So first of all, I am still alive.
There are days where that fact is somewhat more disputed than others, today among them, but: breathing, heart beating, radiating heat; yep. Still alive.
I'm also married...six months tomorrow, as a matter of fact. CR is the single brightest spot in my life and I have never felt luckier to know someone.
(Insert asterisk here, right?)
BUT: We don't live together. I live at Mom's and he lives at my friend Ravynwyng's, with her and her husband Steve the Moron and their daughter. That's a short story--I'm not even gonna bother with the reasons why. I love my mom but her views......Man.
AND. I'm still out of work. After 26 months.
BUT....
Ok, actually, no buts. I'm trying to come to peace with what I know I need to do next, but it isn't easy.
There's more, but not necessarily just now. All is well, in all the ways that matter...more soon.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Do Unto Others
I never wanted anything in return, really.
There were people, I'm sure, who thought I had ulterior motives when I helped others; and there were even more people who thought I was a large-scale sucker, an idealist who would surely change her tune the first time she got burned...or the next time, or the time after that, or....
But there were no ulterior motives, no expectation of tit-for-tat. I know this because it honestly never really entered my mind that I would ever NEED to have any good deeds reciprocated. I was at a place in my life where I felt comfortable giving, confident that I would never again find myself in a situation where I needed to TAKE.
And yet--here I am.
I would feel better if I was the one left hanging; if I was the one whose life would be thrown into total uncertainty because of something I'd done, or hadn't done, or couldn't do or find or build. But as usual, I'm not the one to suffer, unless you count "moving home to Mom's at the tender age of almost-42" as "suffering". Don't get me wrong, I think it sucks, but I can't even wallow in my own self-pity because no matter how bad I've got it, CR has it worse.
And I can't help him.
We're moving out in two weeks. He's going to stay at his sister's--a big house, paid by Section 8, but still: CR's sis, his brother-in-law, his brother-in-law's brother, and between five and 7 kids, depending on whether the brother-in-law's oldest boys are staying with their mother. The five permanent kids range from 14 all the way down to 2. No one in their house is working, either, and there's a lot of underlying crap going on as well--all combining to make a very uncertain, very very stressful situation. CR, needless to say, doesn't want to go.
And I can't help him. For the first time in my life, someone I love needs help from me, and I don't have the resources to give it. I don't know anywhere less stressful where he could stay; I don't know any social programs where they might be able to steer him to temporary housing, and I don't know any agencies which wouldn't be completely overloaded by now anyway. I don't have any friends he could stay with; his friends, unfortunately, are all back where he came from, and none of them have any resources either. I can't find myself a job; he can't find himself a job, and I don't know anyone who might let me be a foot in the door for him. I can't go to my family--neither Mom's side nor Dad's--because they either don't know about him, or would give my mom hell if they DID know. Several months ago I reached out to someone on my dad's side of the family, someone who has taken in dozens of near-strangers--females, males, couples, friends of her daughters or her granddaughters--n the past. She would take ME in, of course, she said...but she "just wasn't comfortable" having CR there with me too. Okay, I thought; through all the stories of the wild times she'd spent in her youth, the rocky marriages and the single motherhood and all the jobs she'd had where she'd had to work in dangerous neighborhoods, all the black colleagues she's befriended and all the black friends she has and all the black neighbors she's on good terms with...having heard her talk for all these years, I'm surprised she'd feel that way, but after all, I thought, it IS her home. I would have hoped that she'd be okay with it since I could vouch for him---but again: HER HOME. Not mine. And so when I came away from that conversation I was a little bit disappointed, but not angry or anything....
...until I found out (via an ambush lecture a few days later) that she'd called my mom to tell her all about our conversation. That, no matter what the answer was, was totally uncalled-for. She knows my mom's opinions--in fact, the last time my aunt (her sister) was in town, the two of them went to dinner with my mom and I, and she'd made some remark about how conservative and old-school my aunt and my mom were, and how different I was about such things. So there was no question of not knowing my mom would object, or not knowing that she would totally disapprove of my relationship. It was a blatant act of tattletale-ism, and it really REALLY disappointed me, even more than the whole staying-at-her-house issue. What was even worse, I'd told CR many times about how cool she was, how she might be a good last-resort try to find a temporary home---so now, not only had my last big plan evaporated, but I came out looking like a poor judge of character. I've talked to this woman since--we're family, after all--and I've put it behind me as best I can--but that feeling of disappointment hasn't gone anywhere.
