Focus on Me - pt 4 - Minecrafting into 2021

Wow...it has been a long time since I've written in here, hasn't it?  All the way through 2019 and through part of 2020 I was pretty much glued to my blogs, trying to get something updated once a week or so, and trying to help my mental health by getting things out of my head an on to "paper".

Now, it's been about six months later and things are, well, more or less the same.  About the same time that I left off of the blogs I started into the game of Minecraft.  It was a free solution to me wanting to create and decorate and explore the world around me (well, free in the sense that I only had to purchase the game but not the materials, that just took time).

I feel like I really need to dig deep into my new obsession with Minecraft.  Here I am, about to go into my 42nd year, and I'm obsessed with this digging, building, and battling game.  At first I played it only on the weekends, spending time with my friends on a shared server and eventually only my husband and I were on there for the most part until then there was me.  My friends still helped me defeat the dragon, still worked on their builds, but eventually they moved on to other games and doing other things.  We'd exhausted pretty much all there was to do - especially since they weren't into building and designing as much as I am.

And obsessed...yes, my evenings were spent exploring and building maps, finding beautiful scenery in this cartoon landscape and it helped me forget about how 2020 sucked.  About the fact I could no longer play D&D with my friends in person, how I barely left the house but to occasionally go to the grocery store or the park to walk.  

In this world... I was free.  I could hang out with my friends (when they were there) or hang out with the NPC villagers which is what I spent a lot of time doing, coming up with small stories and going on adventures to build the most amazing things I could think of.  Of course...this was before I started watching YouTube videos putting anything my mind had come up with to shame thus far...but that's for another time.

My house recreated in Minecraft

When I did discover all of the other builders out there I realized quite quickly that I wanted more challenges.  My husband tried to start up a modded game, and he played with me for a few days, then dropped off each time we'd start up something new.  I'd press on, enjoying every moment until I had my own single player "X-Life" game where I managed to max out everything and had a wonderful village all on my own.

Since then I've played around with other resource packs (the picture above is MizunoCraft16 with some Ghoulcraft thrown in) but I'm pretty happy with how close I could build a replica of a house I live in.  It's not perfect, but since I had the constraints of what blocks are available and not having a whole lot of extra mods...it's not too bad either.

I've thought of doing some other things with this new found obsession, but, overall, I guess my anxiety makes me push a way from going streaming or trying to do other things like that.  Is it bad?  No, absolutely not.  Not every Minecrafter needs to be a Twitch streamer...or YouTuber, but I do like to show off what I've created and I'm proud of the things that I've done with my time even if they aren't physical creations.

Unfortunately, I feel a lot of the time that the push I had two years ago at this time, when I'd lost my job at the craft store and moved into attempting crafts full-time for the summer of 2019... it feels very far away now.  I'm definitely a different person than I was then.  I don't feel like the same excited, bright-eyed, "let's do this!" kind of person I was then.  

But you know, dammit, even if people don't appreciate the time and effort I put into this game... even if they don't seem to care that I want to show them what I've made because it's not tangible...well, screw it.  I AM PROUD of it.  I find relief in these things, no matter how strange it might seem.

And I'll probably keep up with it for a while longer, because that's what brings me comfort.

Focus on Me - pt 4 - Anxiety

   Because I realize I haven't done this for a while, I decided to sit down and do a little bit of self-therapy by writing down what's been going on with me, try to get it out.  I write a diary every day, so you'd think that would be enough, but sometimes a single page in a journal just isn't enough to get those rambling thoughts out to be a relief.
     I think that talking to people would help, but anxiety makes it impossible.  If you've ever had one of those issues that you've talked about over and over again and feel like you're bothering everyone around you by talking about it more than once, you probably have anxiety just like me.  So, it makes it difficult.  I have a couple friends, my husband and my mom and that's just about it.  And feeling like I'm always complaining is a bad feeling.
     So, that's what this blog is for, and I really don't want to sound like a "negative nancy" about it, but that's how things have been going lately.  I'm tired.  I'm exhausted.  My work was pretty good at the beginning of the year because we had plenty of people on staff, but that has dropped off drastically to the point there's maybe a handful every day. 
     They gave me a job to do emails, which was kind of nice for a while, but the busier we got, the more stressed out I got.  Then we started losing people so they expected me to do my job but also do phones, and I realized the other week when I was back on phones permanently, that it was the feeling of helplessness, watching that inbox fill up while I was on the phones that it was causing me the worst anxiety.  We used to be slow enough (or rather we had enough humans to answer phones) that we could bounce between the emails and calls.  Now, it's either straight one or the other with very time to do anything else.
      I was going to start talking to my bosses about this, but then we had to cancel all of the meetings because of how busy we have been, and then they keep asking me to work overtime, and it all compounds.  I don't mind my job, but the fact that we're just so overwhelmed makes me feel that way.

     I kind of miss not having a job, even though I was anxious about that.  But I look around my house every day thinking - I need to get all of this stuff done.  But I don't have the energy to actually do any of it when I'm off of work.  That stresses me out too because my husband makes a mess everywhere he goes and has no sense of urