Man, this holiday season kicked my butt. I got basically nothing written between the last entry in early December and today, an entire month later. Oops.
Also oops, I didn't have healthcare for a couple months last year. Getting healthcare is easier than it used to be, but it was still very daunting. I just aged out of my dad's insurance plan (but thanks Obama/Congress, the extra years were really helpful). So now I had to get my own, and good gravy, healthcare is expensive. However, I recently attended a lecture on healthcare law (from these fine folks) and found out that my income falls under the poverty line. Triple oops. That does, however, qualify me for Medicaid. So I signed up both on the state website and on the federal healthcare.gov site. My first responses were not promising. They were, roughly paraphrased: "We don't believe you, give us scads of information and photocopies of documents in the next ten days" and "BS, you make 38 thousand per year, you don't need our help." (I've never made that much, even at 40 hour a week salaried work in IT.)
To these I sighed, got paperwork together, and prepared to pursue the first response. And then I promptly forgot to take it with me when the holidays hit, meaning I didn't get it sent out in time. So I sighed some more, and prepared to contest the second response. When I got home, I had three pieces of mail waiting from the state government. The first said (roughly paraphrased, again), "hey, if you're going to get Medicaid, you should consult with your doctor and see if they take that." The second said, "Congratulations, you get to have healthcare!" And the third said, "Here's your insurance card and information about it, go nuts." That was New Year's Day. I decided that this year, unlike 2014, was starting out pretty well and perhaps it would continue in that vein. We'll see.
The holidays were a mishmash of stress, socializing, and frustration, interspersed with good food and presents. People on the spectrum often like to stick to a schedule, and may get upset when that schedule fluctuates. Well, I'm flexible but not infinitely so. This year's holiday plans got settled right after Thanksgiving, stayed settled until about a week before, and then proceeded to change every day until today, which was when the last of my out-of-town relatives departed. Naturally, I go back to work tomorrow, meaning I have no time to relax, breathe, and decompress. So it goes.
We visited both sides of my family and Chris' (my boyfriend of over two year) as well. I find my own family reasonably easy to get along with, but Chris' still gives me issues sometimes. The immediate family (his parents and brothers) aren't so much a problem, but the extended family I don't know as well. I think that got me into trouble with one of the uncles. There was a discussion of colleges and teaching styles, and he teaches at a college. I assume I said something that offended him, because he eventually started cutting me off mid-thought until I lost any desire to continue the conversation. Though not before pointing out the fact that I wasn't being allowed to finish my point. The conversation ceased after that. With any luck, his poor manners ashamed him once they were pointed out. I had to go upstairs a few minutes afterwards to have a good cry about it. I hate when people won't give me a fair hearing. And I really hate it when they only listen long enough to formulate a cutting response. Hopefully my absence wasn't too noticeable, but I guess I don't know the family that well. The household seemed more chaotic than my own, people getting up and moving about and such, but that doesn't mean they're not perceptive.
In any case, the general shape of the holiday was: drive down to CT, visit Chris' family, visit my immediate family and my mom's side of the family, drive back to Michigan and visit my dad's side of the family, drive home and visit a little bit more with my brother and sister-in-law, and finally, go to work tomorrow. The driving was okay. Not glorious. Driving across Pennsylvania is exceedingly boring. It costs you eternally popping ears and $10 less in tolls than driving through New York, though. We could have opted to drive through Canada, but at least on the way back, that would have been courting going to jail.
While I was in CT, I picked up a number of humanely raised meats. Things like whole hams, bacon, chicken nuggets, bison stew chunks, and bison steak. They frown heavily upon taking food across borders. I don't know precisely why. In any case, I wasn't interested in making apologies or losing my cache of delicious protein to the vagaries of government. And it all made it home frozen solid, despite the long car trip. (Thanks, winter?)
So I'm home now, trying to relax for a few hours before bedtime and work tomorrow. Maybe I'll succeed. Or maybe I'll just add another tick to the "I'm running myself ragged please give me a break" tally.
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