Hey everyone, I'm sorry I was gone such a long time from here... What's it been, 2 years...?! Oh my... Things got difficult after my mother-in-law passed away. I'm sure you can imagine. I spent a lot of time helping my husband and my kids getting through it, which was a difficult task. And my father-in-law... He was a hot mess. We spent more nights at his house than I care to think about. It went on for a long time before I pretty much snapped and told myself "ENOUGH!" I don't want to sound cold, but we all had lives and none of them revolved around him and I wasn't going to let it be that way. I was the only one (in a house of 3 males) that actually had balls (haha) and stopped to see him one day to have a talk. Don't worry, I was kind and understanding. It was more a discussion of telling him he was falling into this depressive funk, I know how that feels and how hard it is to climb out again, and that he needed to start getting out of the house once in a while to combat that, even if it was just to come to our house. A few days later, he popped in for a visit! Unfortunately, the only person doing badly was me... I was so focused on helping everyone else that I didn't have time to do my own grieving and deal with everything that happened and all the emotions that surrounded me. My art suffered, I just kind of holed up and stayed away from a lot of things. I even stopped going on Facebook, but that was for more specific reasons... Political crap, people who were overly opinionated or just downright stupid... I just couldn't deal with seeing that all over the place, not at that point. Things are a little better right now. Everyone has learned how to deal with the loss, I've grieved... Now I feel a little more social. A little... Just wanted everyone to know I'm still alive and hoping that there are still some active people. I really missed everyone!

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Hi Kit. Welcome back! We all work through grief in different ways at different rates. I'm glad you're feeling better.

Welcome back Kitsu, and I hope things get better from now on! It was very brave of you to confront your FIL -- I'm glad it had a positive outcome.

Thank you everyone! I'm so grateful for all the love and support from all of you! You guys are the best! I really think rejoining the world and socializing will help me a lot. I've been having a bit of an identity crisis lately... My oldest just graduated from high school June 2nd and has a job, my youngest will be 15 on Friday and has a part time job bussing tables at a local diner. And now I'm wondering... With the kids becoming so self sufficient, wtf am I to DO with my life?! It's kind of scary. I'm not sure who I am anymore. But I think becoming more social will help me figure that stuff out. I'm so glad all of you are there for me!