All good things must come to an end

Alas... my vacation is over (remember - Saturday and Sunday don't really count, since I'd have those days off regardless). I have accomplished absolutely nothing this week; my house is still the national disaster it was this time last week. I haven't cleaned and organized the closets. I haven't gone through the boy's toys and gotten rid of the things he no longer plays with, nor have I gone through his clothes and sorted out the things he can no longer wear. I haven't blogged as much as I wanted to. I haven't read the books I checked out from the library. I've not been sleeping well, so I don't feel at all rested, and I'm already dreading going back to work on Monday.

Ugh.

Now it will be February of 2007 before I can take an entire week off again, because of the way the Casa de Insurance metes out your vacation a few days each month until you've 'earned' your yearly quota. Socialist bastards.

I'm in a quandary over my friend-from-work JB. Remember her? The one that baled on the Dave Matthews concert back at the beginning of August? In all seriousness, she is deeply, deeply disturbed. She has valid and complicated mental health issues that she kind-of gets help for (ie. she goes to the psychiatrist once a month for the good prescription drugs [which she mixes with large quantities of alcohol], but that's about it). She tried a few days ago, and not for the first time, might I add, to overdose. Thank heavens she has a friend staying with her right now that decided not to go into work Tuesday night, otherwise she'd be gone.

My question is this... at what point do you say to someone 'I'm sorry, but I love you too much to watch you do this to yourself any longer.'? I've known her since I started at the Casa de Insurance 7 years ago. We started getting to be close friends 4 years ago. She's been with me through some pretty rough times: my miscarriage and subsequent diabetes diagnosis, the death of my father (at which time she drove me to the hospital when I got the call that he'd gone into cardiac arrest, held my hand when we went into his room with my minister to say a prayer over him when he was gone). She's been this way the entire time. She knows she's need serious, long-term help, but she refuses to do anything about it. I suppose, deep down, I feel obligated to stick by her because of what she's seen me through, but to be honest, it's getting to be exhausting. But I just don't know what the next step is, or how to handle it once I figure it out.

Some vacation...