One Day at a Time

I took some positive steps today. I hope that means the “happy pills” are kicking in. I actually got off the sofa and cleaned the house. Tonight for the first time in almost three weeks, I will be sleeping in my bed.

Tomorrow, I will talk to a professor about whether the program his school offers would be a good match for me. I am contemplating taking my writing and journalist skills into the digital world with a Masters in Digital Media. I actually get excited when I contemplate this prospect. I see possibilities with it.

Not so much with the job hunt. I came across two horror stories today that just fill me with dread.

One is a coworker who was laid off in June 2008, and she still hasn’t found a job. She is ready to give up. The other was a comment a perfect strange made in the supermarket.

I was there with the woman I consider the baby’s second mother, when she bumped into an old friend.

It was a casual question: “Are you still doing the medical thing?”

The stranger shook her head: “Nope, there were just no jobs. I took what I could. There were just no jobs anywhere.”

That is when everything inside me turns cold with fear. It’s the same thing I hear over and over again – no jobs.

But then there are stories like the one of another coworker who was laid off the same time as me. Within a week she had a new job.

Couldn’t I be one those lucky ones? Just this one time couldn’t I be? I am seriously trying not to stress it as I continue to send out resumes and look over job boards.

Right now I am looking at things like this. I made it through today. Tomorrow is yet to come, so just take it one day at time.

Duice

My little one and I battle over her drinking water. She has become a juice addict and would rather that over water any day. I, on the other hand, plan to break that habit. Right now she gets juice once a day, and water throughout the day.

This morning, after breakfast and drinking a cup and half of soy milk, she looks at me and goes “duice”

I walk over to the fridge, pour out water and give her the cup. The little bugger wouldn’t take it. “duice,” she insisted.

So a little part of me decided to experiment, I picked up the bottle of grape juice and pretended to pour it into the cup.

I handed it to her and this time -- she took it. I couldn't believe it. My little one knows the difference between the water bottle and the juice bottle.

Of course the game was up when, she tasted it and discovered it was still water. Can you say temper tantrum?

Me vs. Normal

Here is the thing about me; I am just a little bit touched. That’s how I like to describe it – just a little bit touched. Isn’t that better than saying I am slightly insane or that I suffer from chronic depression. Over the years I have develop ways to cope, to appear like one of the normals.

However, when shit happens I can’t keep up that façade. I need to withdraw from public light. I basically go into isolation. I don’t answer phone calls. I talk to no one. I see no one. It’s just me and all my crazy thoughts, going around and around in my head until finally they make sense. Only then do I emerge and let friends in.

I understand that other people do it differently. Normal people function differently. They let their friends in. They talk it out with friends. I can’t, not until I have some basic foundation to stand on.

I did that last week when I lost the job. I withdrew, turned off the phone, didn’t return phone calls. It was just me and the baby. I took pleasure in just watching her, while my thoughts tried to center themselves, to find some hope for the future.
Now according to one of my normal friends, I am rude hypocrite for doing that.

I know where she is coming from. She copes the normal way. For her that means talking to friend or at least a text that says, “I’m ok.” For that reason, I apologize to her. It seems that isn’t enough, and it’s precisely the reason I avoid friendships with people I consider normal.

If you aren’t a little bit touch in some way, then you aren’t going to understand how I cope. You are going to get upset, get offended and take it personally. You are going to tell me I am wrong that I need a better way to cope.

Then, I am just going to quietly back away from you because I have tried it the normal way and the pressure of trying to keep up the façade inevitable leads to me cracking, and I literally end up in the nuthouse. I have learnt that before I can deal with anyone, I have to deal with me, and unfortunately that means a withdrawal from the world.

My friends that are a bit touch get this. When I am in isolation, they will text, send me little words of hope, but don’t take offense that I don’t answer them. They wait for me to come to them, and welcome me with open arms when I do. The flipside is I have to deal with them when they get their little touch epos ides. However, like them, it’s always an open harm welcome when we emerge.

The point of this whole ramble is that I have lost a friend, in addition to a job – sigh. I need to stick to my own rules. Don’t ever become friend with a normal, no matter how nice they are. Why because it’s inevitable that when I sink into isolation they will get piss, and I will lose a friend when I am at my vulnerable point.

Dear God

Every night I go to bed, I utter the same pray to you: “Help me provide for her.”
When I was pregnant it was: “Help me provide for this new life.”

Instead, the pregnancy became complicated and I was put on three months of bed rest. Suddenly, my paycheck was cut in half. The mortgage grew and the bills piled up. In the end, I fell behind on the mortgage and now the house is in foreclosure.
She came and I got back to work. Income was coming in, but it wasn’t enough – not with daycare payments. That was a second mortgage. Then her father started the custody to avoid paying child support.

I wipe out my 401k. Half goes toward a lawyer for the baby and the other for a lawyer for the house. Now it looks like the house will be saved, but today, I lost my job. I can’t pay a mortgage now, even a reduced one. I was one of 50 laid off in what was the third round of cuts in a year and half. Hey, I was lucky to survive a year.

So tonight as I do every night, I will pray from the very depth of my soul. “Dear God, please help me provide for her.”

But looking at how the last year and half as gone, I don’t think he is listening.