Numb

I'm feeling a little numb. But I guess numb may be better than overwhelmed and upset. I was quite upset last night when I went to bed. I was mostly worried and scared. I am worried about being able to survive here properly. I've never lived in a big city like this before. Every time I leave the apartment to run an errand there are no shortage of homeless people walking about. They even dumpster dive in our dumpsters here at these apartments. And I guess it terrifies me because I know how easy it is to find yourself homeless. You don't have to have done anything wrong.

People who have been fortunate enough to have never have been homeless always assumes it's the homeless person's fault. But how is a child responsible for their homeless state? How is a mentally ill person who can't keep track of the day of the week responsible for their homeless state? How is the unexpected loss of a job one's own fault? How is a job transfer failing to go through properly one's own fault? Or the company you work for failing to explain the transfer process clearly one's own fault? I don't even think it's the alcoholic nor junky's own fault they're homeless. It's our society's fault.

We're number one my red, white and black ass.

We have a lack of safety nets here for catching veterans, those who are mentally ill etc. for keeping them from falling through the cracks and ending up homeless. We spend too much money on the military for jets and fighters that sit in hangers getting dusty. And it looks like it's only going to get worse before it gets better.

In the mean time, all I can do is try to keep a roof over our heads. Keep calling the local Home Depots hoping someone gets sick of me calling and puts my transfer through. It's not a fun thing to be going through when your dad just died.

Overwhelming

Life is often overwhelming. Or at least for me, there has never been a shortage of overwhelming events that often make me feel like I'm drowning in a pitch black tunnel with no light to show me the way out and I can't tell up from down.

My son turned 31 two days ago and I haven't seen him in over ten years now. I miss him terribly and worry for him constantly. My daughter is under the same roof as myself, but I worry for her constantly. My biggest worry is trying to ensure neither will be homeless after I'm gone and that the home that they have after I'm gone is a safe one.

Learned a couple of weeks ago that my father is seriously ill. He was diagnosed with liver cancer and just learned a couple of day ago it's stage 3. He's 72 and he's beat the odds in life a lot of times. He has lived and isn't afraid to die. He wasn't the best father, but I love him. I haven't seen him in over ten years and most of the things I may be mad at him about seem trivial now. All I want for him to know right now is that I still love him, that I will always love him.

He wasn't around much when I was growing up and I wish he had been there more, mostly to keep my mother from beating me because she had a violent temper. I cried for him and she would mock me that he wasn't coming. I threatened to tell daddy more than once about her beatings. But I was always just so happy to see him when he made it for a visit that I never remembered to tell.

My sister Reneta wants us all to make it to South Carolina to see Dad and each other. It's been more than ten years since I've seen anyone except my daughter. And the only reason I see her everyday is she lives with me. The other day Cherokee forbid me from dying. She knows that's not how it works, but hey, can't blame her for trying.

As for going to see Dad and everyone else, I want to very badly. But my arch enemy the monetary system instituted and perpetuated by greedy ass people is totally in my way. My stomach is in knots and I've been up all night. Up all night isn't unusual for me, but the knotted stomach is driving me up a wall.

Would love to visit a doctor about some of the things that are troubling me, but I currently have no health coverage. You have a right to an attorney and if you can't afford one, one will be appointed to you free of charge. But you don't have a right to health care in this country. If you can't afford a doctor, no one's going to appoint one to you, you gonna die.

Of course, no matter what we're all headed there anyway. Still, most of us would prefer to put it off as long as possible. But until it's my time I'll just keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep pushing forward no matter how hard the world keeps trying to push me backward.

Daunting

The idea of a big move is intimidating and quite daunting. And for some people a big move is moving to the next town over or the next county over. For me, those would be little moves that require minimum preparation. But a move from one state to another is a substantial move that can throw you into culture shock.

My first big move was from Ohio to South Carolina motivated by not wanting to still be in Ohio when my mother was released from prison for conspiracy to commit aggravated murder. Knowing my mother as well as I do, I knew if I was still present in Ohio when she was released that she would pick up where she left off in her pursuit to kill me. And I would either die at her hands or be forced to kill her in self defense, neither of which are desirable to me in any way.

My move to South Carolina was made easier by the fact that I have relatives there. So I had family that I could turn to if I needed them. I have a tendency to be extremely independent so I'm not in the habit of asking for help or seeking help until I absolutely need it, or often way overdue for needing help. After years of emotional and physical abuse at the hands of my mother and no one ever being there for me, I don't expect anyone to come save me or be there for me any more. I stopped hoping to be saved or helped when I was still a child. But my move was made easier by having my father and step-mom to move in with initially when I arrived there. But I made a point of not over staying my welcome and moving into my own place quickly.

After my daughter was diagnosed with Asberger's  Syndrome, a form of Autism, I found myself motivated to move due to South Carolina's lack of proper educational programs for children with varying disabilities. Unable to return to Ohio because my mother lives there, I did some research and discovered that LA has some schools that specialize in children like my daughter. But I couldn't get her registered to one until we lived there.

