Some Things Never Change

My dad sounded a little too cheerful when he asked to take me out to lunch tomorrow. I am, as a result, filled with dread.

How can someone sound too cheerful? you may ask, and why does that frighten you to your very core?

It's rather simple, really. Whenever my parents had really horrible news, they would try to temper that news with a treat. They'd act a little too casual, and the treat would be completely out of nowhere, because usually it was something they'd been trying to hide. For example: My sister has never watched the movie Forrest Gump through to the end.

One fine spring day, our parents pushed the couch up in front of the tv to make things cozier, told us we were going to have a movie and ice cream sundaes later, then sat us down and announced that my mom was moving out. My sister had no clue until that moment, and she did not enjoy her sundae, nor did she watch the movie all the way through.

I loved my sundae, and I loved the movie. Of course, my bedroom was directly across the hall from my parents' and I was a bit older, so the announcement was wonderful for me. No more being unable to sleep until 3 am listening to them argue! And a sundae on top of it all!

Once in a while I'd wake up and find that my father had taken my sister out for the day, and that announcement was always met with dread. It meant that my mother wanted to tell me something truly horrible, perhaps break my spirit and remind me what a horrible person I was for having repeatedly done something wrong over the previous weeks or months. The problem was me, and she needed several hours in which to set me straight, while my sister went bowling or fishing or out to the park.

So any time I get an unexpected treat just for me, I'm thrown into anxiety. I asked my dad if my sister and brother-in-law were also invited to lunch, which is always the case, but no, it's something just for us. *shudder*

So, what am I so afraid of?

Well, number 1: homelessness. I've been living in someone else's house as a favor to me since December 2009. My then-best-friend kicked me out after three and a half months because I was still unemployed, and she and her boyfriend had decided that not only did I not actually want a job, or I'd have one already, but that I was never going to amount to anything, and I should give up and try to get on disability.

I then moved into my aunt's house. She didn't actually have room, but I had just been kicked out, and it was that or let me live in my car. I stayed with her for about two months before I managed to get into Grad School. Unfortunately, I flunked out after two semesters because I couldn't wrap my mind around Accounting, and my school did not offer any kind of Master's degree in any kind of art or design.

So it was on to grandma's house. I was there for several months before I was notified (by my father) that my grandmother wanted me to leave, because I wasn't the companionship she'd hoped for. I'm an introvert, you see, and sitting quietly in the same room with someone feels like good company. I don't like to fill the air with words unless I have something to say which I think is important.

My grandmother was terribly injured, went into surgery, and ended up staying with my father, because his house is wheelchair accessible and hers is not. This extended my stay at her house to nearly two years, because I took care of her pets and kept the house from being abandoned/broken into.

My sister kindly, generously, amazingly, asked me to come live with her for reasons such as the horrible heat wave, horror at my living situation, and hope that she could help me out. I've been here four months and I'm still unemployed, even with her tossing every job she hears about my way (yes, I apply for them all), and now it's into autumn, which means the Seasonal Affective Disorder is kicking in. I'm sleepy all the time, I'm no longer oozing the hope and enthusiasm I was when I first got here.

So, back around to lunch with my dad tomorrow. There's a chance he just wants to have lunch with only me, though we don't get along for more than the shortest amounts of time. There is also a chance that he wants to pass on a complaint from someone else because he thinks it's helpful.

I'm taking bets.

Shaken, Not Stirred

Ever had a nightmare so profound that you can't shake it off? I've had many, leading me to such rational acts as telling my father not to go to a certain store for a week, and freaking out whenever he wore a certain shirt. Last night's was one for the books. The kind where you wake sweating, feeling nauseous and fairly certain you've been crying, and for the rest of the day you're on edge, praying nothing happens and afraid to do anything, lest it turn out to be real after all.

Warning: Parental Fear Trigger ahead.

The realism didn't help any. I was sitting in this very house alone, my grandmother in physical rehab, during Thanksgiving break, and got a phone call that my daughter had died. She'd been in a horrible car accident and a piece of iron had gone through her eye. Of course, countless times during this nightmare I got visuals of exactly that, of my child screaming in terror, and I was shattered. My child, one of my best friends, my favorite pet, my life's work, something that will never happen again in my life, gone. Just gone.

