Twenty-Nine

I want to blog here today, but I'm not sure yet what kind of mood I'm in. I'm still in a fairly decent mood from the weekend, but it is Monday morning and the long, lonely week is starting and I am already obsessing about it, worrying about it, looking for all the potholes and bumps and things that will steer me off course. Why can't I be positive? Why can't I look at Monday mornings as the start of the new week, a chance to get everything right, to make the most out of my life? I don't want to get in a shitty mood already, just because the weekend is over. I don't know why I am dreading the week, I shouldn't start to get into that mentality so early, on Monday morning, but it's like I am already anticipating the loneliness and the ill moods. Instead of being comforted by the knowledge that my husband comes home to me every night, I instead dwell on all the hours during the day I spend without him. A and I had a beautiful weekend together. He left work early on Friday, was home by two in the afternoon, and we headed off to the mountains where we spent Friday night at a casino and resort we love to go to. Well, he loves the casino, I usually just sit in the room watching TV or reading. And although it is still relaxing to be somewhere other than "at home", I was alone. He tried to cheer me up by going to one of the shops and buying me yet another $300 purse, to go with all the others he buys me, but sometimes I just feel like he is trying to bribe me into a good mood, forcing a smile on my face. I know he likes to spoil me, but I would have rather had his time on Friday night, instead of another new purse. A loves the casino, most of his free time every weekend is spent playing cards at one place or another and he's very very good at it, so I don't want to deny him his guilty pleasure. But at the resort, when he is downstairs winning money at the tables, I am alone upstairs in a plush suite just mindlessly staring at the TV. What a waste of "time together". Today the weather is stunning, it's so cool I have all the windows in the house open, so I can hear the birds singing, the bugs chirping, all the sounds of life and nature. I don't feel SO cooped up in the house with the windows open, so I am hoping this will start the week off on the right foot. I have an item listed on eBay that just sold for $650 this morning, and that should be putting a smile on my face, but instead of focusing on the money I have all the negative thoughts in my head about having to box it up, go take it to the post office, etc. How stupid. I always think negative thoughts, I don't know why. My mother is like that, maybe I got it from her, she drives my father nuts with it and I probably do the same to A. I am supposed to be heading off this morning to fill out a few job applications. Not because we need the money or because A told me to, but because I can't just keep sitting around this house. But the only things around this stupid hick town are retail/fast food jobs. I haven't had to work retail since I was in my 20's, and I really dread the idea of working nights or weekends, especially since my main cause of depression is not spending enough time with A. I know I wouldn't make more than minimum wage, and maybe not even get 40 hours in, so I have to ask myself is that worth giving up what little bit of time I do have with A. He is fine with me doing this, he is also fine with me staying home. He just wants me to be happy. He wants me to get out of the house, stop being so horribly sad all the time. I have been off the pain medication for about a month now, I had hoped that would help my moods, but apparently that had nothing to do with my depression because nothing has changed. I feel like my life is such a fucking waste- a waste of time, a waste of space on this earth. I have, on a normal day, at least 12 hours to myself to do whatever whatever whatever I want. I have the money, a car, no obligations at home, and I could be doing whatever I desire- creating art, going to the gym, taking cooking classes, going back to college, hiking, driving around endlessly, just living and trying new things. A even invites me to come up and go out to have lunch with him. But I do none of it, I hardly ever leave the house unless I have a household errand where I just absolutely must go into town. I have the money, but the one thing I want the most is more time with A, but A works hard so we can have all this money. A crappy vicious cycle, and there is the proof that money can't buy happiness, as old and cliched as that saying is. I get great ideas in my head- of something to paint or flowers I want to plant or a new recipe I want to cook- and it just gets stuck in my head and I never put it into action. A would be pleased to know I did any of those things, so I have started to tell him little white lies to make him feel better. Yes, I went to yoga class this morning. Yes, I applied for that office job online today. Yes, I called and talked to my mom. Blahblahblahblah. Whatever I can think of. I always want to start the week off on the right foot, and all weekend long, every weekend, I tell myself "On Monday I will..." but I never do. I really really never used to be this pathetic, I don't know what happened. I am so damn tired of feeling sorry for myself, why can't I be happy? More than that, I don't know how to fix my life. And, will running a cash register at Burger King really solve any of my issues?

