It's 3 in the morning and while most normal people are quietly sleeping, I'm still awake. Why? you ask...well, for one, this is almost the normal time I go to bed, crazy I know, but for another, today has been a rough day and I can't get my mind to settle down and I have terrible heart burn. So, I figure I'll do something productive that will appease both situations by journaling to relieve my mind and sitting up until the acid reducer takes effect and I can safely lay down to sleep.
So...where to start...and my apologies for some of the TMI entries. I need to get some of this off my chest and here is the only safe place to do that.
Spiritual, Physical, Emotional/Mental, Relationship, Family, School, Financial, Personal
These are all things that are flying through my brain right now and I have no idea what to start with first, since a lot of them are interlinked too, this might be a complete mess but here goes...
Spiritual...just as I had decided to go back to church, we've learned that our pastor has been moved and is leaving in a few weeks. Not that that is a good excuse, since there are two other churches extremely close that I could attend and both probably have good children's groups, though the one at the school would probably be better for Garret, though my annoying Aunt Isla goes there, so I'm not so hip on that choice, but I haven't given it up yet. Still very hard for me to get up early on Sabbath mornings though because of my late hours and during the week I usually go back to bed for a few hours after I take care of Ouma, and on the Friday nights that I drive I don't get to sleep until around this time or later so it would also be very challenging to try and get up and stay awake through the services but not impossible with enough coffee on board.
Have also wanted to start studying again and was going to ask pastor to come study with us but now he is leaving and I don't know any of the other pastors so not confident in that idea. I know enough to be able to get some free lessons off the internet and stuff but I want something that is completely Bible-based, nothing to do with EGW at all. I have been having serious doubts about her and as she always said, go to the Bible if you have doubts about what I am saying, so that is what I want...something straight out of the Bible, even if I have to write them completely myself, which I've been thinking about doing.
Jon and I have had several late night conversations about religion and going to church and the Bible...all of them extremely intriguing and somewhat scary, in the fact that we are so close on almost every single point but two or three and neither of us, at this time, are willing to budge on them. Which is good in a way but also very scary because the ramifications of that not being resolved could be the destruction of our relationship, but I hope it doesn't come down to that. I am hoping that I can get him to agree to studying the Bible with me and then we can talk about these other issues. However, the big one that I have to deal with first is that he was taught that the Old Testament is not valid and while it is interesting to read and all, he doesn't think it is applicable, due to the phrase at the crucifixion about the old being cast away and the new taking it's place or something like that. I have been trying to find a Bible study that deals with that, proving that that is not what it meant but the only ones I can find are filled with EGW gibberish that he wouldn't understand. I need something from the Bible and historical proof, stuff that he can check himself and that is in an easy to understand format.
I also have been wanting to do more with Garret and the Bible, etc. I have been slacking so bad and I feel the burn of shame almost every day when I see how he reacts to us and others, due to my lack of not bringing him up right; now given that I did not have a very good example, not help when he was younger and had no real clue how to bring up a child on my own, I have been doing pretty good, but it's the lack of consistency in the past few years when I knew better and have not done much to improve things that is really bugging me. I want so much more for him and I'm so sad and angry with myself for not having the tenacity to see my dreams come into reality and to stick with them.
Physical...ugh...another bad subject...I have purposely stayed away from the scales for the last few weeks because I don't want to know if I've gained weight back, which I suspect I have. I always have such wonderful ideas and plans and most of the time when I start them they last for a few days and then everything falls apart. This is what I hate about my life. It happens in every aspect of it and I HATE IT!!!! I can't say that strong enough because this is the one thing in my life that I really do hate; it is the one thing that drags me down, discourages and depresses me, and ultimately destroys every aspect of my life, from school and work, down to family issues and personal relationships. I haven't found any way to combat it thus far and this is the one point of my life that is literally driving me crazy. I think that if I could just fix this one issue, my life would be completely different...since every facet of my life is affected by this problem.
Anyways, back to the subject of my health and physical appearance...I look horrible and feel worse, I can't do any type of physical labor or exertion for any more than a few moments and I'm winded and my asthma kicks in and my body starts shutting down...it's terrible. I have exercise tapes, equipment, books, etc. but again I can't stick with any plan for more than a few days so there is no progress. And then the depression from not being able to follow through kicks in and I binge or eat horribly or don't eat at all and everything is a mess again. Jon is very worried about me and tells me several times a week that he is, though I'm terribly worried about him too, but with neither of us having insurance, there is very little we can do, and with no jobs or money, there is nothing we can do, even if we knew what was wrong with him and me, we can't do anything about it. And again the depression kicks in...it's a horribly vicious cycle that encompasses so much of our lives, sex life included, and it really sucks. And another reason that my health is such a concern to him is that we both would love to have a baby, but my health is in no condition to even consider that right now, not to mention that we don't have the money and if we don't have a place to live in the future I am not bring another child into this world only to end up living on the streets.
