thinking

It occurred to me that when I find myself signing up for advertisement emails from random companies just so my inbox won't feel so lonely, there might be something wrong with my life. Lopez, for the moment, has fallen through. I didn't get the bus driver job, I didn't get the dispatch job (here in Oly) and one of the houses I was hoping to rent fell through. The stone mason that interviewed me won't call me back, Leeroy did call me to let me know he wanted nothing to do with me again, and all of my friends are working on big fires in Oregon. But not I. I am here, creating debt like freshly knitted socks and proving my uselessness on a daily basis. I am angry. I want to blame the economy. David. My parents. God. Leeroy. The Avett Brothers. Ok, not them, but everyone else. Riddle me this: What is so fucking (and I FEEL like this an appropriate application of the curse word) unemployable, unhouseable, undesirable and just plain useless about me?

I had a dream two nights ago, where one of my kids died, and all I could do was watch the terror in her eyes as she slipped over the cliff into an unending abyss. My friend Jay-cup says that all of the characters in our dreams are different representations of ourselves, which is much easier for me to handle than one of the girls dying while I watch powerlessly. It is that sense of being so out of control of the circumstances in my life... In my dream I took a wrong turn down a road and couldn't get the car back up the hill, out of danger, the road was a steep washout with sheer cliffs up and down from it. Me and the four girls got out of the car and began to scramble up the hill to the main road. There was a ladder/staircase of sorts and we were grabbing at roots and rocks to get to the top. I was in and out between the four of them, but somehow, the one on the bottom began to lose her grip. I couldn't get to her. I can't even bear to write her name as I retell it because it gives it too much reality. She couldn't hold on and I couldn't reach her and she began sliding, quickly, down the slope towards the edge that had no end in sight. All I could do was watch the horror in her eyes and silently scream for her to grab something, to save herself at the last second. There was no other hope. I willed myself awake just as she got to the ledge. I couldn't stand it anymore. It was 5 o'clock in the morning and I was sick with terror. Whether it was me falling, or her, or just the representation of how unable I am to stop the downward spin we are in, I don't know, but the sense of panic and hopelessness that began with the dream and has escalated, and every door slammed in my face has made it more real. I fight every minute of every day to find positivity and to remember all the things I have to be thankful for. A roof, food for my kids, clothes. A job, even if it is at costco. And all of my girls (and Truck) safe. And alive. And pray to whatever crazy god is out there for some mercy. All of my upbringing scolds me from the past and tells me that something I did was wrong, that somewhere I took the wrong turn down that unreturnable, unsalvageable road, that I am being punished for ungratefulness, immorality, foolishness, something. Some sin that even I haven't learned yet. I hate this part of my heritage, the one of shame and doubt and mistrust and self-loathing. All I long for is safety, and security, and stability. And promise. Faithfulness. Protection for the babies that I so ignorantly brought here and who so innocently followed me into this world of unrelenting challenge. God help us.

I am fighting. I refuse to roll over. Or maybe the prozac won't let me. I chase the fantasies of piling my dying SUV up on a freeway medium away with mantras of delusional happiness based on warm fuzzies and copious amounts of wine consumption. No, not really. I "choose" to be fine. To be thankful. To be grateful that we aren't being kidnapped by Joseph Kony's Army, or brainwashed in a ridiculous slavish cult, or picking trash out of dumpsters to eat. I must be solid. Because nothing else for my kids is.