Thirteen

Today my brain feels empty, I feel empty. I feel like I just want to sit back and do nothing and not take any shit from myself for it. I have days where I force myself to do things- laundry, read, garden- when I am actually hating every minute of it. I don't know why. I don't have to do anything disgusting, except clean cat litter boxes, and even that is part of the joyful duties of rescuing stray cats. I don't have to do anything difficult, I don't have to do anything perverted or creepy or illegal, I really don't have to do anything I don't want to. I am talking about the every day mundane aspects of life, like weeding the flower bed or filling the bird feeders or making the bed or wiping down the stove from last night's dinner or fluffing the pillows on the couch. Oh fuck, I hate all of it today, I hate it, and I have NO REASON TO, and I have no reason to gripe or complain or be such a stupid cow. This is my day, this is my lot in life, to be married to a wonderful man who takes good care of me and loves me- I don't know why he does, but he does. Go figure. Today is one of those days where I just don't want to think about anything, I want to say screw it all, go away, leave me alone. I want to tell A don't come home tonight! But I am alone, there is no one else here but me, and I gripe about being lonely! So what exactly am I wanting out of life, what do I think I would do differently, if I could do it all over again? I don't know. Would I have been a wild child instead of a good girl? Would I have travelled the world, doing whatever or whoever I wanted to? Would I have not had that abortion and instead kicked X out of my life, keeping his baby? Would I have done crack to numb my revulsion for this world, full of idiots, racists, rednecks, morons, zealots, the self-righteous bigots? I hate most people, I really do, because most of the people I've met in my life fall into one of those categories, and maybe that's because I have lived my entire life in the south, where people are generally dumbasses from birth on. Like a woman I knew for years who befriended the black girls in our office, would go out to lunch and shopping with them, coo over their babies, yet called people fuckin' n*ggers behind their backs. See, I can't even type that word anonymously, I hate it so much. The same woman who would drive by Goodwill while they were closed, and steal things people had dropped off out front for donations, yet didn't think there was anything wrong with it- they're just going to sell it anyhow, she justified. The same woman who would go to church every Sunday and talk about what a good Christian she was, when she was just pure white trailer trash and didn't even recognize it. I know so many people like that, it makes me angry at the whole human race. There are decent people out there, I know. Like my parents, or A, whose only flaw is that they love me, unconditionally. They are few and far between. Even my best friend, a sweet and tender woman in her 50's, is such a doormat, is so blind, I want to slap her. She lets her husband, her grown sons, treat her and talk to her the way X used to do me. And for that, she is stupid, as stupid as I used to be. And for such a smart woman, it makes me salivate with anger at her, to stand by and listen to her stories of how her husband drove off and left her at a restaurant, because their to-go order was taking so long and he was tired of waiting in the car for her- and how she had to call one of her sons to come and pick her up, while her husband was already relaxing back at home with his feet up in the recliner. Oh that's just horrifying in so many ways. Not because her husband did that, because I've met him and he's a huge fuckwad and it doesn't surprise me when he acts like that. But because he is STILL her husband, and she is still with him. She was such a gentle woman, I couldn't even offer my advice, because she would fall away into tears at even the merest hint of sympathy from me. But she was also a foolish, dense woman. My life is so simple, wake up, get A off to work, be there when he comes home, hopefully with a smile on my face. I fake my way through it, at least through the parts where he is at home. The rest of the hours are grim, I'm grim, and I have grim thoughts. People may read this blog and say, you're rich, you have no responsibilities, you have no job, you have no worries and nothing to complain about. What the hell does that have to do with how I'm feeling? Just because I have no fear of the power being shut off, that doesn't mean I can't be unhappy. That doesn't mean that I don't have the right to be unhappy, to bitch, to hate my life on certain days. That doesn't mean that I can't find a reason to be pissed off with the world. Who said only poor people, or the struggling, or the abused or homeless, or the sick and diseased or addicted, or the old, have dibs on being miserable? Maybe you can't understand me, or my life, and that's fine because I don't understand it half the time, and I'm not writing this blog for you to understand me, or even like me. Don't resent me because I have material possessions. What's in my brain, in my heart, pumping through my veins- that has nothing to do with what kind of car I drive. I am not taking this out on you, if you are reading this, I don't know you. And since I am posting anonymously, I don't want to know you. I don't care if you want to know me. I am just in a pissy mood today, and I don't know why. Life is good today, it's sunny and beautiful outside, I am preparing to leave on a weekend family getaway, tomorrow I go to my support meeting, next week I leave for a tropical vacation on the beaches of Florida with A. What's to complain about? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know!

