I sincerely thought, until I realized I was mistaken, that I had won 100,000. I thought all my problems would be solved. The problems being that I owe out my ass, down the street, around the corner, around the next twelve blocks, to the outskirts of town, and beyond to the government for my student loans. Plus, it would have been great to pay for my Grandmother's hearing aids and a down payment on a house. Not to mention the investments I could make.
What happened was that I had purchased a ticket for the Millionaire Life lotto. The winner gets a million dollars every year for twenty five years. Lots of people won the 100, 000. I thought I was one of them because I went to the website to check the list of numbers there. I thought that they'd have numbers on there that weren't on the receipt ticket of winning numbers. Instead of comparing MY ticket I was essentially comparing a list of winning numbers with another list of winning numbers and I had honestly thought I was holding my own ticket instead of the other list. So naturally I was getting excited. It was predicted that I was going to win 100,000 in March by a psychic. Of course I am skeptical, but you see I did NOT win 100,000. I only THOUGHT I had won.
Yes, it seems silly now when I think about it and disappointing because that feeling was literally a feeling of FREEDOM from debts that will cripple me for the rest of my life. I had called my Grandmother and told her that I had won and she was happy for me. Then I had to call her back and tell her the mistake I made. I wanted so much to pay for her hearing aids and pay her back the money she had loaned me when I was at a real low. She tells me I don't owe her anything when I tell her that I want to pay her back. I owe her my whole being. Without her, I'd really have nobody in my family I could go to. I mean I go to her when I need advice. I go to her to share everything. I love her so much.
Her hearing aids cost her 2,400. That is WITH a 1,000 rebate from the government. My Grandmother doesn't have much of an income. She has her pension and GST. I can't think of anything else she would have except that she rents out her parking spot in the garage. My Grandfather did leave her with money when he died. She got his stocks and sold them. She sold the house they lived in for over 50 years. They sold the cottage....
I was upset that she sold the cottage for what she did. She sold it to the neighbors. One is a lawyer (my Grandmother's lawyer) and the other is a contractor who builds houses. So they sold the cottage itself and it was lifted off the foundation and moved in one piece to who-knows-where and the lawyer's husband proceeds to build a house on the now vacant lot where my Grandfather's cottage once stood. Then, they sold the house on the lot for MUCH more than they gave my Grandmother for it in the first place. That is what pissed me off. They told my Grandmother that they were going to leave it the way it was so that she could have some peace of mind, but they didn't. I miss that place, I really do. I go back there in my mind whenever I can. I don't ever want those memories to fade. I keep pictures to remind me of the best days of my life. When I was up there, swinging in the hammock, floating in the rubber raft along the Rideau River. My best friend in the whole world was a white dog named Muffin. He belonged to the people who lived a few doors down from the cottage. Whenever I went up there, I'd go get muffin and he'd follow me back to the cottage and we'd play there.
I was just learning how to write so I was about 5 or so. I wrote a letter to Muffin and I put it in his dog house. I really believed that he'd read the letter and write back to me. I was young and silly thinking, but I still remember that. Years went by and I was growing up. I didn't get up to the cottage to see Muffin in those years every summer. He'd gotten old by then as dogs do, but he'd survived a fight with a duck that took one of his eyes out. After that, he went blind in both eyes, and deaf, but he was still my best friend. I used to feed him chives from the garden. I'd almost pick them down to nothing because I loved eating them. My Grandmother would always tell me how my breath would smell to 'high heaven'. I don't know whether I thought it was funny that my breath stunk or that it stunk so much from eating chives that it could reach 'high heaven'.
It was really important to me to save that place, but I never could. Of course it's too late now. It will forever be too late to save it. It's gone. Just memories of what used to be my only safe place in the world. I'd used to hitch hike up there in the summer time. I stayed up there a bunch of times by myself. I'd always sleep on the couch if I was down there by myself, with the t.v on. I was scared to be there by myself. I don't know what it was, but I was scared.
My Grandfather had an incinerator for trash mostly and yard debris. It was a barrel, steel drum type thing, that was rusty. He'd build a fire in there and burn stuff like he had been for years and years. The neighbors hated every time he did that. He didn't seem to know or care because he still did it. It was a sort of right to him, I guess. I don't know.
I'd stay outside if there were boats going by so that I could wave to the people and for the waves afterwards. I'd catch the waves in my rubber boat, tied to the dock. The rule was that I could not go further than the rope allowed. Once, I was in a bigger boat, a row boat. I can't remember who was there with me. I think my mother was and my cousin A**. We took turns rowing to the store down the river. There is a store out that way called Kelley's Landing. Close to it is a cemetery. (There's another story about ending up in the ditch across from this cemetery).
I've never been into this cemetery, but I've been drawn to it for some reason that I cannot explain. Even before the accident. It was the first accident I was in. There was black ice on the road. The kind that you can't see. There was another car coming towards us in the other lane, it was close, but we managed to hit the ditch instead of that car. This was on Christmas Night several years ago. I think about it sometimes. We were still lucky because about ten feet away from where we landed there was the start of a deep gorge. We missed that, too.
Fortunately. Very fortunately. That had to call for a 'knock on wood' for never getting into another accident again. My mother's husband was driving that night. We had a full car.
How foolish am I to think that I won? I mean my chances are worse than anyone else's. It's like reality coming home again, or hitting home. To think my situation improved to such a high degree, and then realizing that nothing has changed. My mother wants me to go to the casino with her and my Grandmother next Monday. I want to go, but I'm tapped. Plus, even if I wasn't, I still have to be here to pick up my son from school. And stay with him afterwards.
I didn't get to go to the writing group like I wanted to. I was planning on going, but I had to stay with my son. I had asked his father to take him so that I could go, but he was busy. I feel bad about trying to get Gary to go and then not getting to go to meet him there. This is the second time that this has happened. It's just chopped down to circumstances.
Same as not winning the lotto.
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