"Been caught stealing...."
Last week was truly one of the worst weeks I can remember having in a very long time and this week isn't looking to be much of an improvement. There is too much to write, so I'm going to break it down by day as I was relaying it to one of my friends....
Monday Oct 11
Today was one of those days where I can honestly, with all my heart, say that I just don't care what happens any more. I will fulfill my obligations just like always, but I have no illusions that my life will ever get better. I've been defeated. I'm waving the surrender flag--only the shots keep coming, so I may as well lay down and die now. Let me back up a little and maybe you'll understand..... I love jewelry. especially bracelets and rings. I don't wear them very often because: 1) I never get dressed up because I never go anywhere, 2) I don't want to scratch them, lose the stones, break chains, or in any other way "mess them up", and 3) the nature of my work has me constantly pulling latex gloves on and off and washing my hands constantly, making jewelry bothersome. But every now and then I decide to wear a ring or two for a while. I have 3 that I really love, 3 that I like, and one that was my mother-in-law's that I wear on occasion. None of them were terribly costly. The most expensive of course was the 3 stone engagement ring that I bought for myself several years ago because I had despaired of my husband ever upgrading my wedding set. The three center diamonds, plus the 3 chips on each side together amounted to 1 full carat, which was perfect. I think I must have bought it not long before I discovered that we were 'separated' and I had never intended to wear it as a wedding band. I always wore it on my right hand. Anyway, a couple days ago out of the blue, I decided that I wanted to wear them again. I kept forgetting until this morning. When I went to get them, lo and behold, all but the one sitting in my glass ring holder was missing (naturally the only one I can find is NOT one of my favorites). I checked a couple of other places that I could have put them, but no luck. It IS possible that I put them somewhere else and just don't remember because sometimes I try to out-think my kids and where they might look for valuable things and only end up hiding them really well from myself! It is also possible that all of them were in the ring holder and got dumped onto the cluttered mess I call a 'desk' that is actually a collection place for all the very small and very important items that I don't want to lose, as well as the place I put my alarm clock, pill organizer, water, speaker for my TV, and whatever else might come my way. And then if that happened, it's entirely possible that they could have gotten swept into the desk drawer that holds all the above-mentioned items when the desk top gets too full! I haven't had a chance to look very hard, but my gut tells me that they've gone the way of my grandmother's engagement ring, my wedding band and engagement ring, and some other of my former favorite bracelets, chains, and rings. Those disappeared 8 1/2 years ago when we moved from our old house. I remember putting all my favorite pieces in some box or other and putting it in my dresser drawer because we were showing the house. In all these years it has never, ever turned up. But we were down to the wire and people were helping us and just tossing random things into boxes everywhere, many of which have never been fully unpacked. (see previous journal entry regarding hoarding) I feel really disheartened. I can accuse my kids (see previous journal entry about 2 oldest kids being 'recovering' heroin addicts), but I can't even remember the last time I wore any of them, so I don't even know how long they've been missing. Everything always points to my older son, but my older daughter is just as bad, she just admits enough of the lies that she gets caught in to make you think she's telling the truth. It's strange that for the two years my son has been home, nothing has turned up missing except some change or some cash now and then, yet now that my daughter has been around, more things seem to be "lost". But I can't say with any conviction that she's doing it, because my son could also be using her presence in the house as a cover!! If I accuse my son, he'll naturally deny it and be insulted that I would even suggest he'd do such a thing to me after all I've done for him. If I accuse my daughter, not only will I hear the same song and dance her brother just performed, but then she'll go tell her father and I'll have to listen to HIS theories, which will naturally point solely to her brother. It hurts to think that my kids would do that to me. They know I don't have much of value, and the things I DO have mean a lot to me. They also know that all they have to do is ask and I'll give them money. I've told them over and over that it's cheaper for me to just hand them whatever cash the pawn shop would give them rather than having to go buy back my own damned stuff. It also hurts because my husband feels that any money I spend on anything aside from the home equity loan is "someone else's money" and that I have no right to buy something I "want" and don't urgently "need". I bought all those rings for myself over the years because he never got to know my taste and couldn't be bothered to figure it out. And he begrudged me every single one of them. The other day he was grilling my daughter about the damned $25 GPS unit I bought from one of my son's friends. He couldn't understand why I would "need" it. Even if it isn't an absolute necessity, it sure saves me time and gas because now at least I don't get lost coming home from work every couple of days! And we're talking TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS!! That's a trip to McDonald's for the entire family. Yippee!