So, just to recap: I have a stable place to live, for as long as I want, where I'm not "paying rent" so much as I'm "paying back all the money I've borrowed in the past few months". I have a car. I have the ability to spend my unemployment money getting my teeth fixed so I don't go to job interviews looking like a walking poster for meth-mouth. I am guaranteed food and shelter and a sense of security.
CR gets NONE of these. CR doesn't know where his next meal will come from; he will have a roof over his head and a spot on the sofa to sleep at night, but no sort of autonomy or comfort or anything; there's no one who will pay for the medical attention he really, REALLY needs, nor to get his teeth fixed so he can get a job (his teeth are worse than mine). I 've told him I will do everything in my power to make sure his basic needs are taken care of--food, cigarettes, etc--but that's not living; it's existing. He doesn't know somebody who knows somebody whose sister's boyfriend's nephew is in charge of hiring for...wherever.
And I can't give him any of these things. I want to; more than anything, I would love to have a family member or a friend to put in a good word for him; hell, I would love to have a family member who wouldn't be repulsed at the very thought of my relationship. I want to smooth his path, and I can't.
And this, THIS is the worst part: It shouldn't be this way. I should be able to offer him a place to stay where I am going. When I was in high school and college, and my boyfriend was living way up north and working way south by me, my mother let him stay in her house overnight. (This was not some uncharacteristic burst of open-mindedness on Mom's part, incidentally--she was convinced that there was no kind of sexual hanky-panky going on down in the basement where we were staying, and to this day, when she's playing martyr, she still occasionally drags out the whole "you said you wouldn't have sex" thing. Now, I like to think of my mother as a smart person, but come on now--there's a limit.) So if HE could stay at her house, why can't CR? I mean, it's not like I'm gonna get pregnant, and she already KNOWS there's hanky-panky...he's a good man, doesn't steal or fight or drink orange juice straight out of the carton...so WHY can't he stay with me?
I don't have to actually ANSWER that question, do I. And in the end, because my mother cannot accept my choice of who to love, HE is made to suffer.
I have to forgive her--just out of simple fairness, I have to accept whatever stress she doles out. Because sixteen years ago she took me back, after all the things I'd done and said, I have a debt to her that goes much deeper than any borrowed money. So even though it makes me want to kick and scream and punch and rage, every time I even think about it, I still have to forgive her and say "well, she's old, she's set in her ways, she comes from an entirely different time." Even though I'm not so sure I believe it myself, I have to MAKE myself accept it.
But then I think of other people who I've helped, people who might have settled down enough to have a steady income. And I hate it more than I can say, but I also realize how much it sounds right now like I've been keeping score on every good deed I've done, which isn't true but I can see how it might look that way from the outside. It's not about keeping score; it's about being helpless, about being in need and just out of nowhere, having some unremembered kindness returned, an unexpected gift.
I don't expect it; nobody EVER expects a miracle. And anyway I don't want the miracle for ME; I want it for CR, for his peace of mind, for his stability and his ability to see through the bull***t all around him. I want to see him smile again, to see him HAPPY, to offer him some place where he can feel secure. And right now, between the economy and the political climate and the total inability to get a even a preliminary screening interview, I can't even promise him for certain how long it will be until we can live in the same place again.
For a long time now, I've tried to live my life believing that both the evil and the good we do somehow comes back to us in the end. Lately, though, I see only two possible explanations for the turns my life has taken: Either I've underestimated how much bad I've done, how much of that karmic debt I still have to pay.
before even reaching neutral--or I've done so little good in my life that I've already drained that part of my karmic account. Either way, though, it shouldn't matter; either way, I should at least be able to ensure the survival and comfort of the man I love most in this world. And every time I think about it, I remember time wasted, money spent, bridges burned, opportunities missed. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to keep CR safe and sheltered until he can rebuild some kind of security for himself....there's no reason at all that he should have to suffer for MY old, misguided, stupid choices.
And the worst part of it is: he WILL. Through no fault of his own, CR will be left holding the bag, and the bag will be empty.
