How do I know what to do in July? I don’t even know what to do this weekend!

This is a rough post. Normally, I write a draft, then spend an hour or so cleaning it up so it’s fit to read. But this one … well, it started out as a letter to the online advice columnist at The Rumpus, Sugar. It might still be eventually. I decided to share it here because I think I was able to get at the issues a little better than usual, and I’m afraid that if I clean it up, I’ll wind up cutting something that needs to be here. If the post sounds like I’m overwhelmed, believe me, I am, and I simply cannot believe I let it go on and on to even reach this point, and that I’m still doing so. I feel like I’m mired in a tar pit, which can actually be kind of comfortable if you don’t think about it much and don’t struggle against it.

Let me just add that Father’s Day has been damned awkward since I was eight years old, and in all the intervening years it hasn’t gotten any better. Then again, Mother’s Day was so much fun this year, why should I expect anything different?

I’ve lost myself. I’ve lost every little shred of who I am and who I wanted to be. Help! Just, help! Because it’s all so bad I just don’t even know where to start talking about it, much less making any changes.

Maybe this is a mid-life crisis kind of thing, since I turned 40 last fall. Maybe it’s a my-grandfather-died-in-October thing. Maybe it’s a got-laid-off-a-year-ago (and haven’t even gotten an interview) thing. Or maybe it’s causing that last thing, instead of being caused by.
All I know is that I am not, not, not where I thought I would be in life – in any scenario. I’ve gone from making $54k a year to unemployment, and because I spent 10 years in a unique job situation, jobs that would get me back into my actual field are looking like they’ll pay about $37k at the most. I’ve already had to ask my mother for help paying COBRA health insurance premiums. I’m living in a rental house with my alleged boyfriend, who I do have feelings for but who apparently doesn’t believe in yard maintenance or even making his teenage son stop throwing bottles and cans all over the back yard. Said son, the only one of my boyfriend’s three kids who lives with us, is a real winner of a lad who just today finished up a 15-day stint in juvenile detention for fighting and possession. Well, 10 days for that, five more for loudly suggesting the judge do something anatomically impossible to herself. I’m usually on the side of the underdog, usually the bleeding heart, but this kid has a real problem of some sort, and his father refuses to discipline him. No matter what his actions, there are no consequences at home. The last time he was sent away, for three days, he came home to fewer chores and less pressure to get his ass out of bed and go to school every day.

Before you say it, I don’t have anywhere else to go or I would already not be living in this situation. My parents’ is not really an option for many reasons: too rural, too small, too much of my mother, who I fear is not emotionally well at all. My grandfather’s house is empty, but I cannot bring myself to contemplate being alone in the house which all my life was a center of family and always seemed full of people. Already I feel very fragile, and I cannot contemplate living somewhere without, frankly, independence and internet access, the latter being about the only thing I can manage on my worst days.

So that’s a quick snapshot of where I am. I’m only telling you about it so you can contrast it with where I thought I’d be – not where I wanted to be, mind you, just where I realistically thought I’d be. There was the career route, which at one time I had made a good start on, with a good entry-level job, a nice starter house, a CPA husband who made three times (almost to the penny) what I did. Then I left him for something better, I hoped. Not that I had anything lined up at the time, but the husband was never home, and when he was, he did things like wake me up at 1 a.m. and demand to know the balance of my checking account (which he had full access to online).

The final straw, the final thing that became the deal breaker, was his reaction to the idea of having kids – a reaction which only hit him when I had been off the pill for at least six months and thought “we” were actively trying to get pregnant. I thought we had discussed this! It was the typical “It’s not a good time. We need to wait until we have more money in the bank” kind of thing, which had actually worked on me when it was “until we have a house instead of an apartment,” but which at this point – I was already over 30 – rang false. Marriage counselors and I sat there together, trying to explain that you couldn’t wait until the time is perfect, that I was aging, that I had already been told five years previously that because of my pre-birth exposure to DES I would have a hard time getting pregnant and a hard time staying that way, and the odds would worsen as I aged. Nothing moved him.

So instead, I moved me. I fail to see how I thought that was going to help the situation. I want a kid, so let me get divorced – yeah, that makes perfect sense.  I guess I was just disgusted with him, and thought I could easily find someone else. But then when I was single again, I found out that real life isn’t like college, where there are new people to meet around every corner. I’ve never been the type to go out and start talking to strangers in a bar or whatever, and by that point most of my coworkers were about 20 years older than me and didn’t even know anyone to suggest, had I asked them. There were some dates, a few short-term relationships, but nothing until the guy I’m with now. With three kids that he struggles to support already – it seems he’s always in court about child support payments that he either owes or are owed to him, or both at once – he’s not inclined to have any more children. And the longer I am with him, the more I realize that there is something wrong with him, emotionally. Some kind of anger management issues, some self-esteem issues, some “failure to start” issues, all of which are there to some extent in his kids. Even if he weren’t against it, even if he were eager for a new baby, I’m not sure I would be eager to raise a child who would face these issues and my quirks and hang-ups. And I’ve seen the way he is with his kids – put simply, he’s not a good parent, and I’m not inclined to believe that he even does his best.

So every signal in the world says “get on the damn bus, chick, and leave him yesterday.” And I will, I would, if I had any means of paying more rent than I do now – real estate prices remain high in my city, and there’s just nowhere to rent an apartment in a safe neighborhood for less than about double what I now pay. That’s why I moved in here in the first place, against my better emotional judgment but in line with my financial requirements, and it’s still true, only more so since I lost my job (after declaring bankruptcy about two years ago) and probably could not find anywhere that would rent to me anyway.