I can't ever manage to scrape up enough money to do much more than pay my bills. If by some strange chance there's anything left, either I forgot to pay something or that's a sign that something stupid is going to happen like I'm going to need new brakes on the car!! I'll never be able to replace a single one of those rings. I resigned myself to that pretty quickly. It's just "stuff". Relationships are what's really important. Besides, apparently it's a waste someone else's money for me to buy anything for myself. My wardrobe seriously consists of 2 pairs of jeans and a bunch of t-shirts--mostly old ones from my kids sports. I have 4 or 5 "newer" ones that I wear when I go out of the house. Other than that, I have 8 or 9 sets of scrubs for work, and the only reason I have that many is because they buy us 2 sets every year at work. The last time I bought myself a new $20 t-shirt my husband gave me a very disapproving look. He scrutinizes everything I buy! Makes me feel guilty and pretty worthless. How sad is it that I feel I need to justify a $20 t-shirt? Jewelry is the only thing I've ever bought just because I wanted it, and even then it was a carefully considered purchase, usually for my birthday using money I had gotten as a gift. Everything else has always been a "need." Now and then I'll think about getting a new phone because mine is 4 years old and I hate it. Or I'll think how nice it would be to get an iPad. Then I think, I don't NEED an iPad. Besides, I'd never get to use it because either my two youngest would be using it or my two oldest would pawn it! And my phone is fine. It works. Most of the time. I don't need all the new Android bells and whistles. I don't have time to figure out how to use all the apps anyway! I don't NEED a lot of clothes. I don't go anywhere and I hate to dress up anyway. I do need to upgrade my laptop, but that's not going to happen in the forseeable future--or even beyond it for that matter! It would be nice to have a newer version of Office. We're still using 2003 and find that it's not compatible with the computers at my daughters Community College! But, no disk space left on the Mac, so that's not happening either!! Oh well. All things considered, I don't need anything and I'm not planning on buying anything for myself unless I absolutely have to--like my shoes fall apart or something, but I just got new ones a couple of months ago, so I'm good for a few years at least. It's really much more peaceful not to "want" things. I'm fine with it. I really am. But I WOULD like to feel that I "deserve" the things I used to want. By the time I got to work this morning, I could barely function. I feel so down, so trampled, I don't want to get up and keep going on with life. In the big scheme of things, the rings aren't THAT big a deal. I enjoyed having them, wish I had worn them more often, but I can deal with it. It's just the feeling that I can't have anything that belongs to just me...something that I value and enjoy even if my husband can't see the point in it...without having the joy sucked right out of it or having it physically taken from me. I don't care any more. I feel like tossing everything I own out my window and putting a sign on it saying "Free. Help yourself." My kids come to me for money? Sure, take it, take it all. And after I work another two weeks, take that money too. No point in saving for something I'll never get to buy because someone else will need something more important. I'll never get enough money for a lawyer to get a divorce. I may as well resign myself to my fate rather than have false hopes and dreams that always end up shattered. I think a constant, dull misery is better than a roller coaster of possibility only to be followed by deep disappointment. I fight and fight and fight, yet I never gain any ground. The harder I try, the deeper I dig the rut I'm in. I'm too tired and discouraged and disillusioned to keep trying to fight the current. I have to just lay down and float with it for a while, letting it take me whererever it will, or I'm going to drown. Or maybe I'll just drown anyway. Not much difference. It's been a huge struggle to get through work today. It's hard to care. I'm on "auto-pilot" right now, but I'm not going to last much longer. Two hours to go. Sounds like forever.... I'm sure you don't agree with any of this. I know they say, "Where there's still life there's still hope." But I've been positive and optimistic and hopeful, only to be crushed and destroyed every time. It's been this way ever since I can remember. I really don't think I'm meant to be "happy" in life. At least not this time around... I sure hope I've paid back the Karma--oh, see, there I go "hoping" again. Oh well. Whatever.....
