The Dam Will Break. Someday. I hope.

    There is some force blocking my luck. A Luck Dam. This being the case, my luck is piling up in a huge reservoir, waiting to burst free and shower me with fortune. I have to hope this, because it seems as if day by day, week by week, life is yanking me up by the short hairs, flaunting my misfortune, taunting me with all the missed chances, rejections and disappointments. It just doesn't seem to end. I try to change my luck, I keep trying to push forward, but it isn't happening.
    How long can I cling to optimism when it is doing me no favors?
    I know I should "count my blessings" in the vernacular of the Christian sheep, and there are some if I look at the lives of my children. But there comes a point when it is not right to live vicariously through your children. They have their lives and I have mine, and so I have to grow up and live through my own triumphs. But triumphs are hard to come by. I am in a job that makes me miserable, living on the teetering brink of poverty, unable to pursue dreams because in our world the poor are not given much opportunity to better their situation. It is a difficult thing to admit, it borders on the treasonous, the feeling of defeat. That gut deep feeling that no matter how hard I try, it will do me no good. All I do is generate false hope to artificially lift my spirits for a few days, then cold reality deflates my bubble of optimism and I realize that I am further down the scree covered slope than I was before. How far down can I go? I guess there is still plenty of room to fall. I do hope that I don't fall much further down than I am now, I don't know if I can handle that.
    Yes, this is a pity party. I am talking to hear the sound of my own voice, because I know that no one else really wants to hear my complaints, and I don't really want to be confessing just how down I feel that I have fallen.
    This last year has been a series of failures and losses, large and small. And very few triumphs, and none of them major. I cannot think of a single thing about my life that is better than it was a year ago. No, I take that back, I am writing more and weighing less. Both are from sheer force of will, and my need to have some iota of control over my life. What can I control? Not my job, the economy, my housing situation, my growing debt, my shrinking assets, relationship (or lack of), depression that comes and goes at will... hell, even my menstrual cycle is off kilter and unpredictable.
    So I can control the words that generate in my brain and flow through my fingertips. And I can control the food that I put in my system, even though my shrinking budget is going to affect my ability to keep buying those nutrients as freely as I would like. I can control how much I work my body, I can't control the constant pain and fatigue, but I can try to ignore it.
    They say that nothing really worth having is easily obtained. And I can't argue that. But how fucking hard does it have to be? I mean really? How much must I suffer for my art? It has made me weary beyond belief. I am so worn down by my life right now that my dream life would be the luxury of being left alone, never leaving my property, being totally self sufficient and self sustaining. I dream of this. But it will not happen any time soon. There is still suffering to be had.
    So I pick myself up. Again. Dust myself off. Again. Because there is no one to lift me, no one to share the load, I have to do it myself or I will remain sprawled in the dirt. And that is not acceptable. But damn, I'm getting tired.
    I just tell myself that the Dam will break, my luck will flow freely, and the darkness will be a dim memory. I have to believe it. I have to.

Ownership

Days like today remind me (forceably) that I always need to accept ownership of my decisions and actions. I should not cast blame elsewhere because life doesn't always work out as planned. This is a hard lesson to learn, and a very hard lesson to accept. As much as I would like to put my troubles off onto some other source, in the end it is my own decisions that make or break my world. Because it is my world, my very own, and I need to be responsible for it.

So once again, all I can do is pick myself up, dust myself off and try to continue along the path to some sort of fulfilling life. I remind myself of the things in life that I have accomplished, the lives I have changed for the better, people and animals I have helped along the way, altruistic deeds that help keep my karma in the positive zone. But some days, like today, this doesn't seem like enough. It seems that I should be further along the the path of "success" however arbitrary it may be. Today it is not enough to merely own my actions, I am feeling the need to own the American Dream that is held alluringly out of reach, Try as I might, time and again, I cannot reach that carrot on the stick. So that makes me the Ass that keeps plugging along the path, ever trying to reach the carrot, never managing to do so and getting hungrier with every futile step, tripping, falling, backsliding down a slippery slope. But still, trying to reach the damned carrot.

Again though, I will own my actions. They were my decisions to make, despite regrets, there is nothing to do to change the past so I must continue to look at the future. No matter how dim things seem on some days, I have to tell myself that the fog will eventually lift and my future will seem brighter for having been in the darkness.

I dust myself off again, pick boot tread out of my teeth again, and once again try to put one foot in front of the other. On my own two feet, on my own path.

