Next week is going to suck.  I most likely will not be around from Sunday night through sometime on Friday.  It’s not my fault, either.  The fault lies with Duquesne Light.

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I really don’t understand.  I don’t.  Why do I have to have what other people think I should have?  What’s wrong with being content with what I have?

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I try not to get down and depressed.  It’s a lot easier these days with my medications.  I try not to think about the things I know worry me.  Today, well really, this past week, one of them keeps haunting me.  I’ve been trying to catch up on Facebook.  Working 12.5 hour days with 45 minute commutes makes it hard to keep up.  I have some people whose profiles I check daily (yeah that’s me – the stalker) and I always look at my top news, but I no longer read every post every day.  I always come home to 300+ new posts.  I do need to sleep sometime people!  Anyways, I’ve been checking up on people’s profiles and pictures.  Most of my friends have families – kids, fiances, husbands, etc.  Some of them I’ve seen get married (or have seen the pictures) and watched their kids grow (in pictures if not in person).  I can imagine their futures, to some extent.  *shrug*  I’m not trying to say I know what’s going to happen or that I’m detailed or anything.  I’m not that stalkerish!

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I have one grandparent left.  He is absolutely amazing.  3 years ago I gathered with the rest of my family in Las Vegas for his 90th birthday.  He has children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  We all gathered again for my sister’s wedding last August.

Grandpa is the dapper guy on the left side in front. Those are all pictures of that side of the family from my sister’s wedding.

Yesterday my Aunt in California emailed me to tell me Grandpa was given a Presidential Achievement award on Thursday.  He is 93 and volunteers at an adult daycare in California.  He even made the news: Seal Beach Man, 93, is Super Volunteer.  I am so very proud of him.  He’s been through a lot and he is still a caring, wonderful man.  He danced the foxtrot with my sister at her wedding.  He has macular degeneration and has great difficulty in seeing, but still goes out to help others.  I just hope that I’ll get the chance to see him again.  I love you, Grandpa!

It’s been a while since I’ve knitted so I had to re-teach myself basically everything.  I used my little red book that Squirrel Girl (formerly known as the Steel City Knitter) told me to get, my video, and I asked some questions to my knitting friends on Facebook.  It wasn’t easy.  Once I got it I started working on my scarf.  It came with a kit I got from Jo-Ann’s online with a coupon probably a year ago.  I’ve never really gotten that far on it, but I worked and worked. I ripped things out and re-did them. I counted row after row.  Finally, I got garter stitch pattern 1 done.  The first time.  I have to repeat it twice more.  I haven’t gotten brave enough to do that.  And yes, Kit did “help”.  You can find the details on my project on Ravelry under Super Easy Scarf. Here are my photos:

I was rather proud of myself and posted it everywhere, but alas, I’ve not worked on it since.  I’ve been too tired (hey, you try working 12 and a half hour days and then come home and knit at 3:30 am!), too busy (party and shopping and party and unpacking), or it’s been too hot (with the ac on up here it was 81 degrees!).  I’ll get back to it because I have a goal.  I want to knit socks.

Mom gave me some help in that direction.  I was talking about knitting socks and she knew that I would need some double pointed needles (dpn).  She said she had some, dug them out of her sewing basket, and gave them to me.  They are bone dpns that my great-grandmother used way back when.  Wow!  I don’t remember what size they are and I just packed them away in my knitting bag.  I can’t wait to find a pattern and yarn so I can use them.  After I finish my scarf. *sigh*

I never know what to say when I reach this point.  What I go through I’m not really sure anyone can understand.  Last weekend I was totally depressed, lonely, feeling unloved, unwanted, and feeling completely overwhelmed.  All week I was crying when I went to bed.  I was defensive, irritable (although that could have been increased by the medication that my doc put me on for the week), and just about always on the verge of tears.  No one loved me, no one wanted me, no one even remembered that I was around.  I was afraid to go out and see people because I was fairly certain I wouldn’t have been able to hold it together.  I was absolutely miserable.  I didn’t necessarily want to die, but I certainly didn’t want to go on living.  Except for after my therapy appointment on Friday.  I definitely wanted to die at that point.