There were people, I'm sure, who thought I had ulterior motives when I helped others; and there were even more people who thought I was a large-scale sucker, an idealist who would surely change her tune the first time she got burned...or the next time, or the time after that, or....
But there were no ulterior motives, no expectation of tit-for-tat. I know this because it honestly never really entered my mind that I would ever NEED to have any good deeds reciprocated. I was at a place in my life where I felt comfortable giving, confident that I would never again find myself in a situation where I needed to TAKE.
And yet--here I am.
I would feel better if I was the one left hanging; if I was the one whose life would be thrown into total uncertainty because of something I'd done, or hadn't done, or couldn't do or find or build. But as usual, I'm not the one to suffer, unless you count "moving home to Mom's at the tender age of almost-42" as "suffering". Don't get me wrong, I think it sucks, but I can't even wallow in my own self-pity because no matter how bad I've got it, CR has it worse.
And I can't help him.
We're moving out in two weeks. He's going to stay at his sister's--a big house, paid by Section 8, but still: CR's sis, his brother-in-law, his brother-in-law's brother, and between five and 7 kids, depending on whether the brother-in-law's oldest boys are staying with their mother. The five permanent kids range from 14 all the way down to 2. No one in their house is working, either, and there's a lot of underlying crap going on as well--all combining to make a very uncertain, very very stressful situation. CR, needless to say, doesn't want to go.
And I can't help him. For the first time in my life, someone I love needs help from me, and I don't have the resources to give it. I don't know anywhere less stressful where he could stay; I don't know any social programs where they might be able to steer him to temporary housing, and I don't know any agencies which wouldn't be completely overloaded by now anyway. I don't have any friends he could stay with; his friends, unfortunately, are all back where he came from, and none of them have any resources either. I can't find myself a job; he can't find himself a job, and I don't know anyone who might let me be a foot in the door for him. I can't go to my family--neither Mom's side nor Dad's--because they either don't know about him, or would give my mom hell if they DID know. Several months ago I reached out to someone on my dad's side of the family, someone who has taken in dozens of near-strangers--females, males, couples, friends of her daughters or her granddaughters--n the past. She would take ME in, of course, she said...but she "just wasn't comfortable" having CR there with me too. Okay, I thought; through all the stories of the wild times she'd spent in her youth, the rocky marriages and the single motherhood and all the jobs she'd had where she'd had to work in dangerous neighborhoods, all the black colleagues she's befriended and all the black friends she has and all the black neighbors she's on good terms with...having heard her talk for all these years, I'm surprised she'd feel that way, but after all, I thought, it IS her home. I would have hoped that she'd be okay with it since I could vouch for him---but again: HER HOME. Not mine. And so when I came away from that conversation I was a little bit disappointed, but not angry or anything....
...until I found out (via an ambush lecture a few days later) that she'd called my mom to tell her all about our conversation. That, no matter what the answer was, was totally uncalled-for. She knows my mom's opinions--in fact, the last time my aunt (her sister) was in town, the two of them went to dinner with my mom and I, and she'd made some remark about how conservative and old-school my aunt and my mom were, and how different I was about such things. So there was no question of not knowing my mom would object, or not knowing that she would totally disapprove of my relationship. It was a blatant act of tattletale-ism, and it really REALLY disappointed me, even more than the whole staying-at-her-house issue. What was even worse, I'd told CR many times about how cool she was, how she might be a good last-resort try to find a temporary home---so now, not only had my last big plan evaporated, but I came out looking like a poor judge of character. I've talked to this woman since--we're family, after all--and I've put it behind me as best I can--but that feeling of disappointment hasn't gone anywhere.
So, just to recap: I have a stable place to live, for as long as I want, where I'm not "paying rent" so much as I'm "paying back all the money I've borrowed in the past few months". I have a car. I have the ability to spend my unemployment money getting my teeth fixed so I don't go to job interviews looking like a walking poster for meth-mouth. I am guaranteed food and shelter and a sense of security.
CR gets NONE of these. CR doesn't know where his next meal will come from; he will have a roof over his head and a spot on the sofa to sleep at night, but no sort of autonomy or comfort or anything; there's no one who will pay for the medical attention he really, REALLY needs, nor to get his teeth fixed so he can get a job (his teeth are worse than mine). I 've told him I will do everything in my power to make sure his basic needs are taken care of--food, cigarettes, etc--but that's not living; it's existing. He doesn't know somebody who knows somebody whose sister's boyfriend's nephew is in charge of hiring for...wherever.
