About five years ago, I went through a bout with thyroid cancer. No biggie, really. I didn’t even know that I had it until my thyroid was removed, but after that, I had to go through Radioactive Iodine treatment which, at the time, meant four weeks off my thyroid meds and two weeks of a low iodine diet. All of that made me tired and just kind of a mess.

In the midst of this, someone I thought was a friend (in fact, we’d put her and her husband in my husband’s will as guardians of our kids if something were to happen to us) told me I was lazy because I didn’t feel called to homeschool my son. I had sent an email describing all the issues we were having at the time about his behavior, finding out he has ADHD and all that.

I was stunned that she would say that – it was part of a longer email, where she basically told me that God wants me to homeschool and I’m sinning by not doing that. My husband thought, given how close we were to these people, that there had to be a mis-communication somewhere and called her husband, who then went on to say that HIS wife hadn’t gone far enough in her condemnation of me and how I always complain.

My husband asked if he realized that I was dealing with cancer right then and possibly this wasn’t the best time to “attack” me. The other guy said, “It’s just another opportunity for her to complain.”

Needless to say, we haven’t spoken to them since then, even though I’ve reached out a few times trying to figure out what happened. They’ve moved away – we pass their house on the way to school and we saw moving vans and some other family living there now.

Anyway, since then, I’ve been reluctant to share my hurts and problems in email.

Today, I need a shoulder to cry on.

Life isn’t horrible or anything like that. I just feel overwhelmed by all the little things – nibbled to death by ducks.

First, our carport fell onto my husband’s car while we were at church, and due to the damage to the frame and the roof, the insurance company is probably declare the car totalled, even though it is drive-able. I guess because it’s old and not worth what it would cost to fix it. AND they are paying to have the carport fixed, but in the meantime, we have a lovely collapsed carport roof at the end of our driveway.

Next, my daughter got into a car accident the next day. Her car is fixable for something like $3000, and she’s upset by this, of course. She has just gotten ALMOST debt free (she’d borrowed money from her grandparents to pay her debts and was almost done paying them back), and now she’s going to have to borrow more from them and from us to get the car fixed.

She calls or texts me everyday to vent and cry about the car situation and the only thing I can do is listen, which sucks.

That means that she is without a car, and we don’t have one to lend her as my husband still needs to drive to work and we only have one working car at the house. Of course, our son is in summer school so someone needs to drive him there and back!!

Then, because it’s the South and we’ve been inundated with rain, we’ve had an invasion of roaches. I’ve called Terminix twice to come out and spray extra to take care of it, but I still see at least one every day!

AND my husband is in Scotland for a computing conference. This is a big deal for him, and I’m so proud of what he’s done to get him there, but I really miss having him to lean on in all of this.

And to put the cherry on top, I dropped my laptop last night and the keyboard fell OUT! As you can tell, since I’m typing, it’s fixed but I know this machine is structurally, not going to last much longer. I’m very VERY close to the end of my next novel and I was terrified last night that the computer was “totalled.”

All of these things, individually, are nothing, but all together and I feel like I’ve had all I can take. I didn’t even talk about my son’s summer school and the fights over homework and getting to school on time and his summer schedule and all that!!!

I just need someone to let me lean on him/her for a few minutes. I guess that’s what God is for.