Monday Oct 11
Today was one of those days where I can honestly, with all my heart, say that I just don't care what happens any more. I will fulfill my obligations just like always, but I have no illusions that my life will ever get better. I've been defeated. I'm waving the surrender flag--only the shots keep coming, so I may as well lay down and die now. Let me back up a little and maybe you'll understand..... I love jewelry. especially bracelets and rings. I don't wear them very often because: 1) I never get dressed up because I never go anywhere, 2) I don't want to scratch them, lose the stones, break chains, or in any other way "mess them up", and 3) the nature of my work has me constantly pulling latex gloves on and off and washing my hands constantly, making jewelry bothersome. But every now and then I decide to wear a ring or two for a while. I have 3 that I really love, 3 that I like, and one that was my mother-in-law's that I wear on occasion. None of them were terribly costly. The most expensive of course was the 3 stone engagement ring that I bought for myself several years ago because I had despaired of my husband ever upgrading my wedding set. The three center diamonds, plus the 3 chips on each side together amounted to 1 full carat, which was perfect. I think I must have bought it not long before I discovered that we were 'separated' and I had never intended to wear it as a wedding band. I always wore it on my right hand. Anyway, a couple days ago out of the blue, I decided that I wanted to wear them again. I kept forgetting until this morning. When I went to get them, lo and behold, all but the one sitting in my glass ring holder was missing (naturally the only one I can find is NOT one of my favorites). I checked a couple of other places that I could have put them, but no luck. It IS possible that I put them somewhere else and just don't remember because sometimes I try to out-think my kids and where they might look for valuable things and only end up hiding them really well from myself! It is also possible that all of them were in the ring holder and got dumped onto the cluttered mess I call a 'desk' that is actually a collection place for all the very small and very important items that I don't want to lose, as well as the place I put my alarm clock, pill organizer, water, speaker for my TV, and whatever else might come my way. And then if that happened, it's entirely possible that they could have gotten swept into the desk drawer that holds all the above-mentioned items when the desk top gets too full! I haven't had a chance to look very hard, but my gut tells me that they've gone the way of my grandmother's engagement ring, my wedding band and engagement ring, and some other of my former favorite bracelets, chains, and rings. Those disappeared 8 1/2 years ago when we moved from our old house. I remember putting all my favorite pieces in some box or other and putting it in my dresser drawer because we were showing the house. In all these years it has never, ever turned up. But we were down to the wire and people were helping us and just tossing random things into boxes everywhere, many of which have never been fully unpacked. (see previous journal entry regarding hoarding) I feel really disheartened. I can accuse my kids (see previous journal entry about 2 oldest kids being 'recovering' heroin addicts), but I can't even remember the last time I wore any of them, so I don't even know how long they've been missing. Everything always points to my older son, but my older daughter is just as bad, she just admits enough of the lies that she gets caught in to make you think she's telling the truth. It's strange that for the two years my son has been home, nothing has turned up missing except some change or some cash now and then, yet now that my daughter has been around, more things seem to be "lost". But I can't say with any conviction that she's doing it, because my son could also be using her presence in the house as a cover!! If I accuse my son, he'll naturally deny it and be insulted that I would even suggest he'd do such a thing to me after all I've done for him. If I accuse my daughter, not only will I hear the same song and dance her brother just performed, but then she'll go tell her father and I'll have to listen to HIS theories, which will naturally point solely to her brother. It hurts to think that my kids would do that to me. They know I don't have much of value, and the things I DO have mean a lot to me. They also know that all they have to do is ask and I'll give them money. I've told them over and over that it's cheaper for me to just hand them whatever cash the pawn shop would give them rather than having to go buy back my own damned stuff. It also hurts because my husband feels that any money I spend on anything aside from the home equity loan is "someone else's money" and that I have no right to buy something I "want" and don't urgently "need". I bought all those rings for myself over the years because he never got to know my taste and couldn't be bothered to figure it out. And he begrudged me every single one of them. The other day he was grilling my daughter about the damned $25 GPS unit I bought from one of my son's friends. He couldn't understand why I would "need" it. Even if it isn't an absolute necessity, it sure saves me time and gas because now at least I don't get lost coming home from work every couple of days! And we're talking TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS!! That's a trip to McDonald's for the entire family. Yippee!