And I can't give him any of these things. I want to; more than anything, I would love to have a family member or a friend to put in a good word for him; hell, I would love to have a family member who wouldn't be repulsed at the very thought of my relationship. I want to smooth his path, and I can't.
And this, THIS is the worst part: It shouldn't be this way. I should be able to offer him a place to stay where I am going. When I was in high school and college, and my boyfriend was living way up north and working way south by me, my mother let him stay in her house overnight. (This was not some uncharacteristic burst of open-mindedness on Mom's part, incidentally--she was convinced that there was no kind of sexual hanky-panky going on down in the basement where we were staying, and to this day, when she's playing martyr, she still occasionally drags out the whole "you said you wouldn't have sex" thing. Now, I like to think of my mother as a smart person, but come on now--there's a limit.) So if HE could stay at her house, why can't CR? I mean, it's not like I'm gonna get pregnant, and she already KNOWS there's hanky-panky...he's a good man, doesn't steal or fight or drink orange juice straight out of the carton...so WHY can't he stay with me?
I don't have to actually ANSWER that question, do I. And in the end, because my mother cannot accept my choice of who to love, HE is made to suffer.
I have to forgive her--just out of simple fairness, I have to accept whatever stress she doles out. Because sixteen years ago she took me back, after all the things I'd done and said, I have a debt to her that goes much deeper than any borrowed money. So even though it makes me want to kick and scream and punch and rage, every time I even think about it, I still have to forgive her and say "well, she's old, she's set in her ways, she comes from an entirely different time." Even though I'm not so sure I believe it myself, I have to MAKE myself accept it.
But then I think of other people who I've helped, people who might have settled down enough to have a steady income. And I hate it more than I can say, but I also realize how much it sounds right now like I've been keeping score on every good deed I've done, which isn't true but I can see how it might look that way from the outside. It's not about keeping score; it's about being helpless, about being in need and just out of nowhere, having some unremembered kindness returned, an unexpected gift.
I don't expect it; nobody EVER expects a miracle. And anyway I don't want the miracle for ME; I want it for CR, for his peace of mind, for his stability and his ability to see through the bull***t all around him. I want to see him smile again, to see him HAPPY, to offer him some place where he can feel secure. And right now, between the economy and the political climate and the total inability to get a even a preliminary screening interview, I can't even promise him for certain how long it will be until we can live in the same place again.
For a long time now, I've tried to live my life believing that both the evil and the good we do somehow comes back to us in the end. Lately, though, I see only two possible explanations for the turns my life has taken: Either I've underestimated how much bad I've done, how much of that karmic debt I still have to pay.
before even reaching neutral--or I've done so little good in my life that I've already drained that part of my karmic account. Either way, though, it shouldn't matter; either way, I should at least be able to ensure the survival and comfort of the man I love most in this world. And every time I think about it, I remember time wasted, money spent, bridges burned, opportunities missed. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to keep CR safe and sheltered until he can rebuild some kind of security for himself....there's no reason at all that he should have to suffer for MY old, misguided, stupid choices.
And the worst part of it is: he WILL. Through no fault of his own, CR will be left holding the bag, and the bag will be empty.
Monday, January 30, 2012
As the Sinking Ship Turns...er, Lists
Mom has put her foot down; as of February 28th, she will no longer be able to offer me any type of financial assistance whatsoever. I can't blame her--she's been so far beyond "generous" that I feel like I should squelch my misery. See, once we get to the first of March, I will (barring a miracle) have to move home, sans CR, to Mom's basement. Aside from the normal unhappiness, I am entirely miserable because CR has, effectively, no place to go.Unless I can pull a job out of my tail, I may be losing more than my home.
I can assure you that if it comes, neither of us is going to take separation very well. I've redoubled my efforts to find a job, but it just seems like no one is calling. I'm running out of ideas for the short term; all the things I can do which would make us money are longer-term endeavors, like the book and the bakery. There's a little corner of my mind that's just about ready to try a grassroots, "everyone-send-a-penny-to-save-my-home" kind of fundraisers going...but we're not sympathetic enough. If I had an adorable baby, perhaps, or a basket of fluffy little kittens....but two couch-dwelling slackers hiding out and feeding into each other's major depressive disorder?? Not likely to make anyone open their pockets, ya know?
