Legend-WAITFORIT-ary!

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Thursday, February 27, 2014

Hiding in the dark

I'm hiding in the dark, hiding from my problems, letting my life slide down a dirty drain.

How can I sit here and let everything go? How is it that even if I cancelled everything I didn't need, I wouldn't have the money? How is it that I couldn't pull myself together when I had a chance to get the insurance that might have saved me 1300 dollars? I have so many things to do. I have so many promises to keep. Why the fuck is it all about money?

How did keeping promises turn into cash spent? I promise to go see a far away friend this summer. 650. I promise to introduce a young friend to alcohol (because it should be somewhere safe with someone who loves her and wants her safe and capable of protecting herself). 40? I promised my mother I'd finish school. 200. I failed in the promise to make myself healthy and went to the hospital. Just to find out it was cysts. Again. 1300. I have to learn to live on nothing again.

I don't miss it. Hell, I fucking hate it. I hate scraping change together so that when I go out with my friends, they don't have to know that I'm destitute. I get food from the food bank. I buy off the value menu. Still need to tip. I can't not tip. Still have to buy drinks. They can't know I'm being conservative with my money. I want them to think that I'm fine because they have so much else going on in their lives. And they seem to be handling alright, most of the time.

She has children. She just found out she's getting laid off. He's celebrating his new book. She's been battling depression for years and just found a guy that makes her truly happy. He's been stuck in the same dead end job all his college career and can't get out from under his parents' thumb. And she hates the man she loves.

And that's what they want to talk about. Of course, why wouldn't they? I feel bad putting my madness on them. What if they decide it isn't worth their time? Worse what if it chases them away?

I have a list. I have a dog that needs a spay. I have two credit cards to pay off, first the store card and then the bank card. They're just under 500 dollars together. I owe my mother another grand of the 2500 she lent me last year to help me pay for the card I used to buy a nice bed with my ex just before he left me. I was doing okay, but it was becoming really difficult to keep up and the bank was less forgiving than the bank of mom. I only accepted it because she offered... I need medical insurance. I need new glasses. I want to go to the renaissance festival and I'd like to bring back souvenirs from the steam punk con, cheap ones obviously. I promised I'd travel to Minnesota for a friend.

And those are the things on the list that just want my money. The opposite, equal reaction to money is time. I need to get in shape or risk more hospital bills and a lonely life. I need to write my novel, which is my plan Z, as in the last thing that is likely to make me successful, according to my mother (who has her faults but is generally a good parent). I need to finish school. I'd like to become a certified welder, which takes money AND an astronomical amount of shop time. Because I'm a freaking weld rookie and I can barely maintain an arc. By the time I've given each thing a little (not enough) attention, it's four in the morning and I work at ten.

It's like a thousand swirling, vicious circles.

Then there's the nice things I'd like to do for myself. Build some shelving for my art area and bedroom. Make a nice coat rack for my living room. Learn the goddamn ukulele. Buy a nice weighted keyboard to play on. Play my flute more regularly. Work on my drawing and writing. Shampoo my fucking carpet. Paint a mural on my laundry room doors. Paint up all the canvasses I have left. Work up some tattoos and find a good artist.

I suppose I should add finding my self-respect and a quality mate to that list, but frankly I'm too busy for that nonsense.

I can sometimes push myself for weeks, only working, doing other work, doing life improvement work, eating and sleeping. No down time. Get up. Go. Go. Go. Sleep. I can usually go for two weeks like that before I have a full on psychotic break-down and become so terrified and upset that I sit, cowering in my darkened bedroom, doing nothing because I can't prioritize which thing comes first. I'm paralyzed. Sure. I can handle at work. I have to, people are depending on me there. But when it's just me that is depending on my actions, every other aspect of my life comes crashing down.

It's like I'm juggling plates, and rather than just dropping one or two to make things easier, I drop everything, except the work plate. And I stand there in the shambles of my life, clinging the last plate to my chest, staring in horror at the shards at my feet. One week later the panic fades, my demons die and I'm left with the mess.