I can't ever manage to scrape up enough money to do much more than pay my bills. If by some strange chance there's anything left, either I forgot to pay something or that's a sign that something stupid is going to happen like I'm going to need new brakes on the car!! I'll never be able to replace a single one of those rings. I resigned myself to that pretty quickly. It's just "stuff". Relationships are what's really important. Besides, apparently it's a waste someone else's money for me to buy anything for myself. My wardrobe seriously consists of 2 pairs of jeans and a bunch of t-shirts--mostly old ones from my kids sports. I have 4 or 5 "newer" ones that I wear when I go out of the house. Other than that, I have 8 or 9 sets of scrubs for work, and the only reason I have that many is because they buy us 2 sets every year at work. The last time I bought myself a new $20 t-shirt my husband gave me a very disapproving look. He scrutinizes everything I buy! Makes me feel guilty and pretty worthless. How sad is it that I feel I need to justify a $20 t-shirt? Jewelry is the only thing I've ever bought just because I wanted it, and even then it was a carefully considered purchase, usually for my birthday using money I had gotten as a gift. Everything else has always been a "need." Now and then I'll think about getting a new phone because mine is 4 years old and I hate it. Or I'll think how nice it would be to get an iPad. Then I think, I don't NEED an iPad. Besides, I'd never get to use it because either my two youngest would be using it or my two oldest would pawn it! And my phone is fine. It works. Most of the time. I don't need all the new Android bells and whistles. I don't have time to figure out how to use all the apps anyway! I don't NEED a lot of clothes. I don't go anywhere and I hate to dress up anyway. I do need to upgrade my laptop, but that's not going to happen in the forseeable future--or even beyond it for that matter! It would be nice to have a newer version of Office. We're still using 2003 and find that it's not compatible with the computers at my daughters Community College! But, no disk space left on the Mac, so that's not happening either!! Oh well. All things considered, I don't need anything and I'm not planning on buying anything for myself unless I absolutely have to--like my shoes fall apart or something, but I just got new ones a couple of months ago, so I'm good for a few years at least. It's really much more peaceful not to "want" things. I'm fine with it. I really am. But I WOULD like to feel that I "deserve" the things I used to want. By the time I got to work this morning, I could barely function. I feel so down, so trampled, I don't want to get up and keep going on with life. In the big scheme of things, the rings aren't THAT big a deal. I enjoyed having them, wish I had worn them more often, but I can deal with it. It's just the feeling that I can't have anything that belongs to just me...something that I value and enjoy even if my husband can't see the point in it...without having the joy sucked right out of it or having it physically taken from me. I don't care any more. I feel like tossing everything I own out my window and putting a sign on it saying "Free. Help yourself." My kids come to me for money? Sure, take it, take it all. And after I work another two weeks, take that money too. No point in saving for something I'll never get to buy because someone else will need something more important. I'll never get enough money for a lawyer to get a divorce. I may as well resign myself to my fate rather than have false hopes and dreams that always end up shattered. I think a constant, dull misery is better than a roller coaster of possibility only to be followed by deep disappointment. I fight and fight and fight, yet I never gain any ground. The harder I try, the deeper I dig the rut I'm in. I'm too tired and discouraged and disillusioned to keep trying to fight the current. I have to just lay down and float with it for a while, letting it take me whererever it will, or I'm going to drown. Or maybe I'll just drown anyway. Not much difference. It's been a huge struggle to get through work today. It's hard to care. I'm on "auto-pilot" right now, but I'm not going to last much longer. Two hours to go. Sounds like forever.... I'm sure you don't agree with any of this. I know they say, "Where there's still life there's still hope." But I've been positive and optimistic and hopeful, only to be crushed and destroyed every time. It's been this way ever since I can remember. I really don't think I'm meant to be "happy" in life. At least not this time around... I sure hope I've paid back the Karma--oh, see, there I go "hoping" again. Oh well. Whatever.....
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