I keep telling myself that this is happening for a reason, and sometimes I'm okay with not knowing what that reason might be. The rest of the time, though, I think the reason is "I'm a failure, a waste of potential, a total loser, and I need that fact hammered home as forcefully as possible."
I sure could use that miracle right about now.....
I can assure you that if it comes, neither of us is going to take separation very well. I've redoubled my efforts to find a job, but it just seems like no one is calling. I'm running out of ideas for the short term; all the things I can do which would make us money are longer-term endeavors, like the book and the bakery. There's a little corner of my mind that's just about ready to try a grassroots, "everyone-send-a-penny-to-save-my-home" kind of fundraisers going...but we're not sympathetic enough. If I had an adorable baby, perhaps, or a basket of fluffy little kittens....but two couch-dwelling slackers hiding out and feeding into each other's major depressive disorder?? Not likely to make anyone open their pockets, ya know?
I keep telling myself that this is happening for a reason, and sometimes I'm okay with not knowing what that reason might be. The rest of the time, though, I think the reason is "I'm a failure, a waste of potential, a total loser, and I need that fact hammered home as forcefully as possible."
I sure could use that miracle right about now.....
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Don't Worry, I Haven't Heard From Me Either
So yes--I am here, still alive, and still Gladys. I think my seven months of blog-silence has been just another hallmark of my depression, which I'd largely allowed to take over my whole life. I'm still unemployed; I had a job for three days back in the summer somewhere, but that came to an abrupt halt when my manager caught me dozing off. (Yes, it's exactly what it seems: my apnea is WAY not controlled. I'm now at the point where I'm really sick of it and very WILLING to become compliant with the CPAP regimen--but now I have no insurance to replace the hoses and masks I need. This would be less of a problem if a certain pointy-ended kitteh hadn't punctured the hose...ah, well. Sometimes I think cats are lucky that God made them cute; otherwise they'd lose their happy homes!) Since then, I've had a few calls and a couple of interviews, but nothing terribly encouraging. I think I might know why; I'm pretty sure the vibe I'm sending out to the universe is "no more office work, no more bosses, no more daily panic attacks for fear I'll encounter something I don't know how to do." The little interior voice is telling me it's time to make that jump, whatever direction I need to jump in. My writing, my bakery idea, a few other options I've considered--it's time for me to pick one and go with it, because this is probably the last time I'm going to have a chance to solidly THINK about my life and make a considered decision.
It's scary as hell, and then too it's a very bittersweet thing to have options, because the only reason I'll have any chance at all to take the needed time to get anything off the ground...the only reason I'll have that kind of time at all is that I will be moving home to Mom's house at the end of February. That on its own is bad enough, but the REAL heartbreaker is this: CR is still here, we are still together and happier in our relationship than we've ever been, and when I move home to Mom's I have to accept that he's not allowed in her home. Not because of our past history together--Mom doesn't know there IS a past history--and not because he's some kind of horrible person or because he mistreats me or talks down to me or cheats on me or any of that. Mom doesn't care how well he treats me (and he does!); doesn't know how good a man he is, how much he cares about everyone, how happy I am with him. "I don't NEED to know all that," she says when I try to talk about him. "I know the only thing I need to know, to know that I don't want my daughter dating him!"
It's hard, looking at my mother, who has been the only person on earth who has ALWAYS been there for me, no matter how angry or disappointed or betrayed she's felt because of my actions....It's hard to look at her and know all her good points and then have to face up to this horrible, inflexible WRONGNESS that lives inside her. This is my mother, my flesh and blood, and to have her say on more than one occasion that if I continue dating outside my race, she will not be able to have a good relationship with me...it angers me, of course, and it makes me sad to an amazing degree...but it also scares me a bit, because if this ultimatum is serious, and if she carries it out, it will mean that she's putting her hatred for black men over her love for her daughter. I know she doesn't intend it that way--for all my life, I've heard her say in various ways and situations "if you REALLY loved me, you'd..." She did it to my father all the time; I can't count the times I pressed my ear to the heating vent and heard her argue with my father, always arriving at some variation of that theme. In my last argument with her (New Years' Eve, and boy was THAT a doozy) after she said that if I stay with CR, then either I must not be grateful enough for all the things she's done, or that I must not love her enough to consider HER feelings on the matter...after she said that, I told her that was just as wrong when she said it to me, as when she told my father "If you don't clean out this basement, you must not care what I think." I reminded her of the times she'd said that to my dad, and then I said, "Daddy loved you! The basement was a total mess when he died, but he still loved the hell out of you!!" And she actually came back with "Well, sometimes I STILL wonder whether he did or not."
