Yet Another Bad Neighbor Post…

Alright, friends. I need advice. Long rant ahead.

Struggle

I have been having a hard time lately. With just about everything. Honestly, I don’t even know where to start. I know I haven’t been blogging much these days, mostly because I can’t. I just can’t bring myself to do it. And who would want to read any of it anyway? I have had no energy, no motivation, and when I’m not taking care of my toddler, I’m lying on the couch, over-thinking, or taking depression naps. What a life.

So, here we go.

I was recently given the startling news that my father, grandfather, all my grandfather’s siblings, and my great-grandmother all have/had a rare form of muscular dystrophy, called OPMD. It is genetic (obviously), and there is a 50% chance that I have it. There is also a 50% chance that my brother and two sisters have it as well. And if I have it, there’s a 50% chance my son does as well. The night my grandmother told me, completely out of the blue, an hour before bedtime, I was shaken up. Really shaken up. I spent the next several hours on Google, reading up on the condition, trying to wrap my head around what to expect if/when symptoms occur. I didn’t fall asleep until nearly 3:00 in the morning.

If you want to learn more about the condition, you can click here. I won’t go into details. I’ve calmed down since getting the news, after doing my own research (let’s just say, my grandmother is extremely dramatic, and she made it seem like I 100% had it, and was in for a life of misery, which is not the case). The term “muscular dystrophy” is terrifying, but as far as these types of conditions go, this one isn’t as severe as others. It mainly affects the eyes and facial muscles, but can cause weakness in other parts of the body. Normally, it OPMD doesn’t present symptoms until the 40s to 60s, if at all. My grandfather and father  only recently started displaying symptoms. There is no cure or treatment, but with modern science, who knows what will be possible if/when it presents itself in me.

Next up, relationship crap. As I’m sure some of you know, Kyle started a new job a few months back. He leaves for work very early, and is back before dinner. You’d think this would be great, but it isn’t. He’s always exhausted, and always on edge and cranky. He passes out early every night, and we barely talk anymore. When we do talk, it always seems to turn into an immature fight. I’ve been getting swallowed alive by my depression lately, and struggling to keep up with housework and our toddler, and whenever I ask him to help with anything, it turns into a fight. A fight, and then the silent treatment. He gets defensive about everything, and it is wearing me out. I don’t want to bad mouth him. I know he works hard when he is at work, but he puts in zero effort at home. I’m struggling. I need HELP. But he won’t help me. And I am tired. So, so tired.

On top of all of these things that I need to process and over-think about, my normally sweet, little boy, who turned two at the end of January, is fully immersed in his “terrible twos” phase, and on most days, he really wears me out. Emotionally and physically. Once again, it’s just me with him. Always. Just. Me. 24/7. The weather has been bleak and wet, and we have been trapped inside most days of the week, which takes its toll on both of us. He gets worked up, bounces off the walls, gets sassy and cranky… and I’m so freaking tired, you guys. Always tired.

I’ve been feeling like an absolute failure in every aspect of my life lately. My relationship, my family, my health, my hobbies. Myself. Everything. The only little glimmers of happiness that I have found have been when Liam chooses to share how much he has learned lately. I have been trying hard to teach him his numbers and letters, whenever he sits still for just a second, which seems to never happen. But then, sometimes, we’ll be driving in the car, or eating lunch, and he will just start counting to 10, or correctly naming the letters on TV or in his books, or babbling out actual, tiny sentences, and forming coherent thoughts. Those are the moments that make me feel alright. Make me feel like I’m not a total failure.

I recently got this message from someone in Kyle’s family. Someone I have never met, and who has very opposing views to my own. She is very opinionated, and apparently does not approve of stay-at-home moms. At first, I was a little irritated at the tone in her message, because she blatantly stated that she thinks women who stay home to be stay-at-home moms are not “okay”, but then, I realised that it was a compliment.

Nobody becomes a parent to get praise from strangers, or from family. And, honestly, I shouldn’t care about what other people think about my life, or my parenting. But, in the moment, I needed this. She doesn’t know anything about my struggles. About my relationship, or my depression, or how my toddler, who I absolutely adore, can drive me to tears with his craziness. She just sees a mother, who works hard to teach her baby boy the things he needs to know. High praise.

