So, not sure how this will work out but, here goes.... M and I are moving to Atlanta. We are broke, my family will have to help us financially, and I will have to give up one of my jobs. Is this smart? Is this the best decision we could make? I have no idea!
I am freaked out and whenever I think about it I get really anxious. I know that the job market may be better but it is more expensive. I know that we can survive anything together but I have never moved with a partner before. At least we can transfer the jobs we have now and, hopefully, will arrive with employment. However, I am worried that going back to one minimum-wage job is the stupidest thing I could do now that I feel like we are finally getting ahead.
I am so nervous about the move today that I cannot focus, want a nerve pill, and am considering buying a pack of smokes though I quit smoking 2 weeks ago.
I hope this all works out. I'm going to try to write more in the coming months (we move August 1) in the hopes that my blog will keep me from being paralyzed by fear...
we shall see.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Looking Up
So things seem to be looking up. After an entire year of depression and looking for full-time employment I am finally feeling better and have two upcoming interviews - the first is actually a second (!!) - I am hoping to land a job at another book store - much better than my current retail position (which I will keep for now of course) and the second interview is for a part-time position at a library (also a perfect fit for me). My current hope is that I will get both jobs and live happily-ever-after! LoL No, seriously, I would love to have all three jobs for a while and gradually phase out my crappy current job. I am really hopeful that I will get at least one of these jobs and then I can for 30+ hours a week and start to actually pay my bills for once.
This development, along with my recuperation from a 2 week long flu, has given me the motivation to update my blog's image (a more cheerful design for a more cheerful year?) and make it more summer appropriate. I have the biggest hopes for this year. I am really tired of the way things have been and I really want to change that.
Typically, my posts are not very clinical but I feel like today I should interject some details about my mood. I am feeling much better but I am also very suspicious. I have been depressed for a year or more now and am currently feeling so "normal" a mood that it makes me distrustful - I am positive that I will become manic, afraid that, as they say, nothing good can come of this. I know from my past what a level mood feels like but as I have never had such a long, severe depression it is incredibly difficult to imagine what a level mood would feel like afterward (technically it would feel this great I suppose) but that leaves me wary of the extreme change in moods. So, what I am getting at is: I really, really hope that my mood changes are a swing toward my old, normal self and not just a hypomanic or manic episode.
And here are the thoughts that make me suspicious! ^_^
This development, along with my recuperation from a 2 week long flu, has given me the motivation to update my blog's image (a more cheerful design for a more cheerful year?) and make it more summer appropriate. I have the biggest hopes for this year. I am really tired of the way things have been and I really want to change that.
Typically, my posts are not very clinical but I feel like today I should interject some details about my mood. I am feeling much better but I am also very suspicious. I have been depressed for a year or more now and am currently feeling so "normal" a mood that it makes me distrustful - I am positive that I will become manic, afraid that, as they say, nothing good can come of this. I know from my past what a level mood feels like but as I have never had such a long, severe depression it is incredibly difficult to imagine what a level mood would feel like afterward (technically it would feel this great I suppose) but that leaves me wary of the extreme change in moods. So, what I am getting at is: I really, really hope that my mood changes are a swing toward my old, normal self and not just a hypomanic or manic episode.
And here are the thoughts that make me suspicious! ^_^
- I am interested in leaving the house.
- I am excited about working 2-3 jobs at 30-50 hours a week.
- I am getting up at 9am everyday.
- I am sleeping different and am rarely tired at all.
- I am really happy about cleaning, seeing the sun shine in our windows, interacting with people, doing things (things I haven't liked for 14 months!).
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Long time, no post. . .
So, I haven't written in a minute because, frankly, my life hasn't changed much. I'm working a crap job, staying at home because I have no money, loving my girlfriend, wishing I had a different life.
That then brings me to today's post - I have never (even as much as I read) been an "arm-chair traveler." I'm much more of a fiction/history kinda person. Personal accounts of far off places I may never get to see have never appealed to me. But recently I have not been able to get enough of the travel memoirs (for lack of a better word) of Americans in Japan. I really can't explain it but I have begun to wonder if it is a new obsession born out of the concern that I will never make it to Japan myself. I have recently begun to fear that I will be one of those 40-somethings that has a ridiculously irrelevant degree in let's say, Ancient Mayan Studies, dreams about the days she had hoped to spend in Central America and, instead, works 9-5 at a bank and has 2 kids, a husband, and a dog.