Still the Optimist

It has been an interestingly optimistic week. I am hopeful that this long damned winter and the soul-crushing depression that accompanied it are finally behind me. At least I have been granted a reprieve from the darkest space I have ever inhabited, and I will claw and fight to stay out of that abyss. They say if you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back. My abyss doesn't stare, that would be mildly annoying but tolerable. My abyss sucks me in with the irresistable power of a black hole without the potentially cool wormhole, sci-fi, side effects.
But enough about the shadow that is in my rearview mirror today. Back to my optimistic week. Have I mentioned that, despite several mental health issues, I am an eternal Optimist? I am. Truely I am.
It started last week with the arrival of my awesomely cool new business cards. What business you may ask? The business of Me. I have decided that my skills are indeed marketable, I just need to start my own marketing campaign. Hence this blog (cleaned up for public viewing) and my new, self-serving website. I have my own domain *go me*. So, business cards in hand, I feel official.
The next little happy making moment came when I won a contest. I NEVER win anything. And I won a package of fabulous, natural skin care products which currently have me feeling silky smooth and smelling of Lemongrass. I feel sassy.
Close upon the heels of this, I finished my taxes. Yes, I do owe State and Federal. A lot to State. But the paperwork is done and that is one more stressful task I have conquered.
The completion of the taxes inadvertantly led to the next little yahoo moment. I went into Chase Bank for a few counter checks, so I could send off my rent and my payment to the Feds. They informed me that counter checks were no longer free, "we are not a non-profit bank." Well, the bastards aren't going to be MY bank much longer. It was the final straw, the last cut, the point of no return. Two days later I walked into a credit union and opened a new account. The highlight of this is finding out that after years of struggling to repair damaged credit and assuming my credit score was beyond redemption, it turns out that I actually have stellar credit. Not an A+ but an A. Good enough for me.
This has pressed me into the current phase of over-excitement, which makes me feel that I may finally be moving into Manic Mode, I am going to seriously pursue buying my own home. And I have found one that is haunting my dreams. It is clean and in decent repair, so there isn't a slew of backbreaking chores to be done before the place is liveable. It has acreage, trees and no neighbors. It is what I have been looking for. Not quite my hermit cabin in the woods, but closing in on it. I am charging ahead with my usual reckless abandon. Leap before I Look, as is my nature. But truely, I have thought long and hard over the pros and cons of home ownership, so in reality I am going ahead, eyes wide open.
I need to have a purpose. A reason to keep putting one foot in front of another. Something other than my obsessive compulsive personality that makes routine and habit easily become the driving force that moves me from one activity to the next, one day to the next. I know I need more, and now that I am no longer entangled in the black web of winter I can move outside of the routine that has allowed me to keep my head above water.
It is time to move forward, into something new and exciting. The next chapter.

Fading Dreams?

Is it wrong to give up on dreams? Not giving up, exactly, but trying to reorient my mind to match the circumstances. Okay, giving up.
Which dreams? You may well ask. Not my core dream of getting published, that is still full-steam ahead. But the idea of a dream job. The hope of getting out of my dead end job, that could very well fall out from underneath me at any time. The dream of getting into a secure job with good benefits and better pay. A job that pays me enough to survive on, and maybe even get ahead a little. I think my hopes of a better job have tanked aong with the economy. Is it really so bad? I'm not sure, I haven't quite made up my mind.
On the plus side: I work easy hours, have weekends off, know the personalities of those around me and know how to manage them well, decent medical insurance, the pay doesn't totally suck.
On the down side: It is a dead-end job with a floundering company, the pay isn't quite enough to live on, I am surrounded by emotional vampires, the recession/depression has hit our industry particulary hard so the bosses and all the customers are black-holes of any positive energies, and worst of all it bores me out of my mind.
But as I whine about my job I have friends losing theirs. Many friends have lost their jobs and/or taken pay cuts. And there are so few jobs to be found. I know I should be thankful to have a job, and I am. But why is it I can't make myself feel any enthusiasm about it? Oh yeah, it has a lot to do with the emotional vampire issue mentioned earlier. I have spent the better part of the last two plus years shoring up the morale of those around me; bosses, coworker and customers. I spend so much emotional energy trying to talk people off of the ledge that I have very little positive energy left for my own sanity and psyche. And then I feel guilty because I have no desire to socialize outside of work. I can't help that, all of my daily ration of social is used and overused at work to the point that I run on a social deficit.
So this brings me back to my initial question, is it wrong to give up on dreams? Am I really giving up? Maybe I am just falling back and regrouping in a effort to cling to what little sanity I have remaining. The continual rejection of the job market has felt like one bitch-slap after another. I try to pull myself up, only to be continually knocked back down. Maybe, just maybe, if I take some of the energy I am wasting on the futile and perpetually disappointing job search and focus that energy on positive, creative outlets I may be able to regain some of my marginal sanity and balance.
To this end, I am looking into creative, alternative income sources. Namely ETSY. I think I will return to toymaking, at least on a part time scale. Just enough to bring in a few extra dollars to make up the gap between salary and rising cost of living. It is a positive, creative expenditure of energy that will generate it's own positive energy as well. A self-sustained, perpetual motion, energy generator.
Now to just find the time....

