Seven Things I Am Still

1. Here.
2. Alive.
3. Unemployed.
4. Sick of #3.
5. Eating way too many Little Debbie Swiss Rolls and drinking way too many Pepsis.
6. In denial about #5.
7. Perfectly content with my current living situation, except for financial exigencies caused by #3.
8. Just short of panic regarding the future of my mortgage.

For a while there, I thought #8 was solved; Mom and I had discussed the possibility of her cosigning on a refinance of the house, so that I could get out of the foreclosure. Unfortunately, I made a very, very big mistake; deceived by several months of recent adult-ness and maturity in our conversations, I made the drastic error of telling her that LJ had moved back and was renting a room from me. I made it very, very clear that the relationship was over, that it was a purely financial arrangement, very temporary in nature; she didn't hear a word of it. All she heard was "LJ's back" and then she stopped listening, and started stomping around the house and huffing and puffing and telling me how disappointed she was in me. I would understand that, if there was still a relationship there; I could understand anyone being disappointed in me, under those circumstances. Hell, under those circumstances I'd be disappointed in mySELF. But that's NOT what's going on here!! What's going on here is a very simple, very basic rental situation--nothing more. I'm not feeding him, not giving him money, not taking care of him. I am, once a month, collecting a sum of money from him and using it to pay the note on the truck.

That doesn't matter to Mom, though. I'm disappointing and foolish and any number of other things. And then she dropped the bombshell....She's not going to cosign. "I have my own stuff to worry about, my own health and my own bills, and I'm not putting myself in that position," she said. Which I would have agreed with 100%--except for the timing. Curious that those issues weren't mentioned until AFTER she'd been told LJ was back, hmm? There's no connection between those two events, is there?...not at all, not even a LITTLE one. But I'm supposed to be honest with her, right? I'm supposed to be an adult, and not hide things from her, right?? I'm supposed to be mature, right??? Even though decisions are being made as punishments, as though I'm still a small child who needs to be reprimanded--somehow I'm supposed to be an adult in the face of that. Well, guess what? That's just what I'm going to do. I'll be an adult; I'll deal with whatever comes, even without her help. But if I lose this house because she wouldn't help me, it will be added to a long list of things I've lost at the hands of her "mature", "adult" reactions to my "disappointing" decisions. And eventually it will get to a point where I may not be able to forget about the things I've lost, or to forgive the vindictiveness that led me to lose them. And regardless, you can be sure I won't be so anxious in the future, to tell her what's going on in my life.

I've discovered something: it's very tiring, to be happy with your own life and be happy with yourself. You'd think, wouldn't you, that it would be easier than this.