Friday, November 12, 2010

Lost

I can honestly say, without reservation, that I am deeply ashamed of the American government. Despite my husband's relentless search for employment for this past year, despite doing everything we were told, our unemployment benefits will end on December 14. We learned this not through the government or bureaucracy but by doing our own research and then getting "confirmation" from the unemployment office.  We were "supposed" to be entitled to 99 weeks of emergency unemployment, broken up into four tiers (yes, this is about to get as confusing as filing your income taxes.) If we exhausted our current tier (which is only tier 2, by the way) prior to November 27, we'd be automatically enrolled in tier 3. But because our current tier is exhausted after November 27, we get to finish our current tier (which expires on December 14) and then we get NOTHING. So yes, people who applied for unemployment PRIOR to my husband are entitled to months and months more benefits if their cut off date was timed correctly and folks like us who, theoretically, should have received about 40 more weeks of coverage, are finished. I am completely spent, emotionally. So we are now preparing to pack our belongings, leave our home of the past 6 years and move back to my mom's in NY through NO choice of our own. We can't really afford to do this, what's left of my pathetic savings will be exhausted on moving expenses and we will, once again, be burdens on my mother. I am stripped of any pride or dignity I possessed. I am completely broken and so ashamed that this is the country I live in - one that is more than willing to try to be the "heroes" to the rest of the world (which isn't impressed, from what I've heard, nor should it be), is more than willing to bail multi-million dollar corporations out of their financial crises but has a complete and utter disregard for its middle class, the heart of this country, the ones who have always been willing to do their fair share, if not more, only asking for the opportunity to do so. I am still a bit of a deer in the headlights as these developments have literally only come to light in the past few moments. I am beaten and broken. I am, more than I have ever been in my entire life, utterly lost.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Best Laid Plans?

So yeah, I had every intention of writing this blog on a semi-regular basis and I am not unaware of the glaring gap between my previous two entries. I would love to say that the reason I haven't been keeping up with it is because my life is so full of excitement and adventures and wonderful distractions. But of course, as you'll know if you've ever met me (and even if you haven't), that is, most definitely, not the case. I've never really been one to experience excitement and adventures. Though they sound wonderful in theory, I generally don't even miss their absence in my life. I appreciate the comfort and stability of regular everyday life. But for the past year plus, that's become increasingly difficult. I am a mess, I know this. I am 37, able-bodied, reasonably intelligent and, for lack of a better word, a complete slacker. For the past several years, there really hasn't been a good reason for me not to have a job or be out in the world doing "something", other than pure laziness. That's not entirely true, I suppose. My depression has made the simple act of getting out of bed quite the challenge at times. Still, I have been taking the easy way out for too long. Avoiding responsibility has been an ongoing theme throughout my entire life. I've let pretty much everyone around me make most of the major decisions in my life and, through years of self-analysis and the observations of others, come to realize that this is, at least in part, due to the fact that if the "wrong" decisions got made, I could blame others. This was never something I did consciously but it is still, nevertheless, true. I've always lived in fear - fear of failure, disappointment, what have you. I need to STOP doing this. But, of course, now I'm 37 years old, with NO idea of what I want to do with my life, career-wise. Even if I did, I'd have chosen a helluva time to figure this all out. Unemployment is at an astronomically high level in this country. Furthering my education, should that be my choice, is financially unfeasible. As usual, my timing sucks to high heavens. I'm just so mad at myself. I should never have let myself get into this position. However, I've wasted entirely too many years already on "would of, could of, should ofs". I need to stop making excuses and start figuring some shit out. I need to be sleeping at 1:28 am for a change. I need to shut up now.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Over It

Yeah, this might sound like a huge bold statement but honestly, in this instance, not so much. Basically the "it" which I am "over" is writing all in lower-case letters. It was a phase for several years because, quite simply, I liked how it looked. However, it made me lazy and God knows I'm certainly lazy enough in 109 other aspects of my life already. So yeah, writing all in lower-case, over it. ;)