I have no one I can talk to about any of this crap. No one I can just sit down and bitch with. I’ve been dealing with shitty, fake friends lately, and I’ve decided to just stop trying to befriend people who will only hurt me in the end. I’m 27 years old now, I don’t need to deal with that high school bullshit. I don’t need “friends” who stalk my social media, take screen shots of things I say, and pass them around to all their friends, so they can tweet passive aggressively about me, and pass judgment on situations they know nothing about. If that sounded a bit specific, that’s because that’s exactly what I’ve been dealing with for the last several months, and I am done with it. So I removed these people from my life, and haven’t looked back.

That’s just my luck. It’s hard for me to make friends, and even harder for me to keep them. People just don’t like me. They always have a problem with my negativity, with my anxiety, with my depression, with my opinions, with how I parent. They just have a problem with me. So, I am alone. Always. Fucking. Alone. I don’t have friends. I don’t have anyone I can trust, or confide in. Even worse, are the ones who feel pity on me, so they reach out, and say that they are there for me, that they care, when they really don’t. They don’t care at all. They just think that they can send a few positive messages, fix all my problems, and feel great about themselves. That’s not how it works, folks. You can’t just lure me into a false sense of security, a false sense of friendship, and then decide that it’s not worth the effort. That I’m not worth the effort. That’s cruel. So fucking cruel. And all day long, all I see are stupid memes and pictures of shit best friends supposedly do, and people just tag each other in them, and talk about all the good times they have, and knowing that I will never have that hurts.

If it weren’t my only form of communication with people that weren’t literal toddlers (even if they act like them from time to time), I’d just delete my social media. It’s so pointless.

That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say. That’s where I’m at in my life. Alone. Hurting. Struggling. Pathetic.

Thanks for reading.

Jan

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Babysitting Activity Ideas

Hello, friends! Recently, two of my friends welcomed a beautiful baby boy into this world, and in 5 weeks, when mom goes back to work, I will be his new, full-time babysitter.

I Need Some Advice.

[UPDATE: I called the life insurance company, and told them that I need to cash out the policy taken out for me. The woman told me that this was not the type of policy that you can cash out, and cancelling it now would not get any money to me, or my grandmother. Since my grandmother told me that she can no longer afford to pay for the policy, and since I can not afford it, I have no choice but to cancel it. I feel bad that all of the money she paid into it is going to just disappear, with no compensation to either of us, but this is what she told me to do. That’s that. All done.]
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Dream Journal 6/21/16 | Dream #1: Fugitive

I was in the back of some kind of prisoner transport van with a dozen other people, all handcuffed, sitting quietly. At the other end of the van, one man was fiddling with his cuffs, and got them open. He helped the guy next to him get his cuffs off using some kind of tool, who then silently helped the next person, etc., until we were all free. The first man whispered that we were headed into the city, where there were currently riots in the streets. He said that once we got close enough to hear the crowds, we would rush the van doors, break out, and scatter.

Daily Prompt 6/21/2016 | Companion

[In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt 6/21/2016 | Companion]

Things have been a bit strained lately with Kyle and I. We’re okay for the most part, and we’re not fighting or anything, but there are some things we need to talk about, and get out into the open, but we’ve been having a hard time talking it out. As I’ve mentioned before, Kyle has been trying to get into a class at the local community college to get his CDL, but has been having a very hard time. The class costs nearly $5,000, and we do not have the money to just drop on this class. He has tried financial aide, but they don’t offer it for this class. He has tried several different kinds of loans, through the school and several different banks and lenders, but even after trying both my mom and I as co-signers, he was turned down. For everything. He also got pre-hired by one trucking company to try and get a loan, but it was garbage, and did not help at all. And time is running out.

Daily Prompt 5/24/2016 | Quarter-Life Crisis

In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt | Phase

I am 26 years 0 months 27 days old.
I am 312 months 27 days old.
I am 1360 weeks 4 days old.
I am 9,524 days old.
I am 228,576 hours old.
I am 13,714,560 minutes old.
I am 822,873,600 seconds old… well, roughly.

