The Trials of Life

 My brother almost died in the hospital again this week. His lungs filling with water from a rare complication of open heart surgery. We have stayed in contact which is good. I knew what was happening from Facebook. He did call today. I keep my mouth shut about my mother as much as possible with him and it's not being brought up. Why let her destroy this relationship too? She's done so much damage to them all. At least he seems to be doing better now and is out of the woods That is good!. I feel depressed it's been so long since we have seen each other but I told myself not to blame myself.  There's been no money to see him or his kids. I wondered all week if he would make it so this week was very hard.  I made the mistake of googling the illness he had and it was a 50 percent death rate and above! Well at least he didn't seem to know this. It's good they didn't tell him. He even got cellulitis too in one of his surgery sites where they took out a vein for the heart. Modern medicine sometimes does succeed in saving lives. I hope he will be okay still though he is stable now. Please stay alive dear brother, do not leave me alone with the two cold witches. 

The hours of my medical routine wear me down. The motivation is to stay alive, so it has to be done but I'm tired.  I have to take my pills. I have to wrap my legs. I have do this and that. Everything takes too long. Sometimes you think, "Shouldn't there be more to life?" Inside the thought inside my head is "I DON'T WANT TO". What is wrong with me? I don't know. I have to force myself to do everything. Is this real physical fatigue? I'm not sure. I'm so exhausted. I want to stay in bed all day. I want to cry looking at all the things that need cleaned in here.  I had a funny day-dream about being Snow White and commanding the animals of the forest to clean up my apartment, it didn't happen.

My husband once he gets out of bed will go on his computer, to make what little money he can scrape up. Wage slavery in the face of a screen. At least he isn't being abused by customers at McDonalds or having a teen manager scream at him to mop faster while his gout filled legs fall from underneath him.  The dribbles and drabs feed us literally like the proofreading money that should come in this week to pay for some groceries. I have 10 dollars in my wallet. This nice friend did buy me lunch yesterday. I wish I could do things for other people like that. It's sad how I am always the one in need and have been for years. I owe back 100s of favors and good deeds.

I woke up with a severe Meniere's attack yesterday. My hearing dropped by at least half. The ear ringing was so loud it was like my head was getting sand blasted off. Maybe it was a mistake to use some canned soup in a recipe but actually fall with it's weather changes and spring too can bring worsened attacks. I took a water pill at 5am. I started peeing and once I was up past the early stages of vertigo, some of my hearing returned. I haven't felt right all week. It has felt harder to stay upright. Why get drunk when your head can spin without the booze? It was so bad I wondered how high I'd have to turn my hearing aids up. I have read this illness can cause depression and extreme fatigue on it's own. I kept getting spells of vertigo all week. The day before I knew something was seriously wrong, I almost fell asleep in the car while we were grocery shopping.  It was a warning sign for me since I have had these before. I couldn't focus my eyes on things properly. I knew something was wrong and what awaited me.

After the sink plugged up last night, I started shouting and cussing.  Its hard enough to keep things clean in here and I've needed help for years. I was ranting and raving so much and mocking bad plumbers and about "bastards" who expect super-skinny narrow pipes to work and about people who never have heard of garbage disposals, my husband started laughing his butt off. When I am pissed, I guess I can turn it all into a comedy routine. Why is plumbing so bad and stuck in the technology of  a 100 years ago. Why are apartments notorious for plugged drains? Make the pipes bigger you idiots!

I told my husband apply for this job he found on line. It's a long shot. Probably nothing will come of it, but it's one of those occasional shots in the dark. Getting decent jobs now are like winning the Lotto.  It would require a move but a friend lives in one of the cities the job is in and he could live there to make sure the job would turn out. Why do jobs have to be so hard to get? Should he beg in the cover letter, please let me have a life and don't let me be destroyed?. Why not do a website called GO JOB ME? People can beg for jobs instead of cash then!