Two

Most people will tell me I have nothing to complain about, nothing to be unhappy about, that I'm ungrateful and a bitch. I don't care what they see on the outside. I am unhappy on the inside. Everyone rattles on that money can't buy happiness. They say only people with money can believe that, but I've been on both the poor and better off side of that cliche before. And maybe it is true. I consider us middle class, we are certainly not wealthy, but I know we're doing better than our friends and family members. My husband works in a field that has so far been untouched by the spiraling economy. At least my daddy can go to bed every night knowing that his little girl is being taken care of, he just doesn't know she feels like a gigantic black nothing on the inside. But this is my life right now: my husband makes six figures and I don't have to work, I live in a brand new house that is on two acres and is three floors and almost 5500 square feet, my engagement/wedding rings are 2.5 carats and cost $13,000, I drive a brand new SUV while my husband drives a brand new convertible sports car, our vacations every year are to Caribbean islands, I have a closet full of $300 Coach and Dooney & Bourke purses. The husband is a big gambler and we spend weekends at casinos where we get free hotel rooms and food, and we have about $80,000 socked away in the bank right now, cash on hand. My husband buys me anything I want, we go out for $100+ dinners, he sends me to days at the spa, we get suites on cruise ships, we fly to Vegas or Miami or San Juan. We are not in debt, we've never missed a payment on anything, we've never paid a bill late, our vehicles are paid for. We're generous with our money and time and possessions, concerning friends and family and many charities. My husband is well-liked by his buddies, and very well-respected at his business. As far as my husband is concerned nothing is too good for me and his greatest pleasure in life is to see me happy. Only, I'm not the happy little wife that my husband wants, and I'm not the happy little girlfriend he used to know and love. I'm not happy at all, despite all of the wonderful things in my life. If you think I'm bragging, so what, it's all the truth. But the other truths are that I'm extremely overweight, I don't believe in God, I hate my life, I have a physical ailment which keeps me in chronic pain and on constant medication, we've tried but failed to get pregnant so we have no children, and at 40+something, I spend all day alone in this cavernous house and I have no friends and I rarely go out anywhere by myself during the day- unless the chores of grocery shopping count as getting out and about. Anyone reading this will tell me to shut the hell up and get over myself. And logically I know that is true. The husband tells me all the time to pick myself up and go do something, whatever I want, he is not concerned about cost or time or subject. He's suggested everything from volunteer work to taking college classes or art classes or joining the YMCA. He talks to me all the time about reaching out and making friends. But it's hard for me, because I am extremely suspicious and very cynical, and it takes a long time of knowing someone before I would call them a friend. Since we just moved here to this new place a few months ago, he thinks I'm just having trouble adjusting to life, leaving behind the people dearest to me- besides him. What he doesn't understand is that we now live in a tiny, podunk, country town that holds no interest for me. I only moved here because his job required it, and because I'm his dutiful wife, and that's it. And please don't make comments about how I need to find God to fulfill me- that ain't gonna happen.