Hollow

By Oleg Alexandrov [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I pulled a Tarot card today and it was The Tower.  Not a very good sign, right?  The Tower has actually been coming up again and again in my readings for myself.  I've got this Tarot app on my kindle and it comes up there too.  It seems to be a theme in my life right now.  I'd say it's probably been a theme for a couple of years now, actually.

Generally, The Tower represents sudden, catastrophic, and unwelcome change.  It is a card of destruction, yes?  And a card of warning.  Yet, my life is so horribly the same.  Always.  For years now.  There is no change.  There has been no change.  My efforts to force change have come to naught.  My life is is stagnant, foul and rotting.  What the rot touches, it destroys, and it has touched everything.  Over the last several years, I've watched as everything in my life has been eaten away.  Nothing has been spared: not a hope, not a dream.  Everything withers and falls away.

Today I got the "you're not good enough to hire for this position" call from my workplace.  I was up for a recently opened full time position—one in which I would have been brilliant.  I interviewed and was rejected.  The rejection wasn't a surprise.  After six years of being searching for a full time job, I go into interviews (when I get them) fully expecting to be rejected for the job.  I mean, the hope is there, but I'm no longer surprised by the rejection.  Though this particular rejection was truly unsurprising because yesterday my boss asked me to cover a shift at the of December.  She wouldn't have done that if I'd gotten the job.  Deductive reasoning.

The Tower, representing catastrophe, has been my constant companion for years and years now.  So long now that catastrophe, though still traumatic, is no longer sudden for me.  It's no longer unexpected.  Everything I touch, everything I care about, everything I hope for shrinks from me.  It's like it knows that my touch is toxic and will cause it to rot and wither.  I had hoped–not having a lover, not having a husband or children, nor the prospect of such–that I could have a satisfying career.  I do not have a satisfying career.  It's been six–almost seven–years and I do not have even the beginnings of a satisfying career.  I no longer believe that is going to happen for me.  I don't think it's meant to be.  At least not in the library.

Perhaps I am not meant to have a job.  But then how will I survive?  Right now, with the meager wages I bring in from my part time job, I have to be supported by my parents.  Without them I can't afford food or shelter.  Even with them I can't afford myself. 

I now owe $58000 in student loans.  It keeps going up.  I'm on an income based repayment plan and can only afford the $30/month I pay them now.  If I had to pay the entire amount I wouldn't have money for gas.  I clear maybe $1000/month.  Maybe.  Of that, $300 goes to car payments, $300 goes to paying off my credit card, $100 goes to car insurance, $100 goes to health/dental insurance, $50 to gas so I can get to work, and the remaining goes to miscellaneous expenses such as food, phone, the occasional hang out with one of the few friends I have left, car maintenance, or any one of a thousand incidentals.  No wonder I have panic attacks.

I made a grave error when I went to graduate school.  It's one I can't fix, one I have to live with, but how?  How?

I have to figure that out.  I have to find a way to make money outside of a regular job.  I have some tentative plans for next year.  Plans I sorely need to flesh out and put in action.  It's a gamble, what I have in mind.  A huge gamble.  High risk, and a maybe okay reward—the likelihood of a high reward is so low as to be nonexistent.  I am afraid.  I am so afraid.  I can't afford to fail.  I am literally gambling with my life.  Like, if this doesn't pay out, I don't see myself surviving.  Not for very long, anyway.

Gods!  It sounds dramatic, but I don't mean it as such.  I'm just . . . operating without a safety net, and my plans–tentative as they are–require cutting my last lifeline.  If I don't learn to fly before hitting the ground, well, SPLAT.

Poetry Wednesday #53

I got this from here.

Call to Manannán

Wave-riding magician,

Guardian of the Blessed Isles,

Mist-cloaked guide over open waters,

Keeper of the Crane Bag,

Wielder of the Answerer,

Lawgiver among the Tuatha Dé Danann,

Hail Manannán, son of the sea,

Lord of the Strand.

Hail Manannán,

Lord of the liminal realms,

I call to you.

Words

Okay, so I know I missed my first Fiction Friday.  Not a very auspicious beginning, huh?  I was on visiting friends, my story wasn't finished, and I thought it'd be rude to lock myself in their guest room to write for hours on end.  So, as with last weeks Poetry Wednesday, this month you'll get two stories.  The first will come this Friday, and the second at the regular time (last Friday of the month).  Until then, here's an update on me:

In an effort bring balance to my life I feel the need to go to extremes.  Don't worry, this post will make more sense as I continue.  Hopefully.

I recently discovered something about myself: while meandering through a short story, I realized that I need to write everything longhand first.  Weird, right?  It's annoyingly archaic, or seems so, but I can't wrap my head around a story unless I write it first, before I type it.  I revise when it's being typed, and the story is stronger for it, but I've got to write it out first.