I am closer to 30 than I am to 20, and while I have been for over a year, technically, it is really just starting to hit me now. I’m at the age now where, not only have many of my friends graduated with a 4-year degree from college, but some now also have Master’s degrees. Many of my friends have reached their goals as graduates, and go to their dream jobs (or something close to it, at least), and make money, and then go home to their house, that they own, and drink wine, while watching Netflix… or whatever it is functioning adults do. Even if they didn’t go to, or graduate from, college… everyone seems to be doing better than me in life. Everyone. Because of this, I’ve become withdrawn, bitter, and angry. I’m sure people are tired of my whining and complaining, since the advice and tough love that I used to receive from friends and loved ones has been replaced by absolute silence. But just for fun, let’s reach into my mind for a moment.

I have no degree, but still owe my old college money, 7 years later.
I have no job (granted, that’s because I stay home with my son, but before that, it was endless, dead end jobs).
I have no house, and constantly get stuck renting horrible places, because that is all I can afford, because of the previous two things.
I have no car, I don’t even have a license. This makes remedying ANY of the precious three things much more difficult.

I am going nowhere. I am getting older, and my life is going absolutely nowhere. I had such high hopes for myself when I was younger, and everything went wrong. For a long time, I blamed everything falling apart on other people/things. I was in such a hurry to grow up, and prove that I was an adult, that I forgot that I was just a stupid, broke kid. I refused to accept help, or listen to reason, because I wanted people to think I had it all under control. But I didn’t.

I had to drop out of college after one (terrible) year because I could no longer afford it. I thought I had my student loan situation handled, but I didn’t, and it all fell through. My mom gave me a loan to cover my first semester so that I would be able to finish the year, but then I couldn’t pay for my second semester. I still owe both my mom, and the school, money. As I said… it has been 7 years, and thanks to my track record of moving every year, and landing nothing but minimum wage jobs, I haven’t been able to make a dent in that debt. I hadn’t gone to school out of the country, to go to school with my then boyfriend, and get away from my family, I could have gone to the local community college, and probably have graduated. I could have gotten my degree, and maybe saved some money by staying at home, and gotten my own place.

Everything that I have done in my adult life, I’ve done for the wrong reasons. For love, for a guy, for convenience… I never thought of the consequences of any of my actions, and now I am stuck dealing with all of them at once, at a stage in my life when I should have my shit at least somewhat together. I wanted to grow up too fast, and now I’m stuck feeling like a helpless child, unable to move forward with my life because I don’t have any of the means to do so.

I am tired of it. Despite my thirst for even a shred of independence, I am always stuck relying on other people just to survive. To help bring me to work, to help bring me to the store, to help me with money when shit goes wrong, to share my space and help me pay the bills because minimum wage just doesn’t cover it, even in a slum. I’ve had to rely on other people throughout my entire adult life, up to this point, and I am ashamed. I have a son now, and while he depends on me 100%, I still depend on everyone around me. I don’t want him growing up knowing that his mother was useless. That she never finished college, and never had a decent job, and never did anything important with her life. And I want so much more for him, so he does not turn out like me, but how do you instill those values in your child, when you are hardly an example yourself?

I try to live without regrets, but when it comes down to it, I feel like I regret everything. I am torn between wishing I could have done everything differently, and wishing I had done nothing differently, because it would have changed my present 110%. Would my life be better? Would it be worse? Would I even be alive?

I don’t sleep anymore. When I do sleep, I hardly dream. I am always tired, despite doing nothing with my life, and I am always sad. I am sad, and angry, and tired. Sometimes, I wonder why I even bother getting out of bed. Everything feels pointless. And I don’t know what to do about any of it. I am stuck.

Is this what they call a quarter-life crisis? Or is this an existential crisis? Either way, it sucks.

Thanks for reading, friends.

Jan

Legal Representation? | Vlog

Hello, friends. I’ve been restless and riddled with anxiety lately, and it isn’t getting any better. Here is another vlog for you just to let you know about something important that is going on regarding my living situation. Any advice you have is definitely appreciated. I’m starting to realize that, while I may be accustomed to living in these conditions, my son shouldn’t have to be. Why is adulthood so hard?