Thursday we doubled one med and added another.   I really wish I would have had some more time for it to get into my system before Friday morning.   I now go into therapy expecting to be attacked therefore I’m defensive.  When I’m struggling not to cry, my tone gets sharper.  Apparently based upon this she decided that I was that way to everyone all the time.  My perceptions are out of what and a lot of the time I know it, but I can’t get past it.  Not to mention that the worse my emotional level gets the harder it is to remember it.  *shrug*  By Friday evening I was soooo much better.  I’m calm, I haven’t felt like crying since Friday morning.  I had a set back trying to get a different brand of contacts.  I was hoping to get the change at Moon, but they said I had to go to my original Wal-Mart.  So Mom and I went out to Pleasant Hills and got it done.  I didn’t end up in tears and last weekend I would.  I would also had given up and not made the effort to get it done.  I’m making plans with people.  I’m not afraid to see my friends.  I don’t feel like no one wants me.  I don’t feel like I want to die.  I don’t feel like everyone has forgotten me, and when I thought that might have been the case, I wasn’t in tears.  I’m not obsessing.  I’m not looking at Facebook and feeling absolutely lonely and miserable.  It’s like someone flipped a switch.  Or was pushing up on a dimmer switch.  I don’t know how to explain it and I’m not sure any explanation I could come up with would do it justice.  *shrug*  Sometimes it feels like I’m too different people.  It looks like unfortunately I’m one of those people who needs to be on medication.  I don’t like that, but it’s worth it to feel normal.  I hate being this way because people don’t understand.  I’m so worried about people getting the wrong impression (and I know they do) and about offending people.  There’s not much I can do about that.  I definitely feel out of control when my meds aren’t doing right.  I don’t know how this will be once the initial high wears off.  *shrug*  You just have to keep going and take it one day at a time.

It’s been a rough week and it’s not even over yet. (Warning! This is a long one.)

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My jaw hurts.  It’s been hurting for several days now.  Monday?  Tuesday?  I’m really not sure.  It’s the TMJ and it’s on both sides right now.  I can talk without pain, but not eat.  Taking pills is not easy either.  I don’t know what to do to make it better.  I guess I deserve it.

My stomach’s not happy.  Since Wednesday I’ve been having on and off nausea, normally accompanied by sweating.  I was so sick when I got home from work Wednesday night that I just went to sleep.  I took Zofran to get through Thursday but I was still sick when I got home.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t sleep.  I was starving.  I ate a hot dog (something which actually did not turn my stomach, strangely enough), but I was still starving and had a very hard time going to sleep.  I had to go to therapy today and went grocery shopping.  I was able to eat a hot dog this morning, but not the donut I tried.  Even now, I’m fighting it.  And of course, I was so depressed after therapy that I went and had lunch at Long John Silvers.  Not something my digestive system tolerates very well now that I do not have a gall bladder.  I didn’t go out to see people, even though I wanted to.  I don’t know that I’ll go see Mom tomorrow and F Cubed…well, I just don’t know about that.  It’s more than sickness that would keep me away.

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Just when I think things are getting under  control, I realize that I miscalculated things.  At this point I honestly don’t know what to do.  I have to work at least 10 to 12 hours of overtime a week between now and October in order to make ends meet.  It’s not going to happen.  It hit me last night when they put up that there was no need for overtime last night.  There’s also no need for overtime tonight.  That’s 4 hours I’m not going to be able to work.  I should be able to work on Friday although I don’t know about tomorrow night.  So that’s 7.5 hours for the week.  I doubt there will be OT on Sunday either.  Now I have to decide if I sign up for Saturday.  I could work 10 – 4:30 which would give me another 6.5 hours, but it also means I could end up working every day for God only knows how long.  I’m not sure how long my wrist could take that.  As it is right now it’s very painful doing certain things and that’s with me wearing a wrist brace.  My left wrist seems to be doing better than my right one, but again, who knows how long that might last.  So I have to figure out what I need to give up this summer.  No going out, no nails, no shopping, no eating out, no Pirates games, etc.  I guess it’s a good thing I’m used to eating ramen noodles for dinner.  And this isn’t even counting car repairs and doctors visits.  Forget about getting my cavities filled – I’ll just have to let my teeth fall out.  At least my generic medications are free.

