Total Perspective Vortex
What really happened to Trillian? Theories abound, but you can see what she's really been up to on this blog. If you're looking for white mice, depressed robots, or the occasional Pan Galactic Gargleblaster you might be better served here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/.
Don't just sit there angry and ranting, do something constructive.
In the words of Patti Smith (all hail Sister Patti): People have the power.
Contact your elected officials.
Don't be passive = get involved = make a difference.
Words are cool.
The English language is complex, stupid, illogical, confounding, brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating.
Every now and then a word presents itself that typifies all the maddeningly gorgeousness of language. They're the words that give you pause for thought. "Who came up with that word? That's an interesting string of letters." Their beauty doesn't lie in their definition (although that can play a role). It's also not in their onomatopoeia, though that, too, can play a role. Their beauty is in the way their letters combine - the visual poetry of words - and/or the way they sound when spoken. We talk a lot about music we like to hear and art we like to see, so let's all hail the unsung heroes of communication, poetry and life: Words.
Here are some I like. (Not because of their definition.)
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Smart Girls
(A Trillian de-composition, to the tune of Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys)
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Smart girls ain’t easy to love and they’re above playing games
And they’d rather read a book than subvert themselves
Kafka, Beethoven and foreign movies
And each night alone with her cat
And they won’t understand her and she won’t die young
She’ll probably just wither away
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
A smart girl loves creaky old libraries and lively debates
Exploring the world and art and witty reparteé
Men who don’t know her won’t like her and those who do
Sometimes won’t know how to take her
She’s rarely wrong but in desperation will play dumb
Because men hate that she’s always right
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Life(?) of Trillian
Single/Zero
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Thanks for reading the first chapter of Just Drive, She Said. I'm humbled and surprised by the response. I'm kinda shocked anyone even read it. So. You know. Thanks and everything.
Okay, so I said every 10 days-ish and it's only been 7-ish but I've got stuff going on (hey, I have stuff, stuff that goes on) so if you're looking for chapter 2 of Just Drive, She Said, it's posted. Here.
Warning to the religiously sensitive: There's a potentially offensive paragraph or two, but I promise it's not gratuitously offending religion - it is contextual and relevant.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
So, obviously I'm depressed. Duh. That's a given.
I'm unemployed. I'm approaching the one year anniversary of my lay-off. And I'm no closer to landing a full-time job than I was the day I was laid off.
I knew it would be "a while." I knew it could be a year.
But.
Now that I'm actually closing in on a year the reality of my reality is hitting hard.
The depression seems to be kicking up a couple notches. People told me there'd be depression and I thought I was braced for it.
But hooo boy, this is harder than I imagined. And what I imagined was awful.
And the telemarketing gig is beyond awful. It may in fact be killing me.
So. Yeah.
I do all the things you're supposed do to combat depression. Stay positive. Find happiness in small positive things, little things I enjoy like music, movies, books, etc. Get some exercise. Call a friend.
Okay, so, maybe calling my friends isn't the best way to combat depression.
I've known for a while that my friends are a source of stress and depression. But I know it's not them, it's me. They're not doing anything wrong, they're not purposely depressing and stressing me. They're just being normal people. And some of them have been extraordinarily great to me since I was laid off.
But.
Most of my friends haven't worked for 5+ years. They are all married. Most of them have children or are trying to have children. They've all moved to nice big houses in nice suburban communities. Something that, when they were single or first married, most of them staunchly swore they'd never do. But it happens, life happens. I know their lives aren't perfect. I know they have stress and issues and problems and it's not one big prozac moment.
But.
They haven't worked much less endured work-related stress and stress from losing their jobs. When they got married they had two incomes to save up a large down payment so their mortgages are relatively low. A few of my friends are even close to paying off 30 year mortgages in 15 years thanks to low mortgages thanks to sizable down payments thanks to two incomes. And I'm happy for them, really, when we were all single these are the things we talked about and planned and hoped for in our lives. Though very few of them planned to quit working. We all said we'd work, in some capacity, no matter how many children we had. Some of them had careers that would easily translate to work-at-home jobs. One by one they met great guys and got married and followed through with all the plans we talked about when we were single. They moved forward. And, oddly, none of them continued to work or even migrated to their work-at-home ideas. Their careers, their interests, their goals...poof! gone. These were highly educated professional women. Now they're highly educated women who consciously choose to not work.