I was stricken with grief. I didn't want to live anymore, didn't want to eat, and sometimes I was in shock, like I'd just blink and she'd walk through the door. In fact, part of me insisted it had to be a nightmare, and I'd look at the door, knowing she was about to come in, but she didn't. There was no closure, and I couldn't handle it. I couldn't see her again, it didn't feel real, and how was I supposed to go looking for a job when I my world had just died?

And I was still alone, but more alone than ever. My family was worried, but nobody did anything, as always. If you don't talk about it, it goes away, except for me it wasn't going away and it never would.

I was told I should move to the city and try to get a job, now there wouldn't be anything holding me back, and all I could think was I don't care if she was 'holding me back,' I don't feel free, I feel lost. I had the thought that I could finally move to California, that I'd never have to see my ex again, but if I expected to feel relief, I didn't. What if I did move? I'd be living with someone who has a child of her own, a daughter only a year younger than mine. Could I handle it? Would envy kill me? Self-pity? Would I get attached to someone else's child in a sad attempt to replace my own? Could I live with that? Would I ever be a functional human being again?

I didn't know, and I don't know. I woke sweating, nauseous, and spent, and I've spent all day dreading the possibility that my phone might ring, despite knowing that it didn't happen. When I walked into the kitchen this afternoon, I looked at the door, listening for her, and I knew she wouldn't come in. She's due home Sunday night.

I should have called my ex to talk to her, and for a while it seemed like the perfect solution, but I didn't think of it until nighttime, and at this hour, I'd be leaving a shaky-sounding voicemail begging to hear from my daughter in the morning. My ex doesn't return my calls when he has her, though. She doesn't call, and that would be infinitely worse than just trying to make it through the day, just reminding myself that even if the memories of the dream feel as real as any other memories I have, none of it happened.

I still feel sick and exhausted, I don't want to drive anywhere, and I hate that anything that takes my mind off it is only temporary.

So one time, at the cheese factory, someone walked up to me in my new hoodie, and without preamble, cut the ties that pull the hood tight because we weren't allowed to have any loose items or jewelry above the waist. So I clipped a stuffed turtle to my belt loop in protest, and no one ever said a word against it.

I made that damn turtle a raincoat out of an empty bag of latex gloves, and it worked with me for over a year. Yes, I've told that story before, but I told it better this time.

Depression is Depressing.

I am miserable with my life. It doesn't count as suicide if you just ask God to hurry up and smite you, right?

To reassure anyone who thinks this theatrics, I am currently technically homeless, and living with a family member who needs help. This house has been seriously compared to Hoarders by worried family. I live out of a suitcase because my personal belongings, including my bed and perishable food items (which were mistakenly delivered with the rest), are divided between several people's storage units. I hope someone finds the food before spring, though I'm sure that by now it's been cold enough for the water bottles to explode and warm enough for the milk to sour. There are four cats in the house, three of which use the litter box, four in the garage who don't have a litter box, but get let outside sometimes, and two in the back room who neither have a litter box nor go outside. One must enter and exit through the garage, which, no offense to those up above, stinks to high heaven.

My friends live online because those I graduated college with have moved on. I have an amazing phone, a few really amazing friends, and severe, sometimes debilitating depression, as of about fifteen years ago. I used to tell myself that the worst that could happen would be ending up homeless and alone, but I've pushed my "worst" standards to far more horrible things. I am not currently being eaten alive by maggots while impaled in a hole full of spikes and having hail pound into my open eyes. Please, please, God, please, don't use my sense of sarcasm against me and make that happen.

Irony (or not, if you know all the technicalities of the word) is that just over a year ago I was set to graduate college, then move to the Golden State of California, where my daughter would attend a private school for hardly anything, thanks to one of those amazing friends, and I would be nearer the kind of job opportunities I'd dreamed of. My ex questioned me, gave me the verbal go-ahead, and took our flight information so that goodbyes could be said, we got the kid a cell phone for easy contact, got a Facebook so they could chat easily, etc etc.

Sunday before graduation, a week and two days before the flight, yours truly was delivered of a restraining order and a motion to take any and all custody away from me. After a week of locating a lawyer (since if you don't have one, at least here, the case defaults to the other person), during which I didn't sleep and unknowingly contracted pneumonia, I completed no final exams and was given a pity D to graduate in a class I'd been acing. Damned final exams. I don't really remember graduation. Had a high fever that day, and was super-proud that no one could tell how dizzy I was.