Granted I won't have the husband or the kids but I will have M and since she is such a large part of my life I think that she is precisely why I have begun to worry about this. I had planned my life before I met her and, now, 2 years into the relationship, I have to re-plan and I am having a difficult time with it. I am so worried that I will never get to live in Japan, much less even get to see it. I know that she wouldn't mind, might even encourage me, if I wanted to go for maybe 3 months. And I know that, were we to win the lottery, she would go for a while with me (because our money would insulate her in a bubble of Western culture while we traveled to temples and shrines). But what really worries me is that, long, long before I met her, I knew that at some point I would live many, many years in Japan and perhaps teach English there. I also know that had we not been together with the shit hit the fan last year I would already be in Japan (my savings spent not on a new apartment but on storage for my stuff and a passport and visa). I have had the sinking feeling recently that none of this will ever happen.
I am really not sure (as no one can be) what my future holds but as this part of my life continues to suck the life out of me, I am traveling far, far away on the coattails of Americans who have been so lucky as to be in Japan for more than a week and have been so generous to write about it so that people like me can go with them (even if only in our living rooms).
That then brings me to today's post - I have never (even as much as I read) been an "arm-chair traveler." I'm much more of a fiction/history kinda person. Personal accounts of far off places I may never get to see have never appealed to me. But recently I have not been able to get enough of the travel memoirs (for lack of a better word) of Americans in Japan. I really can't explain it but I have begun to wonder if it is a new obsession born out of the concern that I will never make it to Japan myself. I have recently begun to fear that I will be one of those 40-somethings that has a ridiculously irrelevant degree in let's say, Ancient Mayan Studies, dreams about the days she had hoped to spend in Central America and, instead, works 9-5 at a bank and has 2 kids, a husband, and a dog.
Granted I won't have the husband or the kids but I will have M and since she is such a large part of my life I think that she is precisely why I have begun to worry about this. I had planned my life before I met her and, now, 2 years into the relationship, I have to re-plan and I am having a difficult time with it. I am so worried that I will never get to live in Japan, much less even get to see it. I know that she wouldn't mind, might even encourage me, if I wanted to go for maybe 3 months. And I know that, were we to win the lottery, she would go for a while with me (because our money would insulate her in a bubble of Western culture while we traveled to temples and shrines). But what really worries me is that, long, long before I met her, I knew that at some point I would live many, many years in Japan and perhaps teach English there. I also know that had we not been together with the shit hit the fan last year I would already be in Japan (my savings spent not on a new apartment but on storage for my stuff and a passport and visa). I have had the sinking feeling recently that none of this will ever happen.
I am really not sure (as no one can be) what my future holds but as this part of my life continues to suck the life out of me, I am traveling far, far away on the coattails of Americans who have been so lucky as to be in Japan for more than a week and have been so generous to write about it so that people like me can go with them (even if only in our living rooms).
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Money
"They" say 'Money can't buy happiness.' I'm not sure that I agree 100%. I know that the love of money is supposedly the root of evil but I don't love it or hate it. I just want enough to live. I can survive - which is what I'm doing now - but I want enough to live. There are so many things that one cannot do without money. I want to join weight watcher, buy nice, healthy groceries, pay off my credit cards, get a second car so M and I can have some space.
I just don't know how to do that. I can't play the lottery, not enough spare money (ironic, no?). I don't feel comfortable asking my father for more money. I'm just at a loss. I'm looking for a second job but I don't know that there is one out there. It's such a vicious cycle, in so many ways. I really want to have friends again but without money it's impossible to do anything with them. I am lonely, not too sad right now, but sometimes M gets on my nerves and I need to be out of the house without her; just like she needs to be at home without me sometimes. I just don't know what to do and it makes my anxiety that much worse. I know that I would be a better girlfriend if I had friends and did without her - I would be healthier and so would our relationship. I just don't know where to begin. I have almost completely reverted to my natural state of being a hermit. I haven't severed all of my friendships but most of them are strained right now and I am in no state to form new ones, although I have had the opportunity. I hate this and hate not having the answers.
I just don't know how to do that. I can't play the lottery, not enough spare money (ironic, no?). I don't feel comfortable asking my father for more money. I'm just at a loss. I'm looking for a second job but I don't know that there is one out there. It's such a vicious cycle, in so many ways. I really want to have friends again but without money it's impossible to do anything with them. I am lonely, not too sad right now, but sometimes M gets on my nerves and I need to be out of the house without her; just like she needs to be at home without me sometimes. I just don't know what to do and it makes my anxiety that much worse. I know that I would be a better girlfriend if I had friends and did without her - I would be healthier and so would our relationship. I just don't know where to begin. I have almost completely reverted to my natural state of being a hermit. I haven't severed all of my friendships but most of them are strained right now and I am in no state to form new ones, although I have had the opportunity. I hate this and hate not having the answers.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Hanging in there. . . I think.
I am trying very hard to fight the so-called "triggers" of my day. I have had two fairly strong ones and I think I can beat them, well, me and my medicine and M. I'm not sure how I will get though this. I hope that I can relax and regain my day. Most likely, however, I will take a nap and feel like shit when I wake up.
