Grandma is a Klepto

Grandma is not literally a kleptomaniac, I'll get that out of the way first. Still, she's developed some bad habits over the years, and one of them is assuming that anything she sees in certain places is hers. I'm going to tell you a short story, and I promise it's relevant, so pay attention:

Once upon a time there was a loving couple. The wife died, and so the husband let the house go, because let's face it, bachelor pads happen. His daughter and her husband eventually came to live with him, but the son-in-law had mobility problems and no one was willing to go through Mother's Things anyway. So more things got put on top of the original things. Then the son-in-law died, and it was just father and daughter, neither willing or able to go through their deceased loved ones' belongings. They now had A Mess.

The daughter is my grandmother, and now that her father has died too, about twenty or thirty years' worth of stuff has piled up against walls and taken over entire rooms. I am currently living in said stuff, and cannot afford to move out. Back to the point.

There's so much stuff that Grandma has grown accustomed to poking through piles and finding things she doesn't recognize. Sometimes she finds stuff on top of piles that she doesn't recognize, and if she really likes it, she takes it back to my dad's house, where she's currently living. That would be cool if everything in the house was still hers.

I am currently living here.

Sometimes she finds stuff on top of piles that she doesn't recognize, and if she really likes it, she takes it. You see where I'm going with this, don't you?

She's tried to give away my stuff before. I left some things behind when I moved to my sister's, and when I'd visit, I'd find things like my vacuum in places slightly closer to the door every time, as though they were in the process of being sneaked out. My dad actually caught her trying to give something of mine away to a cousin because she'd found it and it looked nice. I believe she tried to give away some of my stuff that's in her storage unit, too. "There's so much stuff in here, I don't know where it came from."

Another short story, but I won't pretend this one didn't happen. Sorry for the subterfuge up there, but I wanted to convey a sense of sympathy and understanding instead of the baffled frustration I really feel.

My father had brought a flashlight over intending to look at and/or fix something, but when he needed it, he couldn't find it. He asked my grandmother, who was also here, if she could help him find a flashlight, any flashlight.

She smiled and said, "Yes, I have one right here in my purse." She dug it out and handed it over. "Isn't it nice? It's much better than the other one I had."

And my dad's like, "That's my flashlight." He let her keep it since she liked it so much and since her old flashlight really sucked, but things like that happen a lot. You don't set things down in this house, even if you'll remember where you put them, because they'll disappear. Sometimes they'll get knocked over, but more likely a visitor will take them.

By "a visitor" I could mean one of my cousins, but I don't. I mean Grandma.*
*Author's Note: I love my grandmother. All this is between me and you, right?

I have a job.

That's right. Actual, legitimate employment where I'll be going to a certain place every day at a certain time, working, and getting paid for it. It's a temporary security gig until July, but there's a possibility of being hired for a different position after that. And by security I mean sitting at the back door checking toolboxes and receipts while remodel workers go in and out, but I'll get a walkie-talkie.

I finally found a place that doesn't mind my art degree, and I'm taking it, dammit. It'll get me approximately $600 per month and no benefits, but that's four times what I get in child support. (A certain someone quit their job a week before going to court to have child support calculated, then had another job a week later. Bad form, that.)

I didn't tell anyone I had an interview until after it happened, so don't feel left out. In fact, the only two people I ended up telling after wouldn't have heard about it either, except that it was valid information in Obviously you don't want to work, or you'd have a job by now arguments. Because obviously everyone in a small town with no art-related fields is very interested in someone who wasn't born there, didn't grow up there, and went to college elsewhere for graphic design.

But I digress. I didn't tell anyone I'd been hired until after my first day of orientation. That would be yesterday, and a total of four people; the two I mentioned arguing with, my best friend, and my daughter.

I also didn't tell you guys that my sister kicked me out. According to her, what she said was that I needed to get a job by the end of the month and move out by summer, because she can't handle having a kid around all day. According to me, she said (and I quote), "I want you out by the end of the month. I want my life back!"

So I'm living in my grandmother's house in the middle of nowhere again, only this time I have permission to clean it myself. On days I haven't been in orientation I've averaged 3 bags of trash per day. Whenever I'm bored I'll throw together another bag or two.

By trash I mean old, empty envelopes, things too broken or otherwise destroyed to be saved, grocery lists from the 1970's, torn up fake flowers that generations of cats have peed on, that kind of thing. Boxes and boxes of that kind of thing, and I go through every bit of it because I'll find a deed to some bit of land somewhere or a photo of a man in a military coat from WWII or handmade paper souvenirs from 1907 that a teacher made for his 18 students grades 2-5 who attended a local school.

Some things could have historical significance and some things just couldn't.

My father, who is notorious for making wonderful promises that he may or may not be able to actually keep, but wants to keep, told me that if I spent the summer here and cleaned this place up, he'd give me the thousand dollars I need to get into my own house. If I manage to get hired permanently at my actual official job, I may not need him to keep that promise at all, which is a relief.

I'm gainfully employed for the first time since I started this blog. It's no longer the story of someone struggling with unemployment, but no worries. I have more goals to reach. I'm still hoping.

Some Things Never Change II

I was right.

I had just finished writing when my dad called my sister, who happened to be down the hall from me at the time. He knows she can talk to me better than he can, so he was attempting to recruit her help.

Long story short, he wanted me to move back to Grandma's Hoarders house in the middle of nowhere. For some reason or another, I am not interested. Luckily, my sister has brains in her head and a voice that my father somehow listens to, and she talked him down.

Funny point: My dad didn't want me to move back so I'd be closer. My cousin and her husband intend to move into Grandma's house for the free rent, and he doesn't want them going through Grandma's stuff and stealing/selling/burning it all. He thought if I moved back in, I'd "keep them honest."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA *gasp* Hahaha... Good one.

*wipes away tears of mirth*

That place is a mess. Again, Hoarders-esque. After I left, a cat died in that house, and no one ever found it. But that's a minor detail. I don't care if they clean it out. Grandma doesn't care if they claim things as theirs, and I don't care either. I would not accomplish the purpose my father wished me to. The only reason I didn't clean the place out myself was because I couldn't do it alone, and while several people offered to help me, they never actually did. Somehow, they were always busy.

Then there's the little technicality that my cousin and her husband are big drinkers, and highly social. I have an eleven year old daughter. There is no way they could modify their personalities to enjoy living with a child, and no way I could force them to behave in a way that would make them ideal role models.

So lunch with my father was originally an attempt to butter me up and make me an offer he knew I wouldn't like. I probably would have gotten the "I'm not going to live forever" speech again, since he tends to drag that out every time I resist something. He's in his early 50's, by the way. If he doesn't kill himself with cigarettes, sugar, and pretending he's still 20, he could conceivably live a while.

Our lunch ended up pretty nice. There wasn't much to talk about, since his goal was out of the way, but the food was good. He wants something else from me now, but it would only ruin one day instead of my precarious sanity.

Anyhow, results are in. If you bet I was right, you get brownie points. If you bet I was paranoid, you get a mushy, half-eaten bowl of cereal.

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”