Right now I’m saying I’ll never date again.  Every time recently I give too much, get too little, and end up broke when it’s over with.  Who knows? I may end up on the street before this is over.  I saw Mom’s list of rules and since I’m working full time I have to pay rent on time every month.  Which might just mean not paying the minimum payments on my credit cards every month which is just going to ruin my credit even more and increase the already long projected time to pay them off.  And no, I don’t use the damn things and haven’t in over a year.  Well, once, for groceries because I didn’t have my debit card.  So if I decide not to pay her, or not pay her on time only God knows what will happen.  And Tom was telling me yesterday that things are going to get better.  What a load of crap.  Of course he was also telling me that people making minimum wage can manage to live on their own so why can’t I?  Yeah, I wanted to belt him.   If he actually gives me money between now and when we move out I might be able to afford my inspection and car repairs.  I might be able to get the alignment done.

I don’t know what to do. I’m not really sure if I have the time or energy for a second job.  Nor am I sure what I’d be able to do.  And it seems that everyone and everything wants me to donate money to something or the other.  *sigh* As if I didn’t have enough to feel guilty over.  Maybe I can sell some of my books, though I hate to do that.  Yeah, life pretty much sucks and I don’t see it getting better.

For awhile I’ve been drifting and not sure of what to do or where to go.  I’ve made decisions and tried my best, but things have fallen apart.  I think there’s something wrong in just about every area in my life. My health, my transportation, my job, my relationship, my shelter, my finances, etc. it all seems to be falling apart. I’ve gotten away from God and I’m not sure how to get back.  I’m afraid and I’m not sure why.  I’m not sure I can ever go back.

I’ve broken up with Tom.  I haven’t really said anything about it here because I’m not sure what to say.  He stopped acting like he loved me.  I kept having to take responsibility for everything.  He broke promises to me.  We would fight daily, multiple times a day.  I don’t really think we have that much in common.  I feel like I have to do it all with little or no help.  I wasn’t happy in the relationship.  People are shocked that I broke up with him.  Sometimes I am, too.  I don’t want to be with him in that way anymore.  I’m having to train myself not to be quite so concerned, but not calling him has been rather easy.  There are a lot of things I’m not happy with him over.  I’m losing a lot by breaking up with him – my independence, my privacy, my days off.  I’ve worked on 13 of the last 14 days.  I’ve done more than 8 hours of OT during the week along with double time on Sundays.  My wrists are killing me.  The house is a mess and I actually feel like doing something about it, but I don’t have the energy.  I’m planning on working 2 hours post shift every day this week along with 5.5 hours on Friday.  Then I will be work at least 3 hours of double time each Sunday.  Hopefully, this will help with the backlog on the bills and get things straightened out financially.  I’m going to have to work around 10 hours of time and a half in for the next 6 to 8 months to make ends meet and I don’t necessarily know if that when it would end.  I have so many bills and so much responsibility and a lot of it is due to this relationship.  When will I ever learn?

Back to God, I kinda feel like He wants me to suffer.  I don’t know where or how to find the peace that everyone seems to think Christians should have.  I don’t hurt on the inside as much as I thought I would, but I feel empty.  I feel lonely and isolated.  There’s a part of me that just wants to be left alone and there’s a part of me that just wants to connect with people.  It’s hard, though. So many of my friends are moving forwards with with their lives and are such strong Christians.  I feel like such a failure next to them.  I know I’m not supposed to compare myself, but I don’t know how not to.  I’m not satisfied with me.  Heck, I’m not even sure who me is.  It’s been a long journey since last March and it has changed me.  I’m still searching for answers and I don’t know where to find them.

I’m debating moving my vacation and moving back in with Mom sooner.  Tom wants to continue on as roommates, but I don’t really think I want to do that.  I don’t want to be his convenience.  I don’t want to be taken for granted anymore, although I know Mom will do that as well, to some extent.  Of course, she’ll love me.  There aren’t clearly defined roles between Tom and me.  So much has changed and I don’t know where it’s going.  There’s so much of my life that I’ve lost, so much of myself that I’ve lost.  I want to get back to God, but I don’t exactly know how.