Here's hoping I don't. But how do you fight triggers? Everyone's told me how to recognize them but not how to move on from them so that I don't cycle.
Here's hoping I don't. But how do you fight triggers? Everyone's told me how to recognize them but not how to move on from them so that I don't cycle.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Can't do this anymore
I'm really not sure how or if I can keep doing this. Life is so hard right now. I try to keep it together. For M's sake, for my own. But I honestly don't know how anymore. I was trying/planning to take care of myself today and try to overcome my last set of triggers: working too much, stress over money, and canceling the only social engagements I have had in the last 5 1/2 months because I don't have enough money to go out.
M was supposed to go to her parents' after work today and on her way to work the check-engine light came on in the car. I am freaking out. We share a car and it is our only way to and from our jobs - no buses run up there. I know that money can't buy happiness but I can't help thinking about my life before - when I was in school, had a good job, and student loans. Thinking about when M had her truck - before it was totaled in October of 2009. My car has over 102,000 miles on it now and when I met her it only had 76,000 or so. I never put more than 10,000 a YEAR on my car before then. In one year we have put about half the number of miles than I had put on it since I've owned the car - since 2004!!
I have no idea how to handle this. M is taking the car to the mechanic's as I type but I am so afraid that he will have to keep it, that we won't have a way to work, that we won't have the money to fix it (which we don't, cuz I don't even have the money to pay all of my bills right now). I'm really afraid that my family won't have the money to help us. And the sad fact is, I am so past-due on one of my credit cards that we can't even take out a loan to fix it. All of my cards are maxed out so we can't put the bill on one of my cards. Ultimately, we are fucked.
I had honestly woken up today thinking that I could turn this around. That I could put the last set of triggers behind me and move on to the next stage. Now, after knowing that the car is broken, I won't be at home by myself today, and that I may not have any money for a very long time - I just want to go back to bed and disappear. I want to stop the world and get off. I want to "not be" for a while, until all of this passes.
M was supposed to go to her parents' after work today and on her way to work the check-engine light came on in the car. I am freaking out. We share a car and it is our only way to and from our jobs - no buses run up there. I know that money can't buy happiness but I can't help thinking about my life before - when I was in school, had a good job, and student loans. Thinking about when M had her truck - before it was totaled in October of 2009. My car has over 102,000 miles on it now and when I met her it only had 76,000 or so. I never put more than 10,000 a YEAR on my car before then. In one year we have put about half the number of miles than I had put on it since I've owned the car - since 2004!!
I have no idea how to handle this. M is taking the car to the mechanic's as I type but I am so afraid that he will have to keep it, that we won't have a way to work, that we won't have the money to fix it (which we don't, cuz I don't even have the money to pay all of my bills right now). I'm really afraid that my family won't have the money to help us. And the sad fact is, I am so past-due on one of my credit cards that we can't even take out a loan to fix it. All of my cards are maxed out so we can't put the bill on one of my cards. Ultimately, we are fucked.
I had honestly woken up today thinking that I could turn this around. That I could put the last set of triggers behind me and move on to the next stage. Now, after knowing that the car is broken, I won't be at home by myself today, and that I may not have any money for a very long time - I just want to go back to bed and disappear. I want to stop the world and get off. I want to "not be" for a while, until all of this passes.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
New leaf?
So here's the deal - I am trying to overcome all of the negativity in my life by doing some really out of character things like "positive thinking," "law of attraction," and meditation. These things are new and really scary! I am reading some really strange books that I once would have made fun of my mom for reading. But the truth is that I have run out of options and figure it can't hurt, right?
I am starting by feeling more positive about my job options - I like my job but I am applying to other opportunities too. If I can find another job that is free-lance or part-time then I can make more money but if I can find a real job that I like I can begin to move on. And, right now, what do I have to lose? I don't have a lot to do and applying for jobs doesn't take anything away from my "productive" time. LoL
I guess I just want to really do some soul searching and I need to decide what's important to me. I really want to move on and I realized last night that I am qualified, capable, and I have the best support possible - M!
I am really excited that I have the option to start my life over. Why did it take so long to realize this? Either way I'm really glad it finally dawned on me!
I am starting by feeling more positive about my job options - I like my job but I am applying to other opportunities too. If I can find another job that is free-lance or part-time then I can make more money but if I can find a real job that I like I can begin to move on. And, right now, what do I have to lose? I don't have a lot to do and applying for jobs doesn't take anything away from my "productive" time. LoL
I guess I just want to really do some soul searching and I need to decide what's important to me. I really want to move on and I realized last night that I am qualified, capable, and I have the best support possible - M!
I am really excited that I have the option to start my life over. Why did it take so long to realize this? Either way I'm really glad it finally dawned on me!
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