Phoebe got what amounted to an eviction notice...a wake-up call.

They are going to evict her it they can. We have gotten a reprieve for a month, but there will be a hearing, and the housing people have these photographs, an extensive report..and say frankly that she really does not have a chance.

There is a new worker for the deaf coming to VR in Rome January 16.

I have been so miserable for the past 6 weeks. It was probably not just Eden, it was more likely the real knowledge that I could not in good conscience go off and leave Phoebe for 2 years. I suppose what I was really doing was unjustly blaming Eden because I was unwilling to face up to the facts myself.

It also has to do with my past.

Once I knew Phoebe was deaf I did have to work, but I also "escaped" into work. I guess I told you before, but I will repeat what those first 5 years were like. Constant rejection...the Jr. League Speech School, twice (After waiting 3 years for the interview for acceptance, they tested her, and then sent a letter suggesting that she was mentally deficient...something I had never considered before. She wasn't, but it was devasting.)My mother had me drag up us to the Clarke School in Massachusetts twice...again of course rejected..that up uprooting to go to Pennsylvania for 4 months for her to attend the Pennsylvania State Oral School for the Deaf while I worked in Allentown and went up to Scranton on weekends....Will could not or would not look for a job in PA so we came back...and then ...thank goodness acceptance at the Georgia School for the Deaf...and boarding school was in a sense a way to have somebody else become responsible.

It was easier to write to all the schools in the US offering preschool programs than dealing personally with Phoebe, I think.

Well, now I have a chance to change things. Rome is not a bad place at all. The medical center is across the street from where she lives. She really does have a very nice apartment...everything you and I have ...living room, bedroom, tile bath, complete kitchen...on public transportation. I just need to get a different goal.

Eden is not supportive...she says that going up to Rome and trying to help Phoebe is counterproductive...that I am throwing my life away. I need to ignore her. I will continue to help her with Jay, Marti, and Aunt Bettie, but for once Phoebe needs to come first in my life.

We belong to the Y, to the Rome Historical Museum....

I just need to rearrange my own priorities. I have even written out a plan.

Since I have told everybody here that I did this invitation, I think I will go ahead and go on January 27 and go through the training until March 4. Then I will simply tell them about Phoebe, and the fact that I can not responsibly continue, and then just come home. Eden calls it quitting...but she also calls not finishing out the contract year quitting.

I tried to write out a "mission statement" based on "Family"...and have a hard time buying into it. When I was in London and Hamilton I think I was glad to be alone....I must be a very selfish person. Frankly I guess I really do not like all these people very much. I don't like having to deal with Phoebe's unwillingness to conform, to Eden's bossing me around (if I am over there I am immediately put to work helping with homework, with housework)....

To me making this plan a success is basically to turning Phoebe into a "job" where I goals....even if it is just keeping here there.

I don't need to talk about this with you, what I do need is to feel that there is somebody out there I can write to, and not just have all this stuff go over and over and over in my mind like a tape.

This being in this office...no emails, telephone calls, no mail...is really getting to me. I really do need to get away from here no matter whether I just turn down the PC right away and not go at all (which is certainly the mature thing to do) or just write a resignation letter, saying I need to leave to take care of my "sick" daughter...which I guess is the actual truth. Maybe before the first of the year I can bring myself to turn down the inivation, write a resignation letter for the end of January, and then move ahead on working with Phoebe starting February 1.

I know I must have started the PC application thing the day after that meeting with Matthews and Judith, just to maintain my sanity..to give myself some sense of success and maybe just to keep myself from falling into some kind of dangerous depression. There WERE consistent steps of success, when I was not getting them from other places. The nomination, the dental and medical clearances, finally the invitation...over a 9 month period, that I needed. I am not sorry that I did it.

This is probably the "plan"

What I need to do now is to build up the kind of enthusiasm about the plan that I am as enthusiastic about that as I have been about work or the PC thing.

It is common knowledge that we are responsible for our feelings. We are responsible for our thoughts. We can think positive thoughts and make ourselves feel better.

Don's worry about me.

I will not call and carry on on the telephone anymore.

E