I, on the other hand, did not move forward. I worked. That's it. I worked. At first my friends insisted there's someone for everyone and someone, some man would come along and I'd get married and have two incomes and save for a house and have kids and I was going to be a great mom...yeah, the statistics, the cold hard facts, the body of concrete evidence pointing against me evaded them.
I, on the other hand, looked at the stats, crunched the numbers and realized that since women my age outnumber men 4 to 1 there's no swutting way there's someone for everyone and with each passing birthday it became more clear that a) there's not someone for everyone and b) I'm one of the people on the single side of the stats. In life, as in schoolyard games, I was not good enough to be chosen for a team.
Some of my friends finally stopped being ridiculously deluded by their own rose colored glasses and admitted that I was right, the stats don't lie and I'm not getting any younger and the man prospects were getting more narrow all the time. I am the Mayor of Singleton. Someone has to be.
So they insisted that just because I'm single doesn't mean I can't follow through with the lives we planned and hoped for when we were single. They encouraged me to try to buy a condo, live there a few years, sell and make a profit, move to a bigger place and then be a foster parent and then adopt. That's the path a lot of single people who want a home and family take. It made sense to me. It wasn't how I imagined my life, but, it was good. A woman no man wants adopting kids parents don't want. Sounds very Hallmark Movie Night. And it appealed to my sense of compassion. It wasn't the "ideal" situation, I would prefer to have a husband and raise children in a two-parent home. But. As we know, my life(?) is not exactly ideal. A lot of rejection, disappointments, unforeseen issues, and a lot of Plan Bs. And as long as there are children who are not wanted, there are children who need a home, even a one parent home is better than no parent and no home. The whole thing started to make a lot of sense to me. My parents were even coming around to the idea. They encouraged me, told me I wouldn't be doing it on my own, they'd be there with full grandparent support. Everyone told me if anyone could manage a job and single parenthood it was me.
So, I found a small condo with good resale potential, planned to live there 4 -5 years, build some equity and save some money, buy a bigger place and then start the foster and adoption process.
There you go. There it is. The story behind the story and the bigger reasons behind why unemployment and foreclosure are even more depressing than "just" being laid off and losing my home. I was working on my revised life-plan. I wrote down a plan, had all the sub-goals and steps to get to the big goal. By the end of 2011 I would embark on finding a home big enough to be social-worker approved for a couple kids and have a little money saved. I read every book I could find about foster parenting and adopting older or special needs kids.
And now I'm not working. Not by choice. And I'm going to lose my home. And last week I boxed up all the books on foster parenting and adopting and sent them to a book reseller.
Yeah. That's that.
When I was first laid off I crunched the numbers and tried to figure out how to stay on track, what I had to do to keep up with my plans. Being unemployed for longer than six months would mean putting my plans on hold until 2012 or 2013. Which would put me older and closer to the age where social workers and adoption agencies start questioning and vetoing single-parent adoption. Single parent adoption is difficult. You have to jump through a lot of extra hoops. And there are already a lot of hoops for adoption. When you're single there are almost double the amount of hoops.
When I hit the six month mark of unemployment I refused to give up, but, I did force myself to start accepting the reality that my plans were not only postponed, but probably going to have to be canceled completely. So I've been kind of upset about that. Each month I thought, "Okay, I can still turn this around, if I get a job this week I might be able to get back on track." And now that I'm closing in on a year...and there are more foreclosures in my building...and the value of my condo has dropped to almost half what I paid for it...and I'm still unemployed...there's no way I can a) sell my place; b) recoup the loss in just a couple years; c) even consider adopting or fostering even a cat let alone a child.
