Filling in the Gaps

Well, it seems I’ve had some inquiries about the pieces that are not written here. I don’t know whether I left them out because I thought I was writing only for me or out of embarrassment. Either way, some have told me they need gap-fillers to get the “why” behind what they are reading. Come to think of it, I think I need the “why,” too, so…. in a medium-sized nutshell:

In October of 2008, when I started toying with the idea of blogging, I was a 38 year old law school graduate working with a professional association as a liaison between the members and the public. I had just been promoted, just celebrated 3 years with a really kind and thoughtful partner, and was starting to get my health-issues – a chronic muscular disorder – somewhat under control. As soon as it was manageable, I would take the bar exam and start living a life. At least that’s what I remember telling myself.

Instead, by 2009, I felt like I was being set up to be pushed out of my job, my health worsened exponentially under the stress, and money was beginning to get extremely tight with the economy taking its toll on my spouse (“B”), working as an engineer’s technician, and his job hours. As one later entry reads, I was fired – or so I think – on June 12th later that year.

I held on to hope for a tiny bit. I stayed in my apartment in my town just sure I would get another job soon thereafter. I am a good worker. I go above and beyond. I have ideas and ambition. I take initiative. Seems those qualities are really only good on paper. My ambition only landed me on my ass out the door. I have never been out of work; much less let go without explanation. And yet I was angry; not scared or worried. I was, instead, bitter that I wasn’t given a chance to defend myself against the loss of my job. I expected more from a boss who is a lawyer. I guess knowing how to be unfair was his greatest leverage.

I lived off my severance and B’s 5-8 hours a week until the end of September when there simply wasn’t anymore left. My mother lived only 3 hours from me then, and when she offered for us to live in her guest house in exchange for taking care of her and her invalid husband while she recovered from pending shoulder surgery, I thought it was just the break I needed. What better arrangement? I could stay in the same state, have shelter while I continued to look for work, and by the time my mother recovered from her surgery and could resume her life, we could go back to living ours…. Right? My mother and I never did get along. Just because I had managed to spend some weekends with her without drawing blood did not translate into my being able to live next door – necessary or not. If only we were mindless robots who took orders without question. We moved in the first weekend in October and the day before Thanksgiving you found me lashing out at all my mother’s insults yet again. In retrospect, it wasn’t anything new. But a person can only take so many times of being called, “stupid,” “ugly,” and “lazy.” And those were her good days. Her drunken stupors every night added fuel to the fire and her lifestyle, in general, was hypocritical to the constant lectures she gave me about living healthily. I’m surprised I didn’t leave the morning after she fell trying to get into bed – so drunk she couldn’t manage to get square with the mattress – and finally falling like dead weight against the wall calling for my husband to come and pick her up. But I didn’t bolt; I stayed. I made every excuse for her behavior, and life went on the next morning starting with her barking orders to everyone as usual and ending with her passed out on the conch, half a glass of wine dangling from her hand.

The day B and I finally left it was over a box that B neglected to take to the county dump. The urgency with the garbage dump was the refuse the raccoons would get in, so when she came down a flight of stairs and sought me out to inquire whether I had told B about an empty cardboard box, I have to believe it was really only to start yet another argument. So he forgot to take the box. WTF? He couldn’t take it the next day? The next hour? I don’t rightly care what one's frustrations and difficulties are. No one has the right to throw barbs at another as a diversion to their unhappy existence. B got up every morning and by 7 am was showering, feeding, dressing and changing my step-father. In between, he was maintaining my mother’s yard, driving her to where she needed to go, and babysitting them both nightly at the local bar. And though we left in anger, considering it all, it was time. B wasn’t back 5 minutes when he heard me scream, “Get what you can put it the car; we’re leaving.” After an hour or so, we found ourselves staying locally – with our 5 cats - for the next couple days until I could devise a plan. The next week or so was spent calling friends who might have room for us, calling my father might have money to borrow, and returning once to grab as much as could fit into the back of 5x8 U-Haul trailer. I lost most of my books (leisure and professional), my clothes, my kitchenware and my furniture. Taking my father up on his offer to stay in his rental in California, we started west.

We’ve been here since December 9th or so and I’m still not sure where I’m at. I mean, geographically, I do. I’m in an even smaller town than where we just drove from. I’m where job prospects are just as grim and where the bar exam is harder 10-fold. I sit, day-to-day, on bed in an empty house looking for work or trying to figure out another plan. Some days I’m bitter, others I'm resentful. I am grateful not only that B is willing to do anything he can – even work maintenance at McDonald’s, 30 miles away at 5 am for minimum wage – but also for his patience with my constant “flip-outs” which are beginning to convince me more and more of nature over nurture. But *where* am I?

I’ll be 40 in 9 days and this is not what I envisioned it to be. Appropriately, there’s a movie playing in the background as I write this, and I just heard a character say, “If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans.”