It make sense, I guess.  Though I am considered a member of the Millennial generation I am on the upper end of that age bracket.  I remember a time before computers were in common use, though my schools always had them.  That I remember, anyway.  My family was/is considered middle class, but we're on the lower end of that bracket too, and we didn't get a computer of our own until my last year of high school.  My brain connects better pen to paper than fingers to keys.

So things are progressing slowly, and maybe always will.  Maybe old-fashion's a good thing.

We'll see.

Ugh.

So, I have this problem: I can't stand taking photographs of myself; I can't standing looking at photographs of myself; I get this sick, super-panicky feeling whenever I'm told that I must get pictures taken for whatever reason.

And now, I've got to take some photos.  To help my brother and his wife adopt a baby.  And I will, but it doesn't keep that feeling from eating away at my guts.

The problem is that I'm very fat.  I weighed in at 309 lbs this morning, and while that's less than my heaviest, it's still far heavier than I want to be.  I've maintained this weight for the last several years.  I want to lose it though.  I just don't feel attractive, which leads to another of my problems: social isolation, but we're not getting into that today.  Today, we'll just talk about the fatness.

And my fear of photos.

They break the illusion, you see.  In my mind I don't see myself as fat, just an older version of the svelte teenager I once was.  Seeing a photo of myself I have to admit that I put on over 100 lbs, and just generally let myself go.  The weight's not attractive on me either, it sits awkwardly around my middle, making it difficult to sit straight with my legs closed.  The least my weight gain could have given me was bigger breasts, but alas, no, my boobs have remained relatively the same size.  Though, on the bright side, I'm taking that to mean that when I lose weight they'll remain the same then too.

I did not gain weight attractively, more's the pity.  Some of my friends did.  There are women out there in the world, who I knew from middle and high school, who put on significant amounts of weight - as much as me, adjusted for their frames - who look good.  Maybe they don't feel that way, maybe when they see themselves they feel the same way I do when I see me, but that thought doesn't change the way I feel about myself.

I need to lose weight.  I've been saying it for years, promising myself that I won't go another summer, another Halloween, another birthday so uncomfortably large, but I never follow through.  And I need to follow through.  It really is affecting my health and happiness.

My knees hurt, my back hurts, I spent the last two days hobbling around like an old woman most likely because I spent Friday night at a full moon ritual where I had to sit on the floor and stand multiple times.  This is not who I want to be, and I am far too young to have all these aches and pains.

It's decision time.  That quote from The Shawshank Redemption seems apropos: "Get busy living, or get busy dying."  I need to change my life.  I've blogged about this before, but it really is far past time.  I fear having the loose and floppy skin, but I think I fear the poor health, atrophied muscles, a lifetime of pain, and the belly that makes some ask when I'm due more.

So, what does this mean?  Well, 10k steps is being reinstated*, my fitbit is coming out of hibernation, and I'm going to take a serious look at my diet (I've got to cut out sugars).  Beyond that?  I'm not really sure.
_______________________________________________________________________
*Sorry, that's from one of the posts I recently deleted in my massive clean-out of this blog.  10,000 (10k) steps is about the equivalent of 5 miles, and it is my goal to work up to walking that every day.  When I was in really good shape (still dancing, etc.) I walked/jogged around 9 miles a day in addition to dance classes, aerobics, acrobatics, and yoga a couple of times a week, and on top of my daily just-moving-around.  Like I said, I was svelte.  At this point, I would just like to hit 10k steps a day total, once that happens I'll think about additions.

Discipline

My life of late has been chaotic, messy, and really no fun.  There are a lot of things that I can't exactly fix about it: the job situation being one of them.  Oh, I can work towards a solution, but it still depends on other people giving me a chance.  That is some thing that is pretty much out of my control.  So I've been trying to figure out what is in my control, what I can change to make things better.  And I'm thinking that I can use a bit of discipline - not the fun/sexy kind - but the bone-deep fortitude of knowing oneself, the strength of being.

I'm not entirely certain how to learn discipline, but I know I need to try.  It's no secret that without the regulation of school, I've been drifting, falling apart.  I don't know what to do with my time.  For a while, the freedom I had with my free time was thrilling, but now it's stifling.  I've been filling it with work, and that's no fun.  Especially since my work is not fulfilling.  Part time gigs when you want a full time job rarely are.

I interviewed for a part time job in the library of one of the local community colleges.  Afterwards, well, I went to my gig at the library, but when I got home I wept over the interview.  I really don't want it.  It's not worth the hassle.  Not giving me enough hours or enough money to really justify giving up one of my current jobs.  The only thing is, is that it's a "professional" position, meaning it requires an MLS.  What the hell kind of part time job requires a fucking Master's degree?  Talk about devaluing my profession.  I'm hoping they don't offer it to me.  I don't want it.  I know I'd be miserable in it, because 90% of the reason I'm miserable at my other jobs is the fact that they are part time.  If I'm offered the job, I'll take it, maybe, but the slight raise in pay and hours means that: 1) I'll lose my current ACA benefits and have to pay more for insurance, negating the pay increase I get, and 2) I'll lose the only day off a week of work I have (also my planned vacation at the end of August, and the long weekend in September I'm taking to go to my best friend's baby shower).  Misery stacked on misery.  But, as I said, if offered I'll take it, even though, at best, it's a lateral move that offers me no extra benefits.

Of course, I've basically been unhireable since before I graduated, so the likelihood of being offered this job is practically negligible. /rant

Anyway, back to discipline: I've tried before - many times - to introduce some semblance of rules in my life, and it really hasn't worked out.  But I need some type of structure to be able to both better my situation and follow my dreams, and since I'm a list-maker I thought I'd start with lists of what I want and need to do:

Needs:

1. Clean bedroom
2. Sand & paint bedroom walls & trim
3. Lose weight
4. Trim & tone my body
5. Quit smoking
6. Meditate regularly (for stress relief & other benefits)
7. Exercise regularly: yoga, aerobics, strength, stamina
8. Find/create social life (I'm so gods-damned lonely, you wouldn't believe)
9. Buy a new car
10. To weed and organize personal library (books & DVDs)

Wants:

1. To write
2. To dance
3. To celebrate my gods and the changing of the seasons
4. To garden
5. To have sex again, relatively soon, and on a fairly regular basis
6. To have tea on a regular basis, like with a teapot and quality tea

My upcoming/ongoing projects will revolve around these wants and needs.  Tomorrow, I've decided, will be my last day smoking, as it's long past time I quit.  I'm going to try to work out a schedule so that I can meditate, exercise, write, work, socialize, and sleep.  A couple of rules to make things easier:

1. My computer will no longer be housed in my bedroom, but at an actual table somewhere else in the house.  At least, until I rearrange the furniture and find an "office" space in my bedroom to house it, and maybe not even then.
2. I will work on my computer (writing, researching, not playing solitaire or dicking around on the internet) at least 2 hours nearly* every day, but no more than 5 unless the writing is going well.

Let's get schedule-ish too:

1. Poetry Wednesdays are back on this blog.  Every Wednesday a new (and original) poem will be posted.
2. Fiction Fridays are being introduced.  The last Friday of every month, starting in August, a new short story will be posted.
3. Regular (non-poetry) posts at least once every two weeks.
4. My bedroom will be cleaned and decluttered by mid-August; the walls will be sanded, washed and ready for painting by the end of August.  (My parents are having new siding put on the house in early August and painting shouldn't happen before that is done).
5. A new car will be purchased some time before the end of the year because my current car is not going to make it much longer.

That's it.  I'm going to have to think about this more, and discover, for me, what discipline really means.

*"Nearly" because 2-3 days a week I work 10-12 hours and I don't know that I'll be able to keep myself from just passing out after getting home, especially if I throw exercise into the mix.

Imagine

The Rainbow Lies in the Curve of the Sand. (1901) John Reinhard Weguelin.

“Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.”
~Patricia A. McKillip

I was hanging out with a friend today, and she said something about how when you work towards something, taking positive action towards a goal, life has a tendency to work out the way you want it.  That wasn't it exactly, but you get the idea.  After she said this, I grumbled something about finding it hard to find motivation to do anything, which was a real downer, and shortly thereafter our conversation ended.  Now, I don't think our conversation ended because of my comment - by that time we'd been talking for about an hour, and we both have lives we have to lead, chores to do, and the like - but I still wouldn't be surprised if my comment had something to do with it.  I'm pretty sure my friends are just as tired of hearing me whine and complain about my life as I am to do the actual whining.

That, however, is not the point.

Something struck me at that point in the conversation, started nibbling away at a corner of my brain, a thought that needed to be examined later - after our conversation was truly over, and it was this:

I am suffering from a profound lack of imagination.

Or maybe I should call it "practical imagination."  It's sad really, I can dream up a thousand fantastical stories, but I just can seem to think of any action to take to get out of my current state, let alone positive action.  Everything seems to lead to more standing still.  I'm applying for jobs, but that's not getting me anywhere, and I just can't think of what else to do.  What can I do?  I'm bogged down in this quagmire, and truly have no clue.

The trouble, I think, is that I don't know the rules of the outside world.  I understood school.  In university I knew exactly where I stood, and where, ultimately, I was heading.  The real world?  I'm completely lost.  I'm a cog that was left out of the grand machine of full time employment.  Then, not only am I a cog, but I'm a cog that graduated with a bazillion other cogs that fit just a little bit better than me.  What's a girl to do?

It's obvious that whatever I do, I won't be able to do it the easy way - if that even exists.  But what steps to take?  I don't even know that.  I just keep blundering around and losing my footing.  What do I want to do?  I'm not even sure of that.  Mostly I just want to work one full time job that pays a decent wage - and hopefully offers insurance - while figuring out my next step.  It'd be awesome if that job could be in a library, but I'm rapidly losing hope in that prospect, but anything.  Right now, I work around 50 hours a week (my commute is added in) at two part time jobs and still only make around 17k a year.  I can't move out of my parents house.

But what do I want?

I want a little place of my own.  One that I can share with my cat.  I want to be comfortable dating again (there's no way I'd invite a guy to stay the night at my folks' house, though that's not my only excuse).  I want work I find rewarding.  I want to be able to pay back my student loans.  I want to be able to take a vacation somewhere at least once every couple of years.  I want a future, but I don't know how to go about getting it.

At the start of this year I wrote that I wanted to pursue writing as a career.  It's something that I wanted to do as a kid, through high school, and my first couple of years at college.  Somewhere along the way I lost it.  Maybe my inability to find a job is my gods/the universe telling me that I need to get back on that path.  I'm not really sure, but there's no harm in trying.  Of course, it would be easier if I had a full time job to support myself while writing (hint-hint, gods, hint-freaking-hint), but I don't know if that's going to happen.  What was the last count before I quit keeping track?  Eight-hundred-fifty-something applications, five interviews, eight-hundred-fifty-something rejections.  (Oh yeah, I had my fifth interview for a full time position at the library for which I currently work in a part time position last week, it went really well, but they decided to go another way.  Nicest rejection I've gotten so far.)

Will sitting down to write a novel be my positive action?  Will it be enough?  I wish I knew.  A part of me says that I could totally do it - live my dream and all that.  Another part of me urges practicality.  I'm not sure there's a way to balance the two.

Hopefully I'll get this figured out within the next couple of months.

Well anyway, wish me luck - the good kind please!  

Learning how to deal

So, I figure I've been dealing with a fairly serious case of depression for several years now.  And by "several years" I mean over a well over a decade.  Considering that I'm only 33, that's a pretty huge chunk of my life.  I've not been formally diagnosed, of course.  I live in Kansas, and fall in that not-so-sweet spot that precludes me from social services including mental health provided by the state - I make too much money, you see, but I don't make enough money to, you know, pay for that stuff myself.  If Kansas had accepted medicaid expansion . . . Well, we won't go into that.

Anyway, my depression.  I'm 99.999% sure that depression is a problem for me, one that I haven't been very good at dealing with.  I withdraw, compulsively buy books, sleep way too much or not enough, I have no energy for anything.  Sometimes it's worse, sometimes it's better, but it's always there; and, from what I've read, it's fairly typical, my depression.  Textbook, even.

I've never really recognized it as a problem.  I knew I had it, but I thought I had it handled.  I mean, I didn't think I suffered from it.  I am not now and have never been suicidal, you know?  Other people had it worse.  Lately, I've been thinking that I've been looking at it all wrong.  I have suffered.  I haven't been suicidal, but I haven't been living.  There is so much that I want to do that I haven't done, and I think it's because of my depression.  I've let it take over my life.  It has been my life or at least most of it since I was in my late teens.  Hell, it conducted a hostile takeover in my early twenties and has been the driving force of my life since then.  I think I can safely say that it's behind the sad fact that I haven't actually done anything in the last twelve or thirteen years.  There was a time I actively pursued my goals, but it surely hasn't been any time lately.

A couple of weeks ago I had something of a slow epiphany.  It'd been building for years, but with the death of my cousin it really kind of struck home.  Life's too short for me to waste it like I have been.  I need to get out in the world and do things.  Live, you know?  I need to find a way to stop being miserable and move.

I say that this realization has been has been building, but that's not the entire truth.  I've known it for a while now.  It's one of the reasons I went back to school a few years ago and got not one but two degrees (a bachelor's and a master's).  My degrees are not enough, obviously.  I need to continue moving forward in my life.  I know what I need to do, I'm not really sure how to do it, but I'm smart, I can learn.

I have goals.  The same goals I've had for a long while.  Some I've had since I was a child, like becoming a working writer.  Others are fairly recent, like losing weight.  I've basically proven to myself that I can't be trusted to work on these goals one at a time.  I'll come up with a way to put everything off that way, and time is so short.  I've got to bundle things.  Work in stages, maybe, but work at it all, and focus as much as I can.  I've come up with a schedule of sorts, so that I can work towards these goals.  I think I'm going to have to be fairly strict with myself for a while, until I fall into the habit, or back into the habit, of doing things I have never done, or haven't done in a long, long time.

And things are going to be slow for a while as I find my footing.  But things are going to get done, which is the point, and more than what's happening in my life now.  I'm going to learn how to deal.  I'm going to learn how to live.