they take 10 minutes and basically just make sure all your blinkers and windshield wipers work.

Not here. The test takes an hour and a half. And, after that 90 minutes or so, it turned out my car had failed due to too much wear on the brake pads. They could, of course, replace them for me. Since they had them in stock, it would take an hour. Two, tops. I look at the time: about 10:15. Two hours and 45 minutes until my brother has his evaluation scheduled, the one that will really get the ball rolling on the plan for his long term care and for housing. The one that's been on the books for almost three weeks now. OK, go for it, but I really need to be out of here in 2 hours, tops.

About 11:45, I'm getting really restless and I ask the guy for a progress report. It turned out they didn't have the parts in stock. I explain that I really have to be somewhere by 1:00. He says he's sorry, he'll try to expedite the parts and then, as soon as the parts get here, it will be like 20 minutes.

Now, at this point, I start making phone calls. Annoyingly, I can't call Paul because I don't have a home phone. I call his social worker. Not there. I will call him 8 times in the next hour, but only leave 3 messages. And the main thing I want is for him to let the front desk know that we're running late, because I have two major fears. First, of course, is that it will take us a month to get another psych evaluation scheduled. Second, I'm vaguely recalling all these threats about what will happen to you and your firstborn if you miss an appointment without calling. I'm wondering if Paul will ever be allowed to receive psychiatric services again, in any state.

I try to think of who else to call, but, you see the bind, right? Being new to the area, how many people can you call and say, "Look, I need a big favor. Go to my house, walk right in. Go upstairs. Paul will probably be asleep. He will probably have clothes on. Wake him up, get him dressed if necessary, and get him to this appointment at a place that I can find and can give you an address, but can't really tell you how to get to. Oh, you'll also need to find his meds and his cigarettes and bring them with you." I mean, it's a lot to ask.

At 12:53 they tell me that the car will be ready in 5 minutes. OK. It'll take me about 15 or 20 to get home to grab Paul and then get to the appointment. That's not so late.

And then the guy went into the garage. And didn't come back for 20 minutes. Seriously. I was going crazy. I actually had the thought go through my head "If we miss this appointment, I'm going to check whether I can sue to make them pay for Paul's psychiatric care." Then I remembered that I didn't believe in that sort of crap. But it's hard to remember who you are when you're under this sort of stress.

Then they told me that the computer was broken and they couldn't print my inspection sticker. Everything was ready, but for some reason they couldn't account for or fix, it wouldn't print. And I was stuck, or at least illegal until it did. That's when I called the social worker with message #2 ("looks like we won't be there at all"). Then my car pulled up and they let me pay for the brake job and leave without the sticker, but warned me I was driving illegally and encouraged me to call and check if the machine was fixed and come back to get my sticker.

Well, Paul and I got to the place at 1:45. And he had completely missed the appointment. They wouldn't reschedule. They would let him see a doc to get meds to get him through the weekend, and they set up an appointment with his nurse on Tuesday to evaluate and consider rescheduling the other. My heart just fell. And all of a sudden, you realize how much you've hung your hopes on something. I've been telling myself to hang on until Sept 1, because then he'll get the psych eval and we'll begin to move forward. And then ... no.

So, we sat there waiting to be called for the meds. I went to the bathroom and cried. I was just so frustrated I wanted to kill somebody. Well, hit somebody. Hard. I decided I was focusing too much on my anger (much of which was directed at myself) and I decided to say Hail Mary's. That's one of the great things about being Catholic. When you're too angry to really pray, you can just ask Mary, over and over again, to pray for you. It generally calms me down.

And because God (and Mother Mary!) are good, an incredible thing happened. We were still sitting there waiting to see the doc for meds at 2:25 and the woman at the front desk called me up there. "The 2:15 psych eval hasn't showed yet. If you guys can stay another hour, and that person doesn't come in the next 5 minutes, we can see him." "Absolutely."

About 15 minutes later, they called him back. I still didn't quite dare believe it, so I asked, "I'm sorry, did he get called for the full eval, or just the meds." The full eval. Thank God.

I cried again. I couldn't quite believe it. All the stress, all the hopes, all the frustrations, and he got in.

Of course, it turns out the psych eval isn't magic. He'll file a report and we have a follow-up appointment in 10 days. But we're moving forward.

The one remaining loose end was that I was a bit worried about driving to Boston to pick up my friend Kyle in my illegal car. I was also worried that all this would make me late to get him. But his flight was delayed and the computer got fixed. My car is legal, and braking better than ever, and should be in Boston in plenty of time to get him.

Sigh. Hopefully, no more tears. Not today.