Terrible day today, another one among many.  Got my taxes done and have been praying that I would get enough of a refund to cover my property taxes that are due now.  Nope, not even half as much as I owe and I have no idea what I'm going to do.  Also the electrician, a very sweet guy, brought a plumber out today and more bad news, he thinks the pump ( that I just paid for less than a year ago) is going to go and that I need an expansion tank as well  :(        I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach, I don't know what to do.  I've been trying for months to find a full time job, I have no money for food half the time and now make "too much" to qualify for snap benefits.   I feel so desperate and hopeless and have no one to talk things through with.  I feel like I want to scream and pull my hair out and yet on the outside I am frozen.  I've been sitting here feeling catatonic or something like it.  What am I supposed to do?

Not a good day, been sick with a stomach bug for last twenty four hours and the cramps were awful.  Not sure if it's actually a bug or if it was something I ate but whatever I ended up taking the day off from work.  I hate doing that but there was no point in going in and being married to a toilet.  Still haven't found any good leads on a job and getting more and more discouraged.  My granddaughter is four now and Amanda will be 27 in just days.  Amazing to me how can I have a 27 year old daughter?  I am awful proud of both my kids, willing to work crazy hours to support themselves and Amanda is an amazing mom to her little girl.

I've been writing my life story recently for no other reason but that I have this idea that it might free of all these feelings and emotions I've been carrying around and keeping to myself for so many reasons.  I think I might post it here eventually not sure yet.

Right now I'm listening to my friends on Outlaw Radio like I do most Saturday nights!

I am beyond depressed, that oh so familiar place that I often go. Had some kind of power surge that fried some appliances in my home including my microwave (my primary source of eating these days). More headaches on top of already existing problems like a pump that doesn't work properly so that I can't take a proper shower which I long for in the worst way.  Still no job or any hope of finding anything.  Monday I have to start this stupid TCI training for a job I literally have no interest in and am only doing because I can't find anything else.  I'm in a hole and I have no idea how to get out of the damn thing so sick of living in this den of hopelessness.   What's the freakin' point??

I have to make a correction to my previous post.  I did in fact get a single phone call from my new friend and current co-worker Leslie.  She knew I had been sick and called to see how I was so that was nice.

Last night the drama in life continued.  As I was preparing to go to bed I noticed the lights had dimmed.  I checked the bathroom lights and they too were very dim.  I checked the outlet in my room the lights went from light to dim a few times and then went out completely. So grabbed a flashlight and looked around the room, then noticed smoke coming from an outlet in my room.  It was close to midnight but I was scared so I called the fire dept and they came.  Said there was a problem with the GFI outlet outside the trailer where I plug in my water pipe heat tape.  They advised me to unplug the heat tape but that would only cause my water to freeze, my pipes to burst and so on. So I have spent today trying to call someone to come check it out.  It's Martin Luther King Jr. day and alas I can reach no one.  Don't get me wrong Martin Luther King was a great man and I hate to think his death might have been in vain because we are no closer to peace. But I digress, life sucks I can never know peace in my own life it's constant stress and worry and I'm so tired of it.  Oh and my stupid microwave won't work which is primarily how I eat these days.  I'm so angry and as usual I stuff the anger and try to just focus on getting through the day.  It's freezing and it's hard to complain as up until Christmas it was unseasonably warm but I hate being cold and the constant struggle to stay warm.  I have to be out in it for extended lengths of time so makes it all the more distasteful to me.

So anyway dealing with severe cold and wind, one headache after another and no one here to vent to, to talk to, to help me figure things out.  Oh what it would be like to have someone to share the daily bullshit with.  I long for that voice of reason, that encouragement that everything seems hopeless now but it will be alright.

In light of the day I found this quote which seems appropriate;

If you can't fly then run,if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward

                                      Martin Luther King Jr.

It  has been almost four years since I have posted in this blog!  I lose track of time which is strange because a lot of times, like today, I just sit and do nothing because I feel frozen or maybe it's that I have so much I need and want to do that it becomes overwhelming to even think about. And this house, not even a house, a mobile home; quiet and empty. Yes it's fairly new and now it's mine, the home the land are mine, I paid them off in full which I guess in today's world is quite an accomplishment but in truth it means nothing because I am still, 24 years after Sam's death...alone.  My kids are grown and gone, my baby girl is a mother herself and there is no longer a need for me. Oh yes I babysit, perhaps more than most grandmothers are asked or are willing to do.  I cherish every second I spend with Ella but in the end I'm still alone.

I have been sick with a flu for the last few days and not a single person has called or stopped in to see how I'm doing or if I need anything.  It occurred to me that I could die here and no one would know.  At what point would people realize I haven't been around or would they?  Well yes my mother would because I'm there every day to take care of the animals.  Why do I keep the animals because that too has become overwhelming and the truth is I don't have the time to do anything with the horses I had all these plans for.  By the same token I did  not plan to lose my job anymore then I planned to lose Sam.  So all the plans, all the dreams go out the window and I'm too tired to invest in any more plans so I just keep doing what I've been doing because I don't know what else to do.  Change takes too much energy and I just don't have it.

I feel old, so very old.  Today I woke up and had trouble walking because my knees hurt so badly.  Sometimes it's my back and of late it has been my left shoulder which I found out from PT is called frozen shoulder and my left shoulder is apparently six degrees colder then my right, hmm.  My body aches all the time and I still have the aches from the car accident of 2009 the worse of which might be the vertigo that comes and goes.  I am old and I don't kid myself about that, I'm angry that I have so little time left and angry that I wasted so much of my time grieving for Sam and living only for my children after he died.  I do not regret for one minute the time I invested in my kids, I wish I had done so many things better or right.  But I wish I had devoted even a little time to me so that Mary had not gotten lost to Mom.  With the kids grown and gone I don't know how to define myself anymore. I feel angry sometimes because I don't think I have really had the chance to live for me.  There  is so much I would like to do and I know I never will.  I've been trying since I was let go in 2011 to find another secure job and have failed at every turn.  I get periodic interviews and they don't pan out.  I found what I thought would eventually be a great job and lost that to civil service rules.  I don't get it, why keep trying.  I don't have enough time to rebuild my retirement, there is no hope that I will ever be able to travel again.  I have no idea when if ever I will be able to retire and all around me the world is going to shit.  It's a world I'm uncomfortable in, nothing about it is familiar anymore.  Yes I'm depressed and anxious, just as I have been most of my life.  Everything around me has changed but I have not.

February 14 2012

Valentine's Day, one of the holidays I've come to hate and wish I didn't.  Sam used to do his best to make it special and he wasn't the kind to forget the same went for my birthday. I wish so many times that he was here not just for me but for his children but it's one of those things about my life I have no control over.   I do hope those I love are made to feel special and appreciated today because that's what it's all about.