Saturday arrived with yet another slap to the face. I
had a horrible night with a sick toddler, so I probably slept no more than 3
hours total. Even so I was up at 7 o’clock to shower and get
dressed. Ashley woke up crying before I had my outfit together, so I
turned on some cartoons to keep her occupied while I got ready. After
last minute issues were taken care of, my mom gave us a ride to the jail since
parking was so expensive when I was there on Thursday. I had asked
her to do me that favor yesterday and Lizzy was going to pick us up to go to
the meeting afterwards.
We arrived at the jail facility and I got our things together so
we could go and visit Alberto. When we walked in the doors I was
surprised that the only people in the lobby area were the two uniformed
guards. Feeling more optimistic I approached the desk and stated my
business. The guard who was a county officer replied rather smartly
that visiting was closed because there were too many people waiting to visit on
the block where Alberto was being held. I asked her to please double
check for me since this would be the first time Alberto would see his daughter
it well over a year. She called the guard on the block in question,
and said that there were still too many people waiting so I would have to visit
on another day. I was crushed. Though I tried my hardest
to maintain my composure, I felt a few tears slip past my guard. I
simply have no defense against any setbacks when it comes to Alberto. Ashley
and I settled ourselves in the lobby to wait for Lizzy to arrive since it was
still a little chilly outside.
When we parked by Nora’s house, my phone rang. It was
Alberto! I answered the phone and due to the nature of husband I had
to guess about 40% of what he was saying because he doesn’t know how to speak
up. He wanted to know if his mom came with me to visit, and I said
no. I want the first visit to be just Ashley and me because he’s
less likely to get irritated with me if I started to cry this way. He
can’t stand to see me cry, so that was the reason I was able to be at the
hearing on Thursday with dry eyes. Knowing me the way he does I’m guessing
he could figure out that I burst into tears the minute I was out the
door. Anyway as we’re talking he asked me if I put deposited the
money. I had no idea what he was talking about at first and then I
remembered that he’d asked me to deposit money for him at the jail when I
talked to him Thursday night. I started to tell him that I’d
forgotten because Ashley was sick and how I’d had to take her to the doctor on
Thursday and hadn’t worked on Friday because I was so worried about her. He
got mad at me so I got mad at him which ended with him hanging up on me. Wonderful! I
just agreed to pay another $9.99 for a phone call that wasn’t even 10 minutes
long to have my husband hang up on me in a hissy fit. This day just
keeps getting better.
At the meeting I was distracted for a while using the internet on
my phone to see what the policies on depositing money for inmate use
were. Luckily the property room is open 7 days a week both in the
morning and in the evening. I decided to speak with my parents when
we got home to see if I could run and make that deposit after dinner. Our
discussion for the day surrounded ways we want to try and be intentional with
our husbands, as well as how men and women have different approaches to
handling situations. Being intentional to me is fighting to improve
the relationship I have with Alberto and not settling for an ok marriage when
we both deserve a great marriage. A good suggestion was making a
date night to get away from the worries of life and to simply be
together. I’ll have to remember that for when we’re able to move on
with our life together. The other major portion of the discussion
was on how men and women approach conflict or extraordinary situations
differently. An example that everyone had experienced was the
frustration of trying to have an argument with a Hispanic man. Let’s
say you start arguing about money for example, during this argument you will
get to a point where the man will simply shut down. I call this
Alberto’s Pout-Point since that is how he deals with anger, which is really one
of the few emotions I can get him to reveal easily. When I am
fighting with someone, I want to settle the issue now and move on. Alberto
can only tolerant so much arguing before he shuts down and I have to walk away
until he is ready to talk again. Thank God I’m not the only one who
has to deal with this!
When we got home after the meeting, Ashley was sleeping so I took
her straight down to bed. She didn’t stay asleep long which was fine
since I was early for her nap so we had a little bit of lunch and took a
walk. After our walk I put Ashley down for a nap and went to read
for a bit. After a few coughing fits, Ashley didn’t want to lie down
anymore. We went down and took a nap on my bed and that’s when the
ugliest part of the day happened. She woke up sobbing as though she
had a bad dream 3 times in less than 2 hours before she slept soundly for a
while. The last time was awful. She was so upset and I
couldn’t calm her down because she could not wake up. A night
terror! A night terror is a bad dream, only this dream is lucid so
it seems to be 100% real and you are unable to wake up easily if at all. Ashley
has had these before, but they usually only occur in the months following a
visit with Alberto. She sobs, cries while talking, moans, and does
the hiccup thing that we all do after sobbing for an extended period of
time. It took me 45 minutes to get her to go back to sleep so she
could wake up naturally. It upsets me when this happens.
After dinner I went down to the jail again to deposit the
money. I spoke to the officer in the property room and she assured
me that Alberto would get a copy of the receipt showing him that I had
deposited money for him. Maybe that’ll get him to call me and
apologize for hanging up on me this last time. On my way out I spoke
to the guards again about visiting times and suggestions. It seems
like the only way I can be sure to get in to see Alberto is if I’m there an
hour before visiting starts. How exactly I’m supposed to do that
with a rambunctious toddler I have no idea. Tomorrow I’ll call
Gisela and let her know that I want to visit Alberto so Ashley needs to be
somewhat clean, and that you need to have State or Federal ID to visit. Alberto
is not going to be happy when I tell him about that part, but then at least
I’ll be off the hook about getting Gisela over to visit with him. Does
that make me a bad person that I don’t want to bring Gisela to see Alberto with
me for at least the first time?
Sleep will be a long time coming tonight I fear. I only
hope that Ashley gets some undisturbed rest that she needs to get better.
Ciao
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