Anyway, after bouncing from place to place, I failed out of an attempt at grad school (admittedly a subject I ended up hating) and here we are. The child is tired of moving and living with other people, and despite the emotional abuse she suffers when with her other parent, I wonder if I'm doing any better.

"You should get on disability."

It's really disheartening to be told this, especially following a short speech about not being capable of handling a real job and needing to be realistic. It is disheartening both from one's (ex)friend, and from one's father. There is no explaining to some people that working for minimum wage 5 hours per day, 4 days per week isn't much motivation for someone who feels worthless. There is no explaining that 8 hours a day 5 days a week at a job one loves, being needed there instead of expendable, might just possibly maybe somehow ease the feeling of being useless, and that being paid enough to live on one's own might instill a sense of greatly needed pride, thereby propelling one out of one's dismal hole of hopelessness. And unfortunately, when pressured so much to get a job I've already not been hired at for years, it is difficult to contemplate looking for that big fish. It only makes the whole "not capable of handling a real job" thing all that more real, and the big fish looks like a dried-out goldfish the cat left behind the couch. It was shiny once, but all that's left now is a lost dream.

And yes, this is probably all ridiculous and blown out of proportion, but no matter how I try to correct myself, I can't get out of the mindset that "If you were capable of getting an A, but got a B, you might as well have failed."

I have now been struggling with depression for half my life. It doesn't get better for long at a time. The littlest setback is heartbreaking, and losing a dream that was in my grasp broke me. I've never been as close to hurting myself as I was a year ago, and though I don't intend to—in fact, I intend not to—it can always be worse, and that's what I'm afraid of. If I can hardly cope the way I am, how will I manage another ten years of this? Another twenty?

My depression is being treated, but there's no cure. I've apparently trained my mind to push aside my worries, and so anything that worries or distresses me is forgotten. I don't remember to do laundry when I have the time, nor to job search. If it does pop in, I'm busy, or I'm in a bad mood, or I'm too sleepy to do anything (or so I tell myself), and if I can't fill out an application properly, and better than anyone else, then it was not only a waste of my time, but a waste of the hiring manager's time. I feel like a waste of time.

I haven't blogged in forever because I had no internet access aside from my smartphone, which a friend thought I deserved, no matter that I don't (but it's mine! *clutches and hisses*). I don't even know where I'm going with this. Sudden memory loss in the middle of a sentence isn't odd when attempting to discuss worrisome or depressing topics, either.

Okay, I dragged you all down now, and gave you a taste of a long-term, severe depressive's thought process. I wish I could think of another cheese factory story right now, but since I can't, here:

Margaret Bourke-White. At the time of the Louisville Flood (1937)

It could always be worse, right?

Types of Depression

Suicide Prevention, Awareness, and Support

Changes in the HUD Definition of “Homeless”

The "F" Word

No, the other "F" word. The one that people don't like to hear from the subject of their romantic interest. Yes, that one. But let's go on.

The movie was great. I wasn't expecting the Harry/Hermione topless makeout scene, no matter that I'd been warned, then smirked at (a sign that H~ was serious and looking forward to being proven right). They did a good job of condensing a 500-page camping trip into something epic. You're not here for a movie review, though.

My date didn't look directly at me the entire night. I'm not unfortunate-looking and had been complimented via text-message on my Facebook picture, so I know it wasn't because my face was offensive. I looked pretty damned good, actually. I can understand not being as talkative in person as you are in text, considering I'm the same way, but you know the silence has gone on too long when your date turns on the car stereo.

Not to say we didn't manage to talk. At one point I was retelling the glory of Prom Night in Hollywood and Other Interesting Tales, and we compared the kind of history you learn in the Midwest versus the kind you learn in Southern California, but conversation aside, no sparks. Not one. Even if my date had nice teeth there would have been no sparks.

I'm grateful to the friend who tried to set us up. Texting was genius and I could see hanging out with this person again. No romance though, and that's why I haven't accepted a second offer to go see the Effing Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I am not shitting you, if you'll pardon the language. This person offered to buy me an inexpensive tv because mine is in storage, mentioned us stargazing at their place with their telescope, subscribed to my effing YouTube (which they'd have had to find first), and commented on three of my pictures.

Quoth a friend: That's what happens when you talk to computer savvy people.

