Sad

I feel myself sinking again. My husband just started graduate school, and I'm left feeling like I'm only the provider, the rock. I'm not "moving the plot forward" - just holding in stasis until he graduates (he has 62 weeks of classes to go, we figured out).

Combine this with stupid family drama - how they can suck me in from 2,778 miles away is beyond me - and things feel bleak.

And the weather's still so hot.

At least I have my sewing. Lots of sewing, lately.

There are days

There are days when I think I am never going to get better. When the slightest thing - a comment, a photo, a phone call not received - can send me reeling, crying, and eventually into a panic attack that will only go away if I sleep - not just a nap, but all night, eight hours of recharging from the emotional drain and the feelings and the self-hatred that comes with them.

There are days when I have to listen to the same sad songs over and over, like The Band Perry's "If I Die Young" or Miranda Lambert's "The House that Built Me" or any of a number of Alanis Morisette songs, like "Your House" or "Not as We" or "Mary Jane." Or maybe put them into one terrible iTunes playlist called sadness so they loop and I cry without drawing too much attention. When I was in high school, I'd listen to "Your House" over and over, when it was difficult, because it was on the Jagged Little Pill CD as a hidden track, it's just past five minutes in, I'd listen and sing loudly after school until my sister got home at 3:40 or so and I had to start helping her with her homework or at least make her generally behave herself.

There are days when I feel like I'm no better than I was the day I had my first panic attack, the day when it took everything in me not to start sobbing on the drive home from work (which at that time was only a mile); the day when it took all I had not to drive off the road, into someone, intentionally, to hurt them, so I could go to jail and sleep.

There are days when I don't feel any of this, and no one would ever know that I had ever felt that way.

But on the other days, days like today, I know that I will never be alright. I will never be the happy-go-lucky person I'd give almost anything (even perhaps a limb) to be.

Sometimes I feel like I just want to disappear. It comes on out of nowhere - like when I feel like no one needs me. When Jeff watches a show without me, when something good happens for one of my friends, or whatever.

So insecure.

I didn't even have a bad day. I have bad hours. Relatively good mood all day, and then now I just want to curl up and cry.

I don't know why. I don't know.

I don't know why I don't know.

Forgetting

Forgetting would be easier
than the generic Hallmark

that arrives late--
not even postmarked on time,
even though you drive by
a drop box every day,

and that arrives with no
handwritten note--
but which has your handwriting
for dad's signature, too, and my sister's,

and that arrives with the check--
happy birthday in the memo line,
a smiley face made from exclamation points--
because you can't think
of anything to give me--
because you've already given me
some genes, and I'm clearly
selfish
to want anything else.

it's just a phase...right?

i go through these phases where i don't want to be friends with anyone. where i just want to be alone, like i used to be. because it's so much easier. i know exactly what *i* am going to do. i don't let me down. i fit in with myself. i don't disappoint myself the way other people disappoint me.

i want to disappear. i cannot be everything that everyone wants. i can't abandon myself the way others abandon me.

i got home from hanging out with friends today and felt like i was an alien. like i'm not anything i'm supposed to be. i came home and had a panic attack because jeff wasn't here to help me. what's wrong with me?

symbolism in words

I was at work the other day, helping out the new service manager, and he was having me set up a password protected screen saver on his computer. He picked the 3D floating text one, and was in the process of replacing the default "Windows 7" text. He was typing in the dealership's name, but said something like "I should probably put something else here. What would you put?"

I said "'Go away!'?"

He replied "I meant something more like 'Dream' or "success" or something like that."

"Mayhem?" I suggested.

--

Apparently my outlook on life is all wrong. Greg (the aforementioned service manager) suggested that the smarter you are, the longer it takes. It took him 12 years to get through college, only to b eright back where he started working in car dealership service departments.

When am I going to figure my life out? I'm at seven years, since effectively running away from home. Well... almost eight, really. My only goal is not to work at that dump anymore. To not work at all.

I just want to rest. I'm so miserable.

Children

Jeff and I may not have time or money for them...ever.

Basically, in order for him to have any kind of career in his field, he has to go to grad school. Which, at Chico State, will cost between $15,000 and $20,000 dollars. He's supposed to start getting more hours at work soon... and if he does, pretty much all of his money will have to be saved in order to afford his Master's degree. He likely wouldn't be able to start until next spring, and wouldn't graduate until at least 2013.

There's no way I can continue paying to fix up our house, have him save for school, AND buy a vehicle you can actually put a kid in. Assuming he CAN pay for school all by himself, that still leaves me to pay for everything related to fixing up the house - including two full bathroom remodels, two more bedrooms, the kitchen floor, and anything we do to the outside of it.

Our long-term savings, at this point, amounts to $200.

Oh, and none of this includes his student loans, which, while they would go back to being deferred if/when he goes back to school, would still cost us probably $200/month between this coming July and whenever he goes back.

All this makes me feel like everything I want has to be put off. Because I have no career aspirations; having a kid is about the only thing I had to look forward to, and, if that's even doable, wouldn't be able to happen for at least another three years.

By that point, I'll have been working at a place I hate for 10 years.... A place, I suspect, where if I were to even take the six weeks that most women tend to take after having a baby, I probably wouldn't have a job to go back to.

I guess I'll just give up on the only thing I thought I wanted, and put all my effort into getting Jeff what he wants.