A few weeks ago I made myself stare into the face of reality, deal with it, accept it and stop pinning hopes on an unrealistic fantasy. I was deluding myself. It was unhealthy. It was a form of denial. Denial not only of my current situation, but of the slim chances of my plan working even if I hadn't been laid off. So many things had to happen "just so" for my plan to work. The housing market had to stay stable. (It did not.) I had to save money. (I was doing this but not enough thanks to a wage freeze.) I had to find a suitable for children home that I could afford. I had to prove my worthiness and stability (financial, emotional, physical, professional) to social workers. Someone else had to choose to not want their children. I mean, there are a lot of factors and if even one of them wasn't perfect, and I mean perfect, the plan wouldn't happen. I now see the lay off and ensuing unemployment as a way to hasten my acceptance. If I hadn't been laid off I would have clung to my plan. And the reality is that it was a very long shot under the best of circumstances. Difficult as it is, I'm trying to see that this is actually a positive aspect of unemployment. Facing cold, hard reality. No more clinging to false hopes and elaborate, slim-chanced plans.
It is good that I'm dealing with it now. But it's still depressing. That's why the past couple of weeks have been especially difficult for me.
And then, because the Universe loves to throw poignant irony at me, one of my friends announced that she and her husband are expecting child number three.
And, then, a few days later, one of my friends who's been through every possible type of insemination is finally pregnant.
Yep. Two of my friends are expecting babies.
And yes, yes, I am really and truly happy for them and their husbands.
But it's really depressing for me to be around all the jubilant happy family planning.
I feel selfish and guilty for feeling jealous and depressed by their happy news.
It's not their fault that sometimes they depress me. It's my fault. I'm the failure, I'm the one who can't get her life together. I'm the one who's too sensitive. They're just doing what people do. They're just living normal lives. They're not horrible people self righteously flaunting their success and happiness in my face.
Or, well, you know, not usually. Not intentionally. A few days ago one of my friends came over to help me lug some stuff to the charity shop. She brought her kids. It got to be nap time. The kids hugged their mom and laid down on the couch for a catnap. As they drifted off to sleep they called out, "I love you, Mommy." I know. I know. They could not possibly be any cuter. My friend said, "...and that, Trill, is how I keep my perspective and sanity and why I don't go back to work. No one, in any office where I ever worked, told me they loved me. I hear it, unsolicited, many times a day."
Gee. How nice for you, friend. That got me thinking. How many times a day does someone tell me they love me? None. Per week? Other than my mother? None. Per month? Other than my mother? None. Per year? Other than my mother and occasionally my nieces and once or twice a far away friend? None. When was the last time someone other than a family member or friend tossing out the occasional cursory "love ya" told me they loved me? I can't remember. Probably 2001. Nine years.
And I wonder why I'm depressed?
I decided I have to find a way to deal with this. I either cut myself off from my friends, just drop them, because we have little in common and just by being them they depress me. Or. I figure out how to deal with my depression, envy and inability to achieve what I want in my life.
I have "lost" a lot of friends in the past 10 years. They got married, moved, had kids, stopped working, moved again...we drifted. So if I cut myself off from my few remaining friends I'll be nearly friendless. MAF and his partner are working in Europe so right now, at this moment, I have no single friends closer than 6,000 miles from me. If I cut myself off from my married with children friends MAF's absence makes a social life a bit problematic. If I cut myself off from my married with children friends basically I have no friends.
But, if I don't find a job soon I'll be homeless, I'll have to move home with my mother hundreds of miles away and this will all be a moot point. My social life will be my mother and her senior citizen friends and neighbors. So, you know, ultimately this is all a stupid waste of emotion anyway.
Okay. So. That's way more information than anyone wants. But I could use some advice. Advice other than "find new friends." I've tried. I do try. I know people, lots of people, but friends, real, get together and socialize friends are hard to find, especially single, childless friends. What do single people do to handle the envy and depression caused by their married with children friends? (Again, other than "find new friends.") Therapy?