Um, hello? My dad died in 1987. At the end of this summer, my father will have been gone twenty-five years, and yet mom STILL holds a grudge. Faced with that, how the hell am I supposed to make MY point?
And the hell of it is this: I AM grateful for everything she's done for me. Since the remnants of my 401k ran out back in April or thereabouts, she has been BEYOND generous with helping me financially. I tell her all the time how grateful I am, how if she ever needs me to do anything for her, all she has to do is tell me and I'll take care of it. When she said once that she wouldn't live long enough for me to pay back everything I owe her (okay, that's sad but true--she's 83 years old) I even told her--and in all seriousness!--that I'm willing to take any money I hadn't been able to pay her, and donate it to the Catholic Church on her behalf. (As anyone who knows me well can tell you, giving ANYTHING to the Church is as distasteful to me as giving it to the Young Drunken Nazi Fundamentalist Dogfight Association.) I don't know what else I have to do to express my gratitude....because the only thing that will prove my gratitude to her is the one thing I cannot do.
But since I have no job, and since CR has no job, and since my mother has finally reached the point where the state of her various bank accounts is causing her stress...since my unemployment payments can't cover the rent, the cable/phone/internet, my various meds, gas and oil for the car, and groceries...I have to move home. I'm not being given any real choice; even if I get a job, I would still need to move home so I can start paying her back. And so at the end of February, CR and I will have to pack up all my belongings and leave our place together. I'm not sure which one of us is more miserable about it.
Anyway, that's the latest. I'm definitely feeling bloggier lately; it took only a couple of concerned comments to tip me over the brim from "writer's block" back into "wait, let me write this down so I don't forget it for the blog". So to all of you who worried and commented--or worried and DIDN'T comment, for that matter--I thank you for your concern, and promise to try to do better in the future.
It's scary as hell, and then too it's a very bittersweet thing to have options, because the only reason I'll have any chance at all to take the needed time to get anything off the ground...the only reason I'll have that kind of time at all is that I will be moving home to Mom's house at the end of February. That on its own is bad enough, but the REAL heartbreaker is this: CR is still here, we are still together and happier in our relationship than we've ever been, and when I move home to Mom's I have to accept that he's not allowed in her home. Not because of our past history together--Mom doesn't know there IS a past history--and not because he's some kind of horrible person or because he mistreats me or talks down to me or cheats on me or any of that. Mom doesn't care how well he treats me (and he does!); doesn't know how good a man he is, how much he cares about everyone, how happy I am with him. "I don't NEED to know all that," she says when I try to talk about him. "I know the only thing I need to know, to know that I don't want my daughter dating him!"
It's hard, looking at my mother, who has been the only person on earth who has ALWAYS been there for me, no matter how angry or disappointed or betrayed she's felt because of my actions....It's hard to look at her and know all her good points and then have to face up to this horrible, inflexible WRONGNESS that lives inside her. This is my mother, my flesh and blood, and to have her say on more than one occasion that if I continue dating outside my race, she will not be able to have a good relationship with me...it angers me, of course, and it makes me sad to an amazing degree...but it also scares me a bit, because if this ultimatum is serious, and if she carries it out, it will mean that she's putting her hatred for black men over her love for her daughter. I know she doesn't intend it that way--for all my life, I've heard her say in various ways and situations "if you REALLY loved me, you'd..." She did it to my father all the time; I can't count the times I pressed my ear to the heating vent and heard her argue with my father, always arriving at some variation of that theme. In my last argument with her (New Years' Eve, and boy was THAT a doozy) after she said that if I stay with CR, then either I must not be grateful enough for all the things she's done, or that I must not love her enough to consider HER feelings on the matter...after she said that, I told her that was just as wrong when she said it to me, as when she told my father "If you don't clean out this basement, you must not care what I think." I reminded her of the times she'd said that to my dad, and then I said, "Daddy loved you! The basement was a total mess when he died, but he still loved the hell out of you!!" And she actually came back with "Well, sometimes I STILL wonder whether he did or not."