Another way to put it maybe – I am not, at this late stage, financially independent. I cannot afford to live on my own. I’m 40 fucking years old, I’m tired, and I don’t think I can go back to working two jobs just to keep afloat, or living in an environment of questionable safety. Plus I have a masters degree – I did my time in college, I shouldn’t have to work two jobs now. (Yes, I know it doesn’t really work that way, but that was the bill of goods I was sold, damnit.) And I’m only getting older, and I never, ever, never thought I’d be here. 

I don’t even know what to do this weekend – his daughter wants to come visit for Father’s Day, but after she made threats against me and said things I don’t even remember but that left me reeling on Mother’s Day, I don’t even want to speak to or about her, much less be in the same house with her or be expected to feed/entertain her while her father is at work. The easy answer is for me just to leave for the weekend, but where the hell am I going to go? I’ve tried several times to spend even just the weekend at my parents’, but find it impossible to stay more than one night because like the old lady I am, I can only sleep when I’m at “home” now. Do I really think I can go there for three nights so the lazy, freeloading 19-year-old can stay here instead, especially given that her father isn’t even off work on Sunday, and generally sleeps until it’s time for him to get up and get ready for work? Am I really going to be able to do that? My boyfriend says, “We’re going to have to work out something here.” But I’m not interested in being “the adult” here and letting go of the grievance. I’m not sure I could. I was deeply offended and hurt, and I simply cannot let those feelings go, no matter how hard I might try. (A fucking apology might help, though.) I don’t want to keep her from her father, and had in fact sworn that I would move out by July 1, but I just don’t know how to make that happen.

I wish I could just run, physically. Run and never stop, I guess like Forrest Gump did in the movie. If I had more than $61.50 in my bank account I might at least drive somewhere calming or take a yoga class or something, anything, but I’m already going to be stretching it to get through the week(end) on that.

I still haven’t gotten to my point. Maybe my point is that when it rains it pours. But what I want you to see is that I’ve lost everything that was me. I always saw myself as the good girl who loved babies and puppies, the caring, kind, smart one who was so nice and everybody’s friend and knew just how to act and took good care of herself – her skin, her health, her figure even. Now I’m at least 50 pounds overweight, feel like I’m emotionally about to fall apart, haven’t worn makeup for well over three months, barely remember to slap moisturizer on my face once a week, routinely stay up until 4 or 5 a.m., and go for days at a time without a shower or even brushing my teeth.

Yes, I’m depressed, but this isn’t just depression. I’ve coped with that all my life and learned how to distinguish what it is and what it’s not. I don’t just feel stuck, I am stuck. I cannot think of my way out of this. I can’t see how any of the mess I’ve gotten myself into is going to get any better, even if I do get one of these $37k jobs (which would be a minor miracle, since as I said I have yet to get a single interview, and which wouldn’t pay all that much more than unemployment anyway). The threads that hold me together are getting more and more taut, and one day I’m afraid they’re just going to snap like rotten rubber bands. Except I honestly have no idea what’s going to change once they do, except that I’d probably wind up adding some sky-high medical bills to the list of my problems.

Oh my God, I still haven’t said what makes me the most upset. When I was three, when most kids have imaginary friends, I had imaginary grand-children. My grandmother was my primary babysitter, and I adored her. And I guess I thought she had a lot of fun with me as well, because to me the best thing, even better than having a friend my age to play with, would be having a whole bunch of grandchildren to organize games and activities for, to watch out for, to tease and love. By the time I was in college – say 20 or 21 – my arms almost without my intending to move them reached for every baby or toddler I saw. I have always been baby obsessed, and I simply cannot believe that I’m going to end up childless. I wanted it all, even the uncomfortable parts. I wanted to be pregnant, I wanted to give birth, I wanted the sleepless nights and the tiring days.

I tried to divert my maternal feelings into dog ownership instead, but the dogs got old and died (as they do) and I can’t afford either the purchase or the proper care of a new one. (My boyfriend has a dog, and if I leave here of course I have to leave him too. Mind you, I’m allergic to this dog, but he is devoted to me, and I would worry about him if I go.) But as much as I loved them, dogs aren’t babies.

I am so deeply not me that I really don’t know what to do or where to go. Nothing about where I am is where I want to be or expected to be. No matter what, I always knew there would be children. How can there not be children? What happened, please?

There are so many esoteric events in my life that my therapist and I never even get around to talking about these big over-all issues, in between talking about the delinquent kid and how much I want to leave but can’t and job prospects and so on. My dose of antidepressants was already upped quite a bit. No matter how much I take, pills aren’t going to make my circumstances change anyway. When I try to describe the person I am, I realize that not one single thing I think is important is represented in my life. Maybe this is my final struggle against giving up and not bothering to think about that anymore, ever. Of course I’m looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, but I’m also trying to figure out how the hell I got into the tunnel and how to tell if I’m going in the wrong direction. Or maybe it’s not a tunnel after all, just a dark cave, and the only way out it to go back.

I think it’s taking all of my control and the last shred of my self-discipline and sense of dignity not to turn into a drooling mess, and there’s none left over for anything else. Something has to change, but I don’t know what and I don’t know how and I seem incapable of doing anything anyway, just like I don’t know how to turn back the clock and redo my life.

I can’t believe that this is really my real life. It can’t be. It must be a dream, or a big joke, right? Because this a big fucking nightmare. But ignoring that question, ignoring the bigger issues, is how I wound up here in the first place.

And God help me, but what am I going to do this weekend? I don’t want to leave my home, but I don’t want to feel uncomfortable in it either and I will not sit here and be afraid of this girl.