Now my paternal Aunt Sonny lives in California somewhere, but I lost her address and phone number and didn't feel I could call my father and ask for them. My attempt to relocate to LA was a disaster. The apartment I thought I had lined up was much smaller than the add had made it seem. If it had been a parking space, it wasn't large enough for me to park my Camaro in and we don't even want to discuss how expensive this minuscule domicile was. There are tiny houses that are way more spacious than this place was.

So we found ourselves sleeping on the floor of a very nice couple from Utah who asked if we knew anyone in Utah. Well we did. We didn't know them very well, but I called them and they let me and my daughter come stay with them here in Utah temporarily. One of their daughter's gave up her room temporarily for me and Cherokee to share while she slept on the living room couch. The Whetstones will always hold a special place in my heart and I will always consider them family.

And now I find myself ready to make another big daunting move. But not so big and daunting as moving from one side of the country to the other. Las Vegas, Nevada is only about 450 miles from where I currently live in Utah. That's less than a 7 hour drive. So I've set up some vacation time for the beginning of March when I will also have a birthday on the 3rd. I will drive down there and spend a few days driving about getting to know the area.

I've been looking into extended stay hotels. And while some can be rather pricey, I have found a few that are reasonable. What I pay in rent now combined with what I'm paying to keep us warm during the winter is still less than a month at the extended stays I'm interested in. Utilities, WiFi and a pool are included. The mention of a pool makes everything perfect to my daughter.

I'm hoping and praying that everything goes well. There shouldn't be any trouble transferring my job. And if all goes reasonably well, perhaps I will be buying my first ever home for myself and my children. Charles may be in Ohio, but I still keep him in the forefront of my mind.

My biggest worry is that my children could end up homeless after I die. And I have been unable to buy a home here in Utah. I can't get a loan large enough to buy something that's halfway decently livable here. Things are just too expensive here. Plus, I really miss the diversity of Ohio. Still can't go back to Ohio and there's no sense in me dwelling on that. So I'm hoping the Las Vegas/Henderson area will do the trick for us.

I hope to have our own home by the time my younger brother Jason shows up with his Nanny dog in tow. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. If you're atheist, please wish us luck.

Refund Time!

Whoot! Whoot! Got my W2 a couple of days ago and I already did my return and e-filed it. And as soon as it gets here, guess who's making an appointment at her favorite salon. This guy!

But the return doesn't mean I get to go on a spending spree. It will make things easier for a few months. Several if I am extremely careful with it. But there are things that need to be done with it like maintenance on my Exploder. The annual oil change is due along with emissions testing for plate renewal. And Exploder needs new shocks all around. Meant to get shocks last year, except other repairs were more necessary first.

The other thing I hope to do this year is relocate, and not just to a better rental. I'm looking to relocate out of Utah and it looks like I may land in Nevada. I was originally thinking Colorado, but things have gotten ridiculously expensive there and I want to finally purchase my first home. I'll never be able to afford to buy a home here in Utah.

A friend of mine recently bought his first home here in Utah. $130,000 and it needs all kinds of work. To me if you're coughing up at least $80,000, it should be at least livable with all the essentials not significantly out of date and over due for replacing. What you would need to spend here for a fixer-upper, in Nevada the same fixer-upper is about half what it is here.

Many people are happy and content to stay where they were born their whole lives, and I probably would have been too if things beyond my control didn't make it more likely for me to be murdered by my own mother back home in Ohio. I certainly didn't have big dreams of moving far away when I was young. But you do what you have to do to survive sometimes. My survival required me to leave Ohio and I can't go back there to live.

So after I've received my return, I'll start looking into transferring to a Home Depot in the Las Vegas area. Then I hope to finally buy my first home. Cross your fingers, say a prayer for me and wish me luck.

Be Good to Yourself

When you're poor, being good to yourself is a challenge. As a mom, I am already prone to putting myself on the back burner and taking care of everyone else first. And usually once you're finished taking care of everyone else, there's nothing left for yourself, not even a good night's sleep.

But my two children while both being special needs people are no longer children. They are special needs adults now. And I'm very blessed that they don't require a lot of special attention. As long as they have internet access, a couple of good video games and all the basics like food, clean water and shelter, they are pretty easy to keep happy most of the time. There's no constant running to doctors and specialists like when they were children.

So I find I am now able to do something for myself once in a while. But when you're poor it can be hard to be good to yourself. Thankfully, I'm not too much of a girlie-girl, but even I need a little pampering once in a while. It doesn't cure my depression, nor fix the dilapidated rental we're stuck in, but it does boost my self-esteem for a bit so I'm not drowning in feeling like a worthless failure.

Some women are blessed enough to be able to have a monthly appointment with their favorite stylist, but I'm not someone who's lucky in that manner. And I've been told that if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all. But I do have good luck. It just gets used for things like surviving a severe skull fracture or the tornado missing my house. It may not ever produce a winning lottery ticket for me, but it has kept me alive when I probably should have died.