Emotional/Mental - well, I've already touched on that in several of the above entries, but I do have to say that my depression and other issues are not getting any better. I have looked into getting help from school and their program offers 3 free visits per incident and you can only have so many incidents per year, so that doesn't get me very much help because I know that it's going to take a lot more than just 3 visits every few months to deal with my issues. Not to mention Garret's issues either. He came to me again tonight and had tried to scratch up his arm because he said he was so bad that he needed to punish himself. This is the second incident of self-inflicted pain, he hasn't gone to cutting, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even conceive that idea yet but it scares me that this is happening. I can't pay for the counseling that he needs and his dad won't but I'm going to bring this up to him again and insist that he pay for it. He's got great insurance, so it's only a $20 copay and after the first few months he wouldn't need to be seen more than once a week or every other week, but he really needs some serious counseling and I am not qualified to deal with this stuff. If I had already had classes on some of this stuff I think I would feel better, but we haven't dealt with this and i have no clue what to do to help him or how to help myself. And I have to admit that sometimes Jon is not very helpful with is comes to Garret either. Yes, he has done amazing things with him since he moved in, but I also think that sometimes he goes too far or what he does is counterproductive to what we are trying to accomplish, but I don't know for sure, and we are both just struggling along as best as we can, pretty much blind. And Jon's issues are another matter entirely. His medications are sort of working but the side effects are really bad and he hardly sleeps on some days and on other days I have a hard time waking him up and I don't know what to do with him. The only way to get him to open up and talk is to get him drunk and then that often ends with him being loud and boisterous and often times pushing himself too far in discussing painful stuff and then he ends up sobbing and crying loudly and then afterwards he's mad at himself and embarrassed and he shuts down. Again, I don't know what to do in regards to that.
Relationship - following that last part, brings me to my relationship with Jon, which is very rocky right now. A lot of that is my fault too, having to do with that terrible lack of remembering/follow-through/consistency that I have. There is a lot of conflict because we don't have money and he doesn't have a job and he can't get a job no matter how hard he tries. That is another punch in his depression issues that we have not been able to get around, no matter what we do. And with this looming threat over our heads as to whether mom is going to sell the property or not and if we are going to be homeless, there is still a lot of hurt feelings and uncertainty about that and our future. He has issues with my, as I mentioned, but once again he mentioned that he would still like to marry me, but these issues we have between us are big, and unless we can resolve them, our marriage would be doomed to failure and neither of us want that.
Family...well, things haven't been resolved with that yet...in fact in the last month or more, no one has said anything so I have no clue with the status of "the sell/move" situation is. I'm almost afraid to ask but I need to because this living in limbo is no life at all and it really sucks.
School...well, today I started another class...only 4 more after this one to finish my bachelors degree. After that I don't know what. I intended to go on for my masters degree but with the uncertainty of my life, I don't know if I'll be able to do that. I don't know what I'm going to do, but right now I just need to keep plugging along with these classes, doing my best and then figure something out, hopefully that will involve getting paid for whatever I'm doing.
Finances...ugh, another tedious subject. Things aren't getting any better at all. We never have enough and with school being so hard and taking so much of my time and with being so tired, I've had to back out of being involve with my business, though the few new recruits I had a few months ago have increase my monthly payment from $4 to about $12 or so. Food stamps doesn't cover the whole month and there is never enough money for gas, I always have to beg mom and ouma to help me out. I really hate this, not being able to support my family, and it is driving Jon insane too. He's always been the supporter of his family and for him not to be able to get a job and help out is just terrible, he often gets angry and cries about it and that just breaks my heart because I can't do anything about it. And the house is literally falling down around us, the sewer is messed up and is starting to stink up our house, there is mold in the back room, we are being invaded by spiders of gigantic proportions due to all the cracks and holes in the walls and all over the house, the floor is falling apart, and there is so much more, it's depressing, I have to stop.
Personal- well, my life sucks. Yes, it could be worse, but it could be so much better and I don't know what else to do to even make it a fraction better. All I want to do is support my family and help others and be happy in life, but I can't do any of those right now and it's driving me crazy. I can't seem to get even one little break. I know that there are millions of others in the world that are so much less fortunate that myself, and I thank God that I do have as much as I do. It's gotten to the point that I am praying to God to let me win the lottery, just a very small one is all I need, enough to get myself and my family out of debt, to be able to repair damages or move to a new place, to just be able to have the necessities in life so we aren't miserable every single day, so I don't fall asleep crying every night or wake up crying from horrible dreams or cry because my child is unhappy that I can't buy him new shoes or we can't go for a drive to the coast because we don't have any money. This is part of the torture I am living in and I don't know what to do to make it stop or to change it.
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