On Winter

It's mid-October here, and with it are coming shorter days, earlier sunsets, and cooler weather. The freeze watches and warnings are slowly creeping our way, and we've gone from t-shirt weather to jacket weather - almost coat weather - in the span of a couple short, short days. Tonight or tomorrow we're going to have to bring in the plants we plan to keep this winter (there isn't space for all of them indoors), and for now the furnace has even been turned on. The days are more often cloudy and dark than they are bright and sunny, and shoes have gone from optional to required, no questions asked.

These days are harder and harder to tolerate. As an individual with a number of equally difficult to regulate problems, and as someone who relies on Medicaid to actually provide the medication I used that actually worked for me (which they stopped doing, leading to a call from my doctor's office to inform me of the situation and that they had instead sent a script for "something else" and I should "try it for a month, see what happens" before pushing forward to another medication), the shorter days and longer nights make it increasingly more difficult to try to keep myself mentally stable. Situations going on at home don't help; needless to say, life with my mother is really tough for us, and although it's a million times better than living on the streets or otherwise being homeless, I wonder some days about the choice to move in with her (even if it wasn't really a choice). Money is tight and the ongoing lawsuit with the bank we rented our second-to-last house from hasn't helped things any; unfortunately at some point we got off-track with payments and money was tight. Because we were no longer able to pay them, and because the house we lived in still hasn't sold (to the best of my knowledge) some two years after we moved out, they're taking us back to small claims. I've been trying to negotiate with their lawyer (funny how that works) via email and phone but she refuses to respond to my phone calls and claims by email that the bank will not be able to accommodate my request to work out a different payment schedule. They sent a certified letter to Mom and to each of us (since she's also a plaintiff) and I signed for her letter, but we weren't home to get our's, and was going to appear but tried to contact them that day since I couldn't find someone to watch the boys and both Mom and Hubby had to work. I couldn't get a hold of anybody, and now, since Mom's letter was the only one signed for and thus certified as received, they want HER to appear in court to show why SHE shouldn't be held in contempt, etc.. It's a long, very painful situation that I don't know how to fix. I'm still trying to figure out how to bring it up with Mom and Hubby and haven't come up with anything yet. I know it'll end in wage garnishment, which is going to suck because as it is we already are only barely paying off our bills and Mom needs help paying all of her's, since she's still paying people off from getting help with her taxes for the house so she could, you know, keep her home. If it weren't for that, we would be homeless, too. We have cut down as much as I think we can, but it's always something anymore.

And I'm still waiting to hear from the state about whether or not we're going to get back on LINK or not. So right now we don't have groceries beyond WIC, either. It's a real party.

So right now, things suck a lot. I keep trying to remind myself that no matter what happens we have two beautiful, brilliant kids and at least we aren't homeless but there are too many mornings when that just doesn't help. I keep telling myself we're lucky we have so much, but at the same time when I take a step back and look at all of the things hovering over our heads it seems like it'll never end. I never originally intended for this blog to be a place for me to spread my pessimism and anger all over the Internet but this is one of those times when it just seems necessary. I'm sorry to those who still read; I know this isn't what you're here to hear. You want something funny, or informative, or thoughtful, or useful, and all I have is this depressing drivel. I understand, trust me. I'm sick and tired of feeling like my life is nothing but one disappointment after another, like it's "always something". I just don't feel like I have anywhere else to go, or anybody else to talk to, who actually can offer up useful advice. So I complain here to mostly strangers who have probably stopped reading by now anyway.

I've lost a lot of energy over this. Energy and sleep and probably sanity too but I lacked that in the first place and there wasn't much left to lose.