sandart's Journal

5-10-09  What a day to pick to let it "all hang out".  But maybe this was the right day.  Mother's Day is so painful that it just brings me down to the very bottom of my soul and so today I sat down with Ed and just let it all out.  There are some issues that we needed to deal with-the elephant in the room kind of thing-and I guess today, with how bad I was feeling, I just had to get it all out on the table.

I am hoping that this will be the beginning of some changes that need to happen.  I think some of my weight issues also come from the shift that has occurred between me and Ed since Chris died.

He was upset-he was under the apparent delusion that I was blissfully happy-but then again I've always said I'm a pretty good actress.  I love our home here and we have made some good friends through our church.  We left PA because we were in too much debt to stay in our home there and Ed said he just could not go on living in the house because it just hurt too much.  But let's be real.  I left a job in PA where I made much more than I do here.  I had wonderful benefits, a retirement plan, sick days, personal days, etc.  I worked in a school that was clean and I worked together with my teachers.  Here in SC my school is filthy-I clean my own bathroom-sweep my own floors-there is no money for anything and no support for special ed.  I pay over $400 a month for my health benefits (I was paying $35 a month back in PA!)  I have no sick days, no personal days, no retirement plan.  I work no matter how bad I feel.  I took one day off when I had kidney stones and that was to go to the ER.  Ed found a job down here but couldn't handle the stress and he hasn't found another one since.  I live under the stress of knowing that if I got sick we could lose our home within a few months since I don't have disability or any of those benefits I used to have.  I know that I need to find a job in my field where the working conditions, etc. are better, but it is tough down here to find jobs.

When I say these things I get upset at myself and tell myself to stop whining-others have it worse than me, that is for sure in today's economy.  It just pisses me off to be my age, to have worked in education for as many years as I have, only to end up living paycheck to paycheck and praying that I stay healthy until I can collect Medicare.  And then I get really angry because I guess it's okay for me to have lost my son and still have to do this kind of a job, but Ed can't handle the stress since Chris died.  Just doesn't seem right.

Not that there is any kind of a "fix" right now.  There are very few jobs down here-no one is hiring and people feel lucky to just keep their job.  I will be getting no pay raise which means that since health care costs went up it is actually a pay cut-but again-I feel like a baby when I complain since so many others my own age are going through all this.  But as I deal with this, with the grief of losing Chris, with the helplessness I feel with the job situation, it also opens my eyes to why I am overeating-where the stress is coming from-and why I am turning to food.  It's not an excuse-binge eating at night is not going to make jobs appear or make mine better and in the long run all it does it make me feel fatter and even worse about myself.

So today we talked and hopefully it will help clear the air.  And I have resolved that I will NOT turn to cookies to ease the pain.  The only way the pain is going to be put to rest is to face it and deal with it and let the people in my life know that I have boundaries and needs like everyone else and from now on I will not just shove my wants and needs into a closet and eat to make the pain go away.

I think it is a beginning, something I needed to do.  I will just have to wait to see how the story unfolds.