 I feel too tired to move and wonder if he can handle it too physically but if you are having to show up at the food pantry almost every other week, something has to be done. Poverty is like a rising tide, and you realize you are drowning. How many times have I had to move to escape the streets? Three?  It's another gamble. I tell him. "Do not give up. You have a college degree and some experience. You used to be an assistant editor at a newspaper." We do not have to go sit in the streets. We are going today to have him check the train schedules to manage any interviews. His work at home just matched minimum wage and subsistence level. It went no where. It never offered real pay. With the prices shooting up, it's not working anymore.   He has to get something with insurance or I slide through the cracks. Will anyone hire a 51 year old? He has to eliminate all the dates on his resumes.

I imagine armies of thin, wealthy suited up job applicants with newer cars with unbroken windshields shoving my husband aside. If he got a job, he would have to take out a loan just to get decent enough clothes to wear to it. His wardrobe has suffered immensely since the clothes at thrift are even smaller among the yuppie class. This job is a writing dominant job, which is the only reason he is applying. The job system sucks, the whole thing needs changed. You shouldn't punish people for not having jobs when the stupid thing is run like the Lotto. Why couldn't we ever have any stability or security?

Inside I feel in emergency mode. Get rid of this crap. Maybe we need to move in a rented room for a while. Where would my medical equipment fit? The rent is taking more then half my check. They cut all our benefits so even buying food got tougher and tougher and now I'm getting tons of medical bills.  I'm eating things like boxed macaroni and cheese. The veggie stand filled some of the gaps but now as we move into fall it will be closing. Just having food shouldn't take so much work. One lady at the food pantry started shouting, "why do we have to get food from these people we don't even know?" I wanted to join her rant and rave. I started talking about how I was too poor to be acceptable for any of the churches around here and this one older man, told me he doesn't go to church either because he is too poor and they treated him badly as well. I said, "Real church families would be helping their own poor". One can see the lack of social connection everywhere. It disappears for the poor faster. I often think things would have gone far different with my family if I had decent money and a standard of living. I still would be no contact now but my relationships with the others would be stronger.

I ran crying into the bathroom, sniffling about the IRS taking away my social security, and becoming homeless, when my husband assured me their threats of a liens was different from a levy and we had nothing for them to put a lien against since our car is so old. The 20 percent tax rate for self employment is led to all this. They don't care how poor you are. They sent more papers for our "Offer of Compromise" to fill out. We have been forced do endless paperwork. Is it that hard to realize we are poor. I hope they aren't able to take advantage of the fact we can't afford a tax lawyer!

Our car is dying. I hope to get money to replace one of the tires this week from a discount tire place. The muffler is almost falling off it and it's loud. The radiator now has a leak. We may be able to fix the tire that needs filled every 4 days next week but what about the rest of it? We have realized with horror the bus doesn't show up too often in our neck of the woods, it's busier serving the ghetto area. Living among the rich as we do, it just doesn't come out here.  It's a small enough town that you call for the bus. It didn't pick us up even after three hours one day and we had to give up. That's going to make my life nearly impossible.

 A one way cab trip to where the medical center is would cost ten dollars. I applied for Para-transit and got turned down. Will I have to file a lawsuit to get the bus to show up one day?  If we lose the car, we will descend from bad but tolerable poverty to destitute poverty, the poverty I had in Chicago. The poverty were just getting somewhere becomes hell on earth and you are always trapped. I'd sooner give up the apartment then the car to be honest. There is a reason I had to hitchhike years ago.

Is there some magic formula to making money we didn't get the notice on? The Richie Riches around here make me nauseous with their pity or their disdain. I feel like screaming into a pillow. Around them I feel less than human, I can't take it or them anymore. I need to find a community that has other poor people in it. I'm tired of feeling like a nobody. I feel tired of being shamed by them. I'm tired of these fake Christians and their holiness based on their upper middle class lives and pretensions. I have realized this place has taken a massive toll on us even emotionally. I worry about my husband. I want him to have a decent future too.

 Why is God ignoring my prayers. I asked Him "Do not allow me to be financially destroyed and homeless allowing the narcissists to "win".  Will He answer? He answered regarding my brother. I don't want to die in a heap of pathos.  I don't want the answer to almost everything to be NO.  I want my husband to be happy too.