Or ultimately is this just evolution at work, the thinning of the herd? If we were a herd or flock of animals and no males wanted to mate with me I'd be viewed as a liability. I'd be ostracized from the herd/flock. Are humans any different? Are mateless, childless members of our herd a liability and socially cast out and ignored? Do I just need to accept this as the reality of single life?
I read a statistic about unemployment that only fueled this whole contemplative depression. In the last two years childless employees were laid off 1.5 to 1 over employees with children under the age of 18. That works out that in a company-wide layoff of 300 people, 200 of them will be childless. Thinning of the herd. Evolution. Plus it's easier to tell a childless person they're being laid off. There are no cute photos of grinning children on the desk. There are no college funds being jeopardized. It's just less painful to lay off a childless employee. The lay-off only affects one person, not an entire family, not children.
And please, spare me the "single people can be very happy on their own, lots of single people are very fulfilled and happy" line. I know that. And that rocks for them. Yay them. But they are the single people who do notwant to be in a committed relationship and/or have children. They're living the life they want to live. So naturally they are fulfilled and happy without a spouse and/or children.
So, back to my question. What do I do about my friends and the depression they cause me? Is the only option figuring out a way to get past and give up on what I want in my life, accept the loneliness/lovelessness and just be happy for my friends, maybe even live vicariously through their lives? Now that my save money/buy a bigger home/adopt plan has slid away from me is there another option?
I know - just get over it and "make peace" with my life as it is, however it is. There is real human suffering in this world and my failure and loneliness is inconsequential and trivial compared to what a lot of people deal with on a daily basis. I know this. I am very aware that my problems aren't problems. Well. Okay. Losing my job and home are problems. Big problems. But. Lots of people are unemployed and homeless. I'm not special. But I do need to figure out how to deal with all of this. And it's all tied into one big depressed jumble. All of the issues are related to each other. I don't think there's one answer to solve all of it, but I do think there must be a way to deal with the resulting depression, emptiness and envy I feel toward my friends. I'm certainly not the first person who's gone through this. What are the coping mechanisms? What is the "best" way to deal with resulting depression?
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Well this sucks. I had another shift as the world's punching bag today, otherwise known as telemarketing. Demoralizing, humiliating, will-killing work. I'd say I hate it but that goes without saying...and it goes a lot deeper. I have a job where I am regularly, routinely, told to fuck off. I mean literally, people tell me to fuck off. Because of my job. My job is to irritate people to the extent that they are so angry at me that they tell me to fuck off.
I am beaten. Really beaten. To a pulp. Dignity and hope are in tatters.
I'm not an angry person. I don't anger easily. Sure, stuff bugs me, usually it's injustices and cruelties that get under my skin. But I'm finding myself increasingly agitated after my shifts on the phone.
I'm not taking my job stress home with me. That's not it.
It took me a while to sort out why I feel so angry after work.
Today I had a breakthrough.
I'm angry because I can't commit suicide because I no longer have life or health insurance. If I die there's no life insurance money for the family to deal with my expenses. If the attempt fails there's no health insurance to cover the medical care expenses related to the failed attempt.
When I had a job and health insurance and could afford life insurance, death was always an option. If things got really bad I had an option. Just knowing I could, knowing there was an option, was always enough to make me realize how fortunate I was.
"Hey, I can afford life insurance and I have health insurance. See? Things aren't as awful as they could be."
"Yeah, you're right, Trill, just knowing there's an option is comfort enough to keep going. Let's listen to some music and read for a while. Things'll be better tomorrow. And if not, we can kill ourselves then."
Now even that final option is taken away from me.
And it really, really, really makes me mad that the only thing preventing me from finally topping myself is the fact that I can't afford life or health insurance. Why does that make me angry? Because if I could afford life insurance and health insurance I wouldn't be at the point where I want to kill myself. The Gift of the Magi ironic conundrum of that really annoys the crap out of me.
I think that's the definition of depression - both personal psychoses and national economic plight: Anger over not being able to afford suicide.