The consensus is that searching someone is normal. However, most of us keep our searches secret. We go look at our blind date's photos, or maybe we even Google their screen name, and if we're a little crazy watch the videos they made five years ago, but for God's sake, don't leave messages on everything until you've known them at least a week. This person has now added me on Facebook, YouTube, AIM, and YIM, commented on the only three photos that don't actually have people in them, subscribed to my videos, and told me via text what they thought about these things they found. Add to that the fact that I get texted from noon until probably five, then again from about seven until I say I have to go to bed, and I'm feeling smothered. From someone I've seen in person once, known less than a week, and haven't ever made eye contact with.

So I've been looking for gentle ways to let this person down. We got along, but I'm not interested in romance. From them. The Almighty Internet says that we haven't known each other so long that an e-mail is a crappy way to send a tasteful note, but how can I do that when I just keep getting texted? I'd say stalker potential, but I'm counting on the fact that we live a good hour and a half drive apart to discourage that.

If it wasn't a mutual friend who'd set us up, this would be easy. I'd just send a text that they're great, but I'm not interested, and it would be done. I don't want to hurt my friend, though. She hand-picked someone, knowing how long it's been since I dated, and said, Here, I give you this, my friend, who I, your friend, find worthy for your attentions. She couldn't have predicted all this.

I usually make a huge deal out of things, but this is justified, right? Even after just one date?

Rusty Joints and the Hoop Ride

Remember that awesome power-walk I took yesterday while writing a kick-ass blog post? Well, I am now paying for my exuberance. It feels like all the joints in my lower body have had knives stuck in them, but not regular knives, no. Rusty knives, which then put rust in between my joints, and rather than breaking my bones apart or tearing out the cartilage, only deposited so much rust that I can't move without maximum effort. But instead of just creaking and moving slowly, there's pain, because face it, our bodies are not meant to be full of rust.

I have things I'm supposed to be doing. The trash needs to go out, and the recycling too, but I live on the second floor, and that means stairs. It took me long enough to get from bed to my computer that I'm thinking maybe the trash can wait just one more day, despite what the empty cereal boxes on the counter are telling me.

I'm also supposed to drive someone somewhere in my ghetto-mobile, but that's not looking like a good idea. The sky is looming in its ominousness (and yes, that's totally a word, though I rather like ominosity, myself). Aside from questionable windshield wipers, my left headlight is a traffic violation waiting to happen. The shield "fell off" at some point between my car getting fixed and a cousin bringing it to me, and now the entire thing falls out at random and dangles from the then-empty hole like some monster's eyeball in a bad horror flick. I really don't want to drive it on the highway for two hours.

Yesterday I had no choice but to go out as the sun was setting, and there were cops everywhere. Public Safety drove through the parking lot as I was getting ready to drive off, and I sat in my car looking at the time and just waiting for him to leave and knowing I needed to leave, but unsure if he'd turn on his lights and stop me from doing so if I pulled up behind him, or maybe he was sitting at the driveway not turning because he was watching me.

Eventually he turned, so I left as well, and on the way home, during a ten-minute drive, I saw something near ten police cars. Maybe it was closer to five, but ten sounds better. I'd have been in trouble, but they were all already pulled over, police out and standing talking to people. One place had two or three police cars all at once, lights blaring. And yes, I know, blaring is sound and glaring is vision, but when you're as paranoid as I am, the lights are indeed blaring.

I like the police. I like that they keep us safe, and that they put our safety over their own sometimes. They rock. But I have eight dollars in the bank keeping my account open, and adding a ticket to the rest of my unpaid bills wouldn't help my sanity level. I am so stressed that arguments over nonsense get my heart skipping irregularly and little sparks in front of my eyes from dizziness.

I do not know who created this Stress Reduction Kit, but I love it. I recommend not using it while it's pulled up on your computer screen, as the screen may become damaged. Also, I take no responsibility for any damages to anyone or their property or brain cells for actually using it. If anyone knows who created this particular kit, please let me know so I can give proper credit.

So there may not be much of a moral to this post, aside from stress being unavoidable and somewhat funny to talk about later. I'm going to make a phone call to get out of that drive, though. I know, driving is easier than walking, but I doubt sitting in a car for two hours (minus a two-minute stop) will do anything for my rusty joints. Maybe I should see my doctor about a tetanus shot.