Thanks for watching, friends.

Jan

Advice Needed For Dealing With Landlords

** EDIT: For anyone wondering, yes, we did sign a lease. We rent through a realty company, but do have an actual landlord, who we have never met. Our lease is only a half a page long, and is basically a “Dear John” letter, with next to no specifics on who fixes what, other than that the tenant is in charge of “basic” repairs and upkeep. I’m pretty sure that pulling up a toilet, which has been caulked to the floor, and replacing a wax ring, is not basic, right?

Hello, friends. I need some advice. I’ve always rented, and currently live in a not-so-fancy, not really up-to-date apartment. We have had a lot of issues, as many of you have read, but we’ve been dealing with a lot of issues that were preexisting, from before we moved in, that I have been researching. I don’t know how long we are going to be in this place, at least another half a year, but since I have a very mobile toddler now, I want it to be safe.

Recently, I’ve been growing more concerned about our toilet. So, the linoleum in our bathroom was quite discolored when we moved in, and there is a VERY large yellow and gray stain all around our toilet. I didn’t think much about it, mostly because I was naive, and obviously they knew about it before we moved in, and I assumed whatever caused it had been fixed, and the floor was just permanently discolored now. Recently, I’ve been doing some research, because I don’t know if it is my imagination or not, but the stain seems to be growing, and I discovered that it probably means that there is a faulty wax ring, creating leaks under the floor. The floor around the toilet also does not appear to be 100% sound, and was also like that when we moved in, but doesn’t appear to have gotten worse. I can see that the toilet is poorly caulked to the floor, and has been caulked for a while, which probably means they haven’t fixed anything with it in a long time, right?

I know that I need to contact them to fix it, because it is absolutely their responsibility to make sure that our plumbing is all working properly, and is not a hazard. Does anyone know if there is anything that can be done about the floor discoloration? The stain is MASSIVE, and hideous. We don’t have any windows in our bathroom, so we can’t get any direct sunlight on the spot, which I read helps, and I’m assuming that nothing can be done until the moisture under the floor is taken care of anyway. Would they have to tear up the floor? How long does it take to repair a wax ring? What if there is a mold problem, would I have to pay an inspector to find out? How should I go about asking them to get this all done? They’ve always been so flaky when it comes to fixing things around the apartment (we’ve been here a year and a half and I still have a hole in my kitchen ceiling waiting to be covered…). Has anyone ever dealt with anything like this before?

Thanks for reading, friends. Any advice is welcome!

Jan

Trolls, Stress Cleaning, and Milk Showers… Oh My!

Hello, friends! I know my blog has been quite bare as of late, but I promise that I will be back soon! After exactly 4 weeks of nonstop sleep regression and separation anxiety, resulting in what seemed like endless rocking in our very uncomfortable rocking chair, we are now on day three of kiddo getting himself to sleep without needing to be rocked, and sleeping through the night! I have slept more in the last three days than I have in over a month… at least, that’s how it feels.

I don’t have anything specific to talk about, and I can’t focus enough to do today’s prompt, so I thought I would just tell you a little bit about the crazy day that I’ve had.

My day started off with being fortunate enough to be able to sleep in until 7:30, the latest I have been able to sleep in since Liam got sick. Kyle decided to wake up with us, and he offered to make breakfast for the first time in… well, ever. So we had a yummy family breakfast of French toast, which was nice. I then spent the rest of the morning trying to convince Kyle to help me clean around the house, and that went absolutely nowhere, so on top of doing a huge load of dishes, I finally got around to taking all of Liam’s 12 month clothes out of his dresser, which haven’t fit him in months, and putting all of his 24 month clothes in with his 18 month stuff. I also cleaned his room, and organized his shelves, with his “help“, of course. It is absolutely insane to think that my sweet, little 14.5 month old boy is already wearing 24 month clothes. WHAT. HOW?!