Um, hello? My dad died in 1987. At the end of this summer, my father will have been gone twenty-five years, and yet mom STILL holds a grudge. Faced with that, how the hell am I supposed to make MY point?
And the hell of it is this: I AM grateful for everything she's done for me. Since the remnants of my 401k ran out back in April or thereabouts, she has been BEYOND generous with helping me financially. I tell her all the time how grateful I am, how if she ever needs me to do anything for her, all she has to do is tell me and I'll take care of it. When she said once that she wouldn't live long enough for me to pay back everything I owe her (okay, that's sad but true--she's 83 years old) I even told her--and in all seriousness!--that I'm willing to take any money I hadn't been able to pay her, and donate it to the Catholic Church on her behalf. (As anyone who knows me well can tell you, giving ANYTHING to the Church is as distasteful to me as giving it to the Young Drunken Nazi Fundamentalist Dogfight Association.) I don't know what else I have to do to express my gratitude....because the only thing that will prove my gratitude to her is the one thing I cannot do.
But since I have no job, and since CR has no job, and since my mother has finally reached the point where the state of her various bank accounts is causing her stress...since my unemployment payments can't cover the rent, the cable/phone/internet, my various meds, gas and oil for the car, and groceries...I have to move home. I'm not being given any real choice; even if I get a job, I would still need to move home so I can start paying her back. And so at the end of February, CR and I will have to pack up all my belongings and leave our place together. I'm not sure which one of us is more miserable about it.
Anyway, that's the latest. I'm definitely feeling bloggier lately; it took only a couple of concerned comments to tip me over the brim from "writer's block" back into "wait, let me write this down so I don't forget it for the blog". So to all of you who worried and commented--or worried and DIDN'T comment, for that matter--I thank you for your concern, and promise to try to do better in the future.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Still
Still here.
Still broke.
Still jobless.
Still head-over-heels with CR, who has changed to a degree I could not even have hoped for in my wildest dreams. (If he'd stop foofing cigarette ashes over every stationary surface, he'd be perfect; as it stands, he's just NEARLY-perfect. I wonder if this is the reward for putting up with all the bullshit in the past; if so, all I can say is "Thank you!")
Did I mention the "broke" and "jobless" bits??
Anybody got a job available? It doesn't have to be technical; at this point I would scrape gum from the underside of cafeteria tables, if it would pay the rent.
Were it not for the financial end of things, I would have to say my life was just about perfect right now....and actually, I might say it anyway.
There WILL be more to come...promise.
Still broke.
Still jobless.
Still head-over-heels with CR, who has changed to a degree I could not even have hoped for in my wildest dreams. (If he'd stop foofing cigarette ashes over every stationary surface, he'd be perfect; as it stands, he's just NEARLY-perfect. I wonder if this is the reward for putting up with all the bullshit in the past; if so, all I can say is "Thank you!")
Did I mention the "broke" and "jobless" bits??
Anybody got a job available? It doesn't have to be technical; at this point I would scrape gum from the underside of cafeteria tables, if it would pay the rent.
Were it not for the financial end of things, I would have to say my life was just about perfect right now....and actually, I might say it anyway.
There WILL be more to come...promise.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Yummiest Thing Ever
1. Locate a large glass or plastic container. A 32-oz cup should do nicely.
2. Scoop a fairly-large amount of vanilla ice-cream into the cup. (Actually, "scoop" is not the ideal method; the best thing to do is to take a regular teaspoon or tablespoon, then run it across the surface of the ice cream. The idea is to fill the cup loosely, so that there are spaces between the bits of ice cream.)
3. Pour eggnog over the ice cream til the ice cream is covered.
4. Insert bendy-straw. (You can use the straw to stir the concoction, as well; otherwise you'll need a spoon in order to squish everything together.)
5. Drink.
6. Experience bliss.
Merry Christmas indeed!