Achy Head, Wasted Day

There are days when it doesn't pay to get out of bed. This was one of those days. The dogs woke me at 8am, even though I had explained the night before that as the alpha bitch of the pack, I am entitled to sleep in on saturdays until at least 9. But no. They did not listen. Head throbbing I staggered out of bed, wrapped up in my nappy polar fleece bathrobe, and stumbled to the back door to let them out. Then I lay back down for a few minutes until they all came, boisterously, back into the house. I managed to get back out of bed just long enough to close the back door, use the bathroom, and then my pounding skull made the decision for me: back to bed. I even opted to shut the dogs out of the room, an unprecedented move, in order sleep until my head was cooperating.
Nearly 2 hours later, my head still throbbing, I realized that sleep was not going to cure this particularly pervasive and insistent headache. Time for drugs and caffiene. Naproxin sodium and fresh coffee should do the trick. Should. Didn't. So maybe a healthy breakfast. I start cooking some oatmeal in milk and water. Halfway through the cooking I realize the milk is curdling and rising to the top. I sniff the newly purchased gallon, it smells... off. Not sour, not rotten, just "off." Fuck. I decide to forge ahead, let the oats keep cooking. Turns out they don't taste bad once all the good shit is added. But so much for the brand new gallon of milk, and now I am milk-less for the weekend unless I make another, unwanted, trip to the store.
And so my day goes. Head harassing me, I try to start projects, but I can't make my brain stay on track. I finally give up trying and hope that a nap may help. 2 hours later, well rested, but head still pounding I get back up. More coffee, more drugs: aspirin, acetominophin, naproxin sodium. Maybe a healthy meal? Nope.
I go online, I need silk and silk paint for banners. I make my selections, get all the way up to the last click of the mouse and I hesitate, remembering that I'm kinda broke. I check the bank account, if I buy the silk I won't have enough to pay my phone bill. Damn. I escape out of the shopping cart without finalizing the sale. My head is still pounding, and now the tension across my shouilders threatens to peel my scalp off of my skull.
Okay, time to go a little natural: feverfew and tea. Head still pounding but now my stomach is churning. Time for Pepto. I really want a glass of milk, but the milk is "off." Damn.
I decide that maybe fresh air is the way to go. So out into the woods with the dogs. The cool, humid air does smell good, and the excercise does make my body feel a little better. Until I slip in the mud and without thinking grab the barbed wire fence next to me. The puncture wound in my finger leaves a dripping trail of blood that a city slicker could have followed. The blood flows freely, no doubt aided by my intake of blood thinning pain relievers. Oh well, what's a little more blood loss after the worst menstrual cycle ever as well as my regular Red Cross donation. Blood, who needs it?
Back to the house, feeling a little better. Stomach still churning, I throw up a little in the back of my throat. I really need a glass of milk. Fine, dammit. Load the dogs into the van, head to the store. I want one of those headache patches too. Standing in the pain reliever aisle, scouring the shelves for the patch I know has to be there when the clueless couple parks their cart between me and my objective. Can't they see that I am standing there, looking directly at the shelves they have now effectively blocked, while they idiotically discuss cold medications. Damn. I give up. I wasn't finding the damn patch anyway. Milk. That's all I came for. I do grab the cheapest bottle of ibuprofin, I haven't put that into my system yet.
So now, I have put almost every over the counter product I can think of into my system, my head is feeling a little better, but my stomach feels delicate. And the caffiene and naps have me wide awake at nearly midnight. I do need to get some sleep, in the hopes that my head may allow me to get shit done tomorrow. I don't have a lot of spare time, and to waste it feeling like a simpering whinebag just pisses me off.
Enough of the Pity Party. Time to try for some sleep in anticipation of a productive day tomorrow.

How Do They Know?

