Monday, May 21, 2012

She gets down sometimes

I'm not sure what it is lately, a combination of I don't feel like it, and why can't I just get anything done? I have struggled with anxiety and depression for a really long time, and some days I just can't seem to get past my self. There is never anything physically standing in my way. There isn't alway pain or discomfort, just this feeling in my chest and my gut, making me choke up if I try to look at what is going on. I'm tired of running through my life scared. I feel completely crippled and helpless to even address my own needs at times. I can't even always tell why. I'm scared of numerous things and I desperately want to leave them behind and avoid them, but they are ever present and that behavior won't help anyway. I feel like even though I've come this far, there's this lump of things tied together and I can't seem to untangle it and straighten it out. 
The biggest issue is my finances. It seems complicated to me. Not because I don't understand finances, but because I understand just enough to know that I am in a situation that is completely beyond me, that I have no idea of how to address. I spent the first two decades in a job and lifestyle that I didn't need a degree for. I gained valuable and applicable experience. When I moved to California from Ohio, I tried to stay in that career, but I didn't have the right paperwork so that I could do the same work here. It's not that I suddenly forgot any of the skills that I have learned, just that there aren't the right papers for them to put in their files saying that I can do it. Without a job, the money and time required to get all those things in order is non-existent. 
I decided to go back to school, but barely 10% of the credits I have received in other educational institutions would transfer toward a degree, and I was forced to sit in classes that were redundant to me and held no educational value whatsoever. Many times the classes I was forced to endure were taught by people with no motivation to keep up with current information or events and disseminated loads of inaccurate information to students lacking the discernment to know otherwise.  On top of the educational inadequacy, there are serious administrative issues in most schools that I have attended. Maybe that means that I have bad taste for choosing my course of education. I don't know, but if I have this much trouble getting where I want to go, it makes me ask the question; Does anyone else suffer this way? I have student loans that are now around 85Gs. That's too much. Too much to not earn a degree and too much to risk getting a degree that is useless when I graduate. I can't even imagine what I have to do at this point to make those loans a good investment. 
In addition to the school thing, I have come to realize that I have had enough of the grind of regular unemployment. The way I see it, it doesn't work for me. I have had over 20 years at this point of working for somebody so that I can just get by. I have worn my body and my heart out, and now, I just want something that I can be fulfilled by. Something that shows the good in the world and something that can pay the bills too. 
I put in my time. I've cleaned up innumerable messes with any combination of human fluids you can imagine. I've watched more human agony and pain than the majority of people have in a lifetime. I've brought life onto this planet, and I have been there so many times when lives ended. 
I feel like I have paid my dues, but at the end of the day all I am left with is a broken heart, humbled spirit and without enough money to know that I am going to be able to eat through the next few months. I know I'm not alone. 
I look around my neighborhood and I see people worse off. The turnover for housing here is monthly. Nobody can settle in and stay. They have to keep moving just to keep a roof over their heads. It's unsettling, especially knowing that there were good times, but the people that are here now, won't see them again for a very long time. Not the way things stand right now. 
People all over are feeling hopeless and powerless just like me, and we'd all fight our way out of these paper bags, but they're the only protection some of us have from the rain of pepper spray and rubber bullets. 
I don't know what to do. I don't know how to change the way I feel. I watch all the contention and fear in my fellow humans and realize, they don't know what to do either. 

1 comment:

  1. I wish I had an easy answer for you. The one thing I know is to count the blessings you do have. Your health your family and friends. That healing laughter and smile that you have it works well. Your insight and the beauty of your mind. That's just some of what you have riches are nice but struggling through live sometimes are more meaningful. I know my life has improved since I have know you. Joe!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

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