Another depressing day

Wow, ya know, I look around this world and I watch the news on t.v., and I try to make some sense of it all, but after spending my day trying to deal with a $9 refund check from the state of Virginia that I received as a refund for my personal property tax on my car, I was completely unsuccessful and I am still trying to understand this crazy place. Apparently I cannot cash this $9 check at Wal-Mart, they have somehow "flagged" me as a risk I guess, despite the fact that I have my drivers' license address matching the address on the check, despite that it's a state check, and despite the fact that it's less than $10 bucks. When you can't even cash a fucking $9 dollar check at fucking WAL-MART, that tends to push me right over the edge into major depression.

So, I figured, screw it, I guess I have to drive to one of only THREE Bank of American ATMs in this godforsaken hellhole of Pittsburgh PA, and deposit it there. The check, after all, is drawn on the Bank of America, so that should be a no-brainer, right? WRONG. The two ATMs that I traveled to earlier today, don't even GIVE YOU the option of DEPOSIT when you scan your ATM card. They only allow you to take money OUT, not put money IN. The two ATMs are located in a local mall, which is depressing in and of itself, because I loathe going to the malls this time of year. But I braved the crowds and the parking chaos to go there, and came up with nothing again. Then of course, I feel restless and lost, wandering from store to store, looking at things that I would like to get for Pete, but have no money to do anything with, and I feel overwhelmingly sad and depressed all over again because I have no job...it's a vicious cycle that I go through, and today was just too much. I still have that goddamned $9 check. Part of me feels like getting into my car, and driving back to CIVILIZATION in WASHINGTON DC to cash the stupid fucking thing once and for all, but spending $30 in gas to go cash a $9 check seems rather ridiculous even for me.

This world is one in which I was not at all prepared to encounter. I mean, when I was younger, the promises of the 1980's of a very prosperous world and future were constantly reinforced in my psyche, I was on my way to a successful career with a college education that would "open doors" and allow me to make a major mark on the world, to contribute something special and important...that's where my head was all those years, that's what I was working towards, that's what I had my heart set on doing all my life---something important that mattered.

Now I'm seeing chaos, big businesses asking for bailouts from the government, an economy that is turning into pre-war Nazi Germany where they wallpapered the walls with money because it was so worthless and stood in lines for bread and soup. I'm seeing chaos everywhere, people losing their homes because of bad mortgage decisions, overpopulating the homeless shelters which are already overcrowded as it is, and I'm seeing the pain and the desperation of millions of people going through worse problems than I am dealing with in my own life, and I am wondering how the hell the world got this fucked up? This is NOT what I signed up for, this is NOT how I expected the world to be when I "grew up," this is NOT how I thought my LIFE would be.

I'm so disillusioned and disgusted by it all, I don't even want to get out of bed in the mornings anymore. Of course, anyone who knows me well knows that during the holidays, I am uber-sensitive to every little thing, and prone to go into rants and upset depressive moments much more often than usual...so this should not come as a surprise to anyone, that I'm feeling like shit, hating the world and everybody in it, and more and more I take a look around at my own stupid choices that I THOUGHT were a good idea, but whenever I make a major life decision in the GUISE of doing something RIGHT and GOOD for myself, it ends up biting me in the ass and causing me to feel like I cannot even trust my own judgments about anything anymore.

This disturbing thought has plagued me all day long...Pete pays my bills, as long as I give him blowjobs every day and sex anytime he wants it. What does that make me? Is it any wonder my self-esteem level is sinking fast? I've lost my job, my independence, my motivation to do something important in the world, and I feel reduced to a skanky whore, trading sex for financial protection from a man who claims he loves me. I've heard people say they love me so many times, though, and I always end up hurt by them, so I don't really put much stock into that phrase anymore. It's a nice notion, and sure it would be nice if it actually were true just once, ya know? But I remain skeptical. He didn't seem to "love me" the other night when we had a fight, and he slammed the door and pouted all evening, giving me confusing and upsetting signals, I didn't even know it was ME he was upset with---I thought he was upset because he had to work rather than do what he wanted to do, and he was just taking it OUT on me. But apparently I was the reason he was upset, and I didn't even know I was doing anything wrong. This has made me feel like the rug is being pulled out from under me no matter what I do, where I go---I feel like I'm walking on eggshells, that he could fly off in anger at me for any reason, even when I am not doing anything remotely close to antagonizing him. This makes me distrust this entire situation very much. It's like I'm in a dysfunctional world where nothing makes sense anymore, there's no logic, no reason, and nothing is the way I thought it should be.

From my relationship to my lack of employment, to the fucked up holidays with family issues and financial woes, is it any wonder that I'm looking around and hating the world right now? I know I'm not the only one feeling like this. I tried calling Peter today for some comfort, to lament my worries and get a hug over the phone...he's always been good for giving me a hug and telling me it'll be okay, wrapping me in his arms and protecting me from my own insecure worries and upset and depression whenever it flared up like this...but my phone died in less than 60 seconds after saying hi, and I didn't have any way of refilling it with money until later in the day, so I didn't get to talk to him much at all, and it hurt a lot, because I really NEEDED to talk to him. It just seems that anything I need right now just isn't going to happen.

I've seen Pete for 10 minutes today, when he came home from work to eat the meal I prepared, then the toilet overflowed but he didn't have time to deal with it so I ended up mopping up the mess while he took off to his rehearsal and it left me feeling like my problems, my worries, my feelings come second to his world, his plans, his life. I can tell you that if something such as that happened with Peter, he would have called his wife, or his office, and told them he would be a little later than planned, in order to BE THERE FOR ME when I was having a meltdown. I feel right now like that's not going to exist with Pete at all. He has not yet once dropped anything on his agenda for me, he's just plowed on ahead regardless of how I'm feeling or what I'm needing. If I need to stay home and spend a quiet evening, we still go out to the movies to see what he wants to see. Ya know?

So I'm trying to adjust to melding into Pete's world, but right now I feel like it's not working very well, I don't know HOW to make this work, I don't know if it's going to be a good thing or if I'm going to end up homeless and penniless, with no legal standing whatsoever to protect myself from ruin....and what makes it worse is that I have nobody to talk to about it. So far from my experience of living here 3 months, I have decided that Pittsburgh is lame, the jobs suck, the roads with construction suck year round, the neighborhood we live in sucks, the people I have so far encountered here at the jobs I've worked so far totally suck, and I saw a bumper sticker that summed the whole place up in one sentence: "Blitz-burgh: A drinking town with a football problem." I have absolutely NO INTEREST in sports, I hate snow, and I'm worth more than $12 an hour as an administrative specialist with 20+ years of experience and a kick-ass resume. I am feeling just like I did when I moved back to Michigan after 9/11, that I've made a huge mistake, that I should go back to DC (civilization, such that it was), and try to just live alone somewhere, completely alone, without a man around, without anybody to bring me further down into the abyss I thought I had escaped before, but which is now threatening to suck me back into it.

I feel stuck, I feel lost, I feel scared to death, I feel lonely and upset, and there's nothing anybody can do about it.

Bye for now.

---Sassy Girl