Thursday night, no sign of Elliot. Elliot, the toe-sucking tomcat. Of course he would go missing tonight of all nights. What is so special about tonight you might ask? Nothing really. It is tomorrow morning that hoilds special significance for Mr Fluffynutterkins. Tomorrow he will be permanently seperated from that which most males hold most dear. Yes, tomorrow he is to be neutered.
I have never understood how animals know that they have a date with destiny and will choose to forego dinner and a warm place to sleep in order to avoid it at all costs. There is often talk of animals predicting earthquakes, seizures and storms. But what is never discussed is there ability to predict medical visits.
So, it is now 9-1/2 hours until I am supposed to cram him into his tiny blue carrier and haul his smellybutt to the doctor, and he is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he thought it was suspicious that I was calling him in to dinner. I never do that. Damn, I had tried so hard to avoid tipping my hand, I should have known better than to break routine.
I have avoided any mention of the pending testicular removal. I haven't even whispered a hint to the dogs, even though I am sure they would find glee in the situation. I went so far as to avoid making the appointment over the phone in case of possible wire tapping. I stopped at the clinic on my way home from work, only spent a few minutes there, and so I wasn't even late getting home. I don't know where I slipped up, but these damn animals have resources we as humans can't even imagine.
For all I kow, I talk in my sleep. One careless word and the cat is out of the bag, so to speak... though I want the bags out of the cat.
I know it would be to no avail to try and convince him that it will be for his own good. No more fighting, no more late nights, he can legitimately sit around the house and be fat and lazy. What's not to love about that? But try to convince any male that he would be better off surrendering his stones and you will be met with cold resistance.
For now, I just have to hope that Elliot will decide to put in a showing so I won't embarrass myself by having to call the vet and tell them a story they have heard a thousand times before, "I don't know how, but he just knew."

Insomnia or Mania?

Two weeks. Two solid weeks of not enough sleep. It's not that I'm not trying. I am doing everything in my power to try for a solid 6-1/2 hours of sleep at night, but the brain and body are not cooperating. I try to get to bed at a reasonable hour, but there is never enough time in my evenings to get everything done. So maybe it is midnight before I am turning of the lamp and pulling the down comforter up under my chin. But that gives me a solid 6 hours before the alarm clicks on to Mornings with Greg and the John Stewart Minute. 6 hours. But here is where the brain decides to step in and rearrange the plan. I have been waking up at 5:30. Five-fucking-thirty. I had hoped that the time change might help, but no, still waking up at five-fucking-thirty. And I have to admit, it is making me just a tad ragged. Last night I decided to set the alarm for 6;45 and skip the morning cardio, figuring at this point that sleep was more important than a workout. So, what happens? I wake up at five-fucking-thirty. I had time for cardio and to clean my living room. Yesterday it was the kitchen. At least the house is benefitting.
Okay, 5-1/2 hours. I could get by on 5-1/2 hours. But here is where my body decided to join the brain in this plot to take over my psyche. The traitorous body wakes me up at 4am to pee.  Yeah, I'm at that age where I have to get up in the middle of the night to pee. Fuck. I guess I could cut out the late glass of warm milk. Yeah, I drink a glass of warm milk with a little vanilla at night, it's supposed to help me fall asleep. What? Yeah, I'm at that age where I drink warm milk in the evening and get up in the middle of the night to pee, and I can still kick your ass (age and treachery beats youth and enthusiasm every time... you wanna run for it? Then you will prove that scared as shit runs faster than mad as hell... but then, I won't chase you that hard, too much work and I am too old and wise for that, I will just throw something at your legs, knock you down, and THEN kick your ass... back to that age and treachery thing...).
So, with my meager 5-1/2 hours cut down to 5 hours by my all-too-predictable bodily functions, it goes without saying that I am feeling a bit sleep deprived, but functioning remarkably well regardless.
The question is Insomnia or Mania? Am I finally slipping into the long absent Manic mode? I can only hope, since I have spent a long winter in the ying to that yang. Depression isn't so bad, my friends and family have learned to (mostly) leave me alone in the winter. It is best to leave the hibernating bear alone, do not poke it with a stick or throw things into the cave, it will end badly. Very badly.
So, Insomnia or Mania? Mania with the accompanying energy/creativity/bon vivant? Or Insomnia with the inevitable hallucinations/irritablity/delusions? The random, sporadic ramblings of this post could point either way, only time will tell. For tonight, I have lifted weights to the point of exhaustion, had chicken for dinner and avoided the lure of the television in the hopes that endorphins, tryptophan and relaxation may be the key to a normal night's sleep. One can hope.