I know many people of privilege are mean enough to think that poor people don't deserve to ever eat a good meal, have a decent set of clothes, receive proper medical care, have a reliable vehicle to get to work with, nor ever get to step into a beauty parlor and pamper yourself a little. After all, you're poor. That means you're not a full fledged human being with thoughts, feelings, goals and ambitions.

The assumption is you are poor because you are lazy. If you ask my daughter about me, she'll tell you I'm a workaholic. People of privilege who grew up in well to do families and have been lucky enough to have never experienced any type of poverty don't give a thought to what other circumstance may have made you poor and/or are keeping you poor. They don't have a clue how much work your special needs child(ren) are and can't imagine what kind opportunities you've missed out on because you need a work schedule that allows you to be available for doctors' appointments and appointments with specialists.

It's hard to be good to yourself when you're poor. Finding time to do something for yourself can be a challenge when you're dividing yourself between your three jobs and caring for children or elderly or ill relatives. My time has opened up quite a bit since my special needs children became adults, but I still have constraints that can make holding down a job with a variable schedule impossible.

Yet money is always extra tight. Still I managed to squeeze out three different trips to my favorite salon this year. The most recent one being today. And I know it will be my last one for the year and I won't get to pamper myself again until next year when I get my income tax return. Sometimes the visit after receiving my income tax return is the only one I get for the whole year. And there have been years where I couldn't afford a hair appointment at all.

As for the privileged people that think that just because I'm poor I should have to suffer continually and never have anything nice nor ever do anything nice for myself, kiss my ass. God made mankind so that mankind may know joy, and there's no stipulation that only those with money are allowed to know joy. Even the poor may know joy.

When the opportunity presents itself, I will be good to myself. Even poor single moms need to be pampered occasionally so they don't forget how to smile, so you can still hold your head up and remember that you are important, especially to the people that love you and depend on you.

Pain

Pain is a pain in the ass.

I'm usually not a big baby about things, but I don't like to be in pain, physical nor emotional. My emotional pain I often bury under complaints about other things. There really isn't anything I can do about my emotional pain so I do my best to ignore it.

Physical pain on the other hand, not always so hard to ignore. Often impossible to ignore. My right ankle acting up was more than enough to deal with for me physically. Can't visit a doctor for help so I've been getting by with keeping it wrapped and taking an epsom salt bath everyday. That usually allows me to get through a whole night of work.

But I couple of nights ago I hurt my left hand at work. I somehow managed to break a blood vessel in the lower part of my palm while putting away silver carts. It's the first time I've ever had a bruise on my palm before. I have found that like the ankle keeping it wrapped limits how much it hurts, or at least keeps it from throbbing. But I'm waking up with the fingers of my left very stiff and sore which I find perplexing because I didn't hurt them. But a little flexing seems to dissipate that pain quickly.

Pain is a pain in the ass and I hate to be in pain of any kind, but sometimes you just have to deal with it as best you can.

Working on My Worthiness

I went to church yesterday. I haven't been going the past couple of years because our previous ward... Well, we were never going to be accepted there. There's a bubble here in Utah that makes living in this state quite unique. Your church is one place where you should always be accepted, but here renters like myself are often seen as transients and therefore not anyone the church needs to reach out to. Except the opposite is usually true. Renters are often in the most need of support.

Some people may like apartment life, but I'm not one of those people. I hate the lack of privacy, of feeling like I'm suffocating by the other tenants living on top of me. I hate not having my own yard. And I hate not being able to have a dog. My daughter's companion animal, Echo, is just not the same. But dogs do not belong in little apartments where they don't have there own yard to run and play in.

But after my experience with my last ward and the fact that I'm still a renter, I was more than a little reluctant to visit my current ward. I've basically been in this apartment for two years without going to church. Yet I'm very thankful for the missionaries who came to the door a month or so ago. Not anyone could have knocked on that front door and convinced me to visit my own church.

I was overwhelmed the first visit. I only stayed for sacrament. Then I had to get out of there for fear I would say something extremely inappropriate. I didn't go again the next Sunday. But when I did go again it was different. Again I only stayed for sacrament then walked home relieved that meeting felt better than the first. I meant to go the Sunday before last, but my right ankle is giving me trouble. An old injury where I strained it years ago has been acting up and I had to call off work the Friday before that Sunday. I contemplated driving over to the church, but it felt silly to drive a block away.

But yesterday I drove that block over. I stayed through sacrament, went to class after sacrament and even went to Relief Society. Relief Society is usually the one class I have felt the most uncomfortable with. But I wasn't half as uncomfortable as I expected. I actually enjoyed myself. But I miss the two elders that convinced me to come back to church, especially Elder Hernandez. There are still elders there but I guess you could say I don't feel like they're mine.

My daughter didn't go with me. But I've got to let her make her own spiritual journey. I can't take it for her. Plus, I've still got a long way to go with my own journey in this area. I still don't feel worthy to take the sacrament and I don't know how long it will be before I do again.