Lost a total of 30 pounds since my highest high that I know of which was 151 pounds, and am back to 121 pounds.

I exchanged a few messages with Eileen last night. She was perfectly polite and friendly, but I didn’t sense the same eagerness about hearing from me as I felt over finding her. IDK, I just would’ve thought she’d be more excited. Who knows, maybe she was. You can’t hear tones or see facial expressions online, so who knows? This is just something I sensed.

Anyway, she simply told me that she did remember me and thanked me for considering her to have been a kind person. She’s 58 now with 3 grown kids and 1 grandchild. She asked what was up with me and I gave her the highlights within a few paragraphs.

She hasn’t accepted my friend request yet, but that’s up to her. If I never heard from her again I’d be ok with at least knowing that I accomplished my main goal which was to find and thank her. Anything more is just a bonus.

I did get a friend request from a fellow camp group member, and a message from Gregg saying it was his pleasure to have been able to help me after I thanked him for his help. He says he loves that kind of detective work. I was glad to hear that as I was worried I was burdening him.

Wow, California has definitely been the “state of reunion” for me, even if there were a few unwanted attempts to reunite with me along the way.

I spoke to my folks yesterday and I’m both glad and not so glad I bothered to call, as I knew they’d bring up the shit with Tammy and her brood. I was about to just call it quits and hang up when my dad insisted, all the while my mom’s attitude was like fine-go-ahead, that they weren’t blaming me only. Well, that’s nice that they recognize that I’m not the only one who did things she shouldn’t have, but they almost made me feel like a kid being scolded all over again. I understand where they’re coming from, but still, I don’t need this shit in my life. It’s easy to tell myself, “Just walk away. Just wash your hands clean of all of them just like you did 10 years ago. You got along fine without them and you know you don’t want/need any negative people in your life or people you simply don’t care for.”

But it’s not that easy what with how much I appreciate their saving us like they did, and all the nice stuff they sent. Stuff is just stuff, I know, and it’s not a ticket for them to aggravate me, but because it was a minor thing where they just wanted to ensure that I won’t contact Tammy, I will keep in touch for now. Besides, it’s not like these people have many years left to live in the first place, and as I assured them, ignoring Tammy and company is my pleasure. Even if they sent a million messages a day I could just ignore them. If they lived a few feet away from us, they could make me pay attention to them, but they don’t. Those people can never hurt or control me ever again. None of them can. I will never see them again and the only ones I’ll talk to are my folks, and without others in the mix to start the he-said, she-said bullshit and come between us, we should be able to get along. This won’t stop Tammy from telling them things in my journal that I might not necessarily tell them myself which they may not agree with (like looking up personal info on people, posting the message about Valleyhead, finding Eileen), but as long as they don’t get pushy, controlling or demanding in any way, I’m ok with keeping in touch with them. And I’d say Tammy definitely mentioned Valleyhead and camp to them because of the way Dad worded things when he said, “That’s what you do. You look up people and places.” Well, I’ve never mentioned places to them in past letters, just info on various people like when Al M died and shit like that.

Meanwhile, things just aren’t the same and I doubt they ever will be again. My folks almost sounded cold, especially my mother. Like talking to me was a chore that they simply felt obligated to do because they’re my parents. I’m not saying they don’t care about what’s going on with us and that they don’t wish us the best, but well, it’s like we’re strangers in a way. Then again, I think we always have been, haven’t we?

Anyway, my folks are ok. They said they’ve never seen a recession this bad in their lives and that they can’t even save. And what they do save has to go to doctors. I’m sure their definition of saving is different than mine, though. We’re so broke that a savings of $20 is a luxury to us.

We have 6 old CRT monitors and Tom brought two of them to the recycling center today, planning to eventually take two more in, then keep a couple as a backup. Well, it’s a good thing he didn’t bring them all in today as the one he was using burned out, so he’s using one of the backups till he can get his Mac back.

I learned an easier way to peel bananas. You usually peel them from the stem, but if you turn the banana around and pinch the very ends of it, it peels much easier. It’s how monkeys do it.