Good News, Bad News

by Allegra

Two unrelated developments....

First, the good news.  After considerable thought and internal discussion, our system has made a change in its internal council.  Ever since the council has existed--and that's 20 years--it's been composed of all five bigs plus Laura and me.  The bigs were supposed to be the ones voting on important decisions; while Laura and I as fronters could give input, we as minors could not vote.

Now before I go any further, this post isn't meant to start a debate on whether or not minors should have voting rights.  This is the way our system works, and that's that.  We've always felt that it's important for kids and teens of all ages to give input, and so we also have two or three additional representatives from each age group who are designated to provide ad-hoc input on behalf of the age group that they represent.  Sort of like the U.S. Congress, except more functional.  :-)

But as we've written many times over the years, this structure hasn't served us nearly as well as it should, because the bigs, who are the foundation of our system government, have for years been basically non-functional in the outside world. One of the major goals for our healing process has been having the bigs front more, so that everyone leads an age-appropriate life.

The bigs are fronting more.  It's mostly Charity, with Rachel, Mary, and Deborah nearby, riding in the back of the metaphorical SUV.  Occasionally one of the other three rides shotgun, but not as often as Charity would like.

But it's progress.  And along with that, there's been a general if informal consensus that Cass has for some time been acting as our manager of internal operations, with me as the external operations counterpart.  There's been a symmetry about this that wasn't consciously intended, but it appeals to us nevertheless.

So, the change in our council is that instead of Laura and I serving as non-voting fronters, Laura will step down to make room for Cass.  Cass and I will serve as non-voting members from the operations perspective.

And to clarify, this was a mutual decision.  When I proposed the idea to Laura, she was completely in favor of it.  She doesn't want to deal with anything that involves overall system responsibility.  And we've finally arrived at a place where we have a way to rectify the situation and put an end to Laura's resentment.  Win-win.
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And now the bad news.  We just received a letter from our landlord's son-in-law, who said that the cost of keeping our landlord in a nursing home has made it prohibitive to continue owning the house.  They plan to sell it in the spring.

We've lived here for over 20 years.   New car.  Long-term care insurance.  Future rent greatly increasing from the below-market arrangement that we've had.  We can do it, but....

To be continued.