It’s not just the blog. Everything in my life is slipping. Warning: This is not going to be a happy post.
I need employment. I’m tired of waiting for my friend Cam to get his stuff together so that I can go jockey for him. In the meantime, there’s nothing else that will let me keep teaching the kids. If it weren’t for Fran letting me attack the weeds in her garden, I’d be worse. I hope there will be some morning classes to teach over the summer holidays, and that will alleviate some of this vicious cycle. I’m like a border collie in a one-bedroom apartment.
I don’t have enough money. I could take even more out of my retirement money, but that just means eating more cat food in old age. I’m trying to avoid that.
Nothing is any fun. Photography was briefly fun on Thursday, when Rachel and I took some photos for her book jacket. Other than that, not fun. Writing, not fun. Sewing, not fun. Painting, not fun. Cooking, not fun (no money for anything but the most basic of ingredients.) I sent E out to do a big shop. He came home with tins of soup. If I see another piece of pasta, or baked potato, I may cry.
I’ve started sleeping late. No sense in getting up. All I do is sit on the internet until it’s time to teach. Go teach for 3 hours, Come home. Make a boring dinner. Wait until it’s time to sleep. Repeat. If I have chores to do, I stretch them out as long as possible. Today I made three separate trips to Broadway.
There’s no money to socialize. I am depressed and lonely. If Eric goes to work, I am alone in the house until it’s time to go to work, and then, often, afterwards. Some days the only people I speak to are my students. When he is here, Eric keeps doing silly stuff to try to make me smile, when he notices. A lot of the time he’s shut in his room doing whatever he does in there. I don’t want to smile, but I feel bad that I am such poor company.
I don’t feel like I am a particularly valuable friend. Or girlfriend. Or sister or daughter or niece. This weekend, I’d like to be making food for a friend who is going through some health stuff, and could use a couple of easy meals for her family. But all I have is pasta. And fucking cans of soup.
Congratulations if you made it this far, and apologies. I know others are going through far worse ordeals than underemployment and general malaise. It just sucks to be in the middle of it.