2. Scoop a fairly-large amount of vanilla ice-cream into the cup. (Actually, "scoop" is not the ideal method; the best thing to do is to take a regular teaspoon or tablespoon, then run it across the surface of the ice cream. The idea is to fill the cup loosely, so that there are spaces between the bits of ice cream.)
3. Pour eggnog over the ice cream til the ice cream is covered.
4. Insert bendy-straw. (You can use the straw to stir the concoction, as well; otherwise you'll need a spoon in order to squish everything together.)
5. Drink.
6. Experience bliss.
Merry Christmas indeed!
Monday, December 6, 2010
Surfacing
Okay, you can stop panicking--I'm still alive. Pissed-off, unemployed, and plagued by cats--but alive.
Yes, that says "unemployed". The sleep apnea kicked back in--although for the majority of the time, both CR and I were convinced that it was actually narcolepsy (I was talking in my sleep, walking around and falling asleep on my feet; apparently, I was even digging poor CR with my pointy elbows at night!!)--and even though I went in for the sleep studies and got a doctor's letter to explain that I was in treatment for the problem, I was told that it was not an acceptable letter because it did not specify accommodations that could be made by the employers. Then they made it into a performance issue, claiming that my tickets were not being closed in a timely manner; the final straw came in the second week of October, when a member of my own department, one who I'd considered a friend, ratted me out to my boss and my boss's boss, telling them that I was sleepy while working on her computer. I was sent home "to get some rest" and was fired over the phone that afternoon. There are several other aspects of the situation which are ALSO bullshit; those will come up as I think of them.
Actually, though, that's pretty much the bulk of the bad news. CR is still here; I now have a car (Mom got tired of her oil-burning little Saturn and decided to buy a new car, and thus I got the oil-burner); the cats are fine, I'm happy being out of work for seven or eight weeks so far; we cashed in my 401k and so we have enough to live on for at least a few months. I'm looking for jobs, but I'm not looking terribly hard--I have some ideas percolating, along with a promise I made to myself long ago, about this being my FINAL office job.
There's more, of course, and this time I really WILL update more often; CR's presence here has been EXTREMELY helpful in getting me off my portly, unmotivated butt and at least TRYING to do something with my strengths.
Meanwhile, thank you to those of you who wrote, commmented, or just wondered where I was; I'm not sure WHERE I was; apparently, though, I was SOMEWHERE, and as far as I can tell, I've come back in one piece, and a bit better for the ride. I'll be back soon, with more stories--which is always, always a good thing.
Yes, that says "unemployed". The sleep apnea kicked back in--although for the majority of the time, both CR and I were convinced that it was actually narcolepsy (I was talking in my sleep, walking around and falling asleep on my feet; apparently, I was even digging poor CR with my pointy elbows at night!!)--and even though I went in for the sleep studies and got a doctor's letter to explain that I was in treatment for the problem, I was told that it was not an acceptable letter because it did not specify accommodations that could be made by the employers. Then they made it into a performance issue, claiming that my tickets were not being closed in a timely manner; the final straw came in the second week of October, when a member of my own department, one who I'd considered a friend, ratted me out to my boss and my boss's boss, telling them that I was sleepy while working on her computer. I was sent home "to get some rest" and was fired over the phone that afternoon. There are several other aspects of the situation which are ALSO bullshit; those will come up as I think of them.
Actually, though, that's pretty much the bulk of the bad news. CR is still here; I now have a car (Mom got tired of her oil-burning little Saturn and decided to buy a new car, and thus I got the oil-burner); the cats are fine, I'm happy being out of work for seven or eight weeks so far; we cashed in my 401k and so we have enough to live on for at least a few months. I'm looking for jobs, but I'm not looking terribly hard--I have some ideas percolating, along with a promise I made to myself long ago, about this being my FINAL office job.
There's more, of course, and this time I really WILL update more often; CR's presence here has been EXTREMELY helpful in getting me off my portly, unmotivated butt and at least TRYING to do something with my strengths.
Meanwhile, thank you to those of you who wrote, commmented, or just wondered where I was; I'm not sure WHERE I was; apparently, though, I was SOMEWHERE, and as far as I can tell, I've come back in one piece, and a bit better for the ride. I'll be back soon, with more stories--which is always, always a good thing.
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