I also spent much of today trying to get my son to keep his clothes on, as he has been stripping himself completely naked every chance he gets lately. I’m not joking. While I was doing the dishes, and Kyle wasn’t watching him, Liam walked up behind me, got naked, and proceeded to hug my legs from behind. I looked down and all I saw was a cute, naked baby! I didn’t get to finish the dishes, because Liam was being a clingy butt, but  he was ready for his nap, which he went down for without a fight. Once he woke up, I decided to walk to the playground with him after his lunch so he could burn off some oh his crazy, toddler energy. We were completely alone in the park, which made me feel really tired for some reason. It started getting chilly, so after nearly an hour pushing him on the swing (his absolute favorite, he will not let me take him out until he is absolutely ready), and several (almost) mouthfuls of rocks, grass, dirt, and twigs, we walked back home, stopping at Casey’s for a cheese stick snack for Liam, and a huge slice of veggie pizza for me.

After we got home, Liam played for a bit on his own, and I engaged in a war of words with several trolls on a parenting article about attachment parenting, and the CIO method, and other things. I really hate when I post a logical, thought out comment, and people just attack the fuck out of it, and pull wild assumptions out of their ass about me. So fucking annoying. So unnecessary.

Then, it was time for dinner! I put Liam in his seat so he could eat, went to the bathroom for no more than two minutes, and returned to find that he had given himself a shower with his milk. He doesn’t use a sippy cup anymore, he uses a regular cup with a lid and straw. Lately, he has been doing this thing where he takes his straw out, tips his cup upside down, and watches the liquid pour out. Today, he decided to do it on his head. Fun. I then wiped up the floor, his chair, and the table, all while he tugged at my hair, and gave him an early, emergency bath. I decided to stress cleaned my bathroom while he splashed around happily, so it worked out for both of us. My bathroom is now spotless!

Oh, why have I been stress cleaning you ask? Well, let me tell you. My mom messaged me a few days ago, and decided to inform me that, without speaking to me about it first, she went ahead and booked a plane ticket, car, and hotel to come and visit us for an entire week at the end of May. All non-refundable, of course.

So, I’ve been losing my mind.

My mom and I are not close. At all. Never have been. In fact, she is the reason I moved halfway across the country. After not seeing her for a few years, I decided to surprise her for her birthday, and flew back home to see her. I was supposed to spend three days at her house, and one day at my dad’s…. well, that isn’t what happened. My mother is immature, passive aggressive, and just… I honestly don’t know. After one day of dealing with her, I couldn’t take it anymore. I spent the night at her house, but ended up spending the rest of the time at my dad’s. She didn’t seem to care.

That was four years ago. Now, I have a child, her first grandchild, and I can certainly understand why she would want to come and see him, but I am furious that she did not even run it by me first. She has been talking about coming out here for a whole year, but always cancels or flakes at the last minute, and spends her vacation time doing something else. Whatever. Not only did she spring this on me out of nowhere, but she ignored me telling her several times in the past that a week is way too long. WAY. TOO. LONG. For one, we live in the middle of nowhere. There is NOTHING to do here. At all. Nothing. Second, I am broke. Broke as shit, and I do not want her spending a fortune on me. Third, Liam doesn’t know her. He has never met her. He still doesn’t even want to be around the people he DOES know, but she doesn’t get that, and seems to think that she will get to spend all of her time playing with him joyfully. Nope. Not going to happen. Besides, he goes to bed at 7:00… what the hell are we supposed to do after?

So not only ALL of that, but she also tried to guilt me into uprooting my family, and spending an entire week with her in some lodge. Are you joking? No. Absolutely not. She got so offended when I tried to tell her that, not only can we absolutely not afford that, but Kyle is still looking for a job, and we have NO idea what will even be happening then.

Speaking of Kyle and work… still no luck on the job front. He had a Skype interview with AT&T, which went really well, but they ended up not choosing him for another interview. That was the only job, out of dozens, that even gave him a call back, so we are starting to stress. A lot. We have enough in savings to cover bills for this month, and for May, but nothing else. He finally has been getting house at his other job, but they have been cutting hours so badly for everyone, and it is so unpredictable. I have a lot of baby stuff that I can sell, but that takes time. I’m keeping my hopes up, but we’ve been here before, and it took months and months…

So there you go! That’s what’s been going on with me lately. Since kiddo fell asleep right away, I’m off to stress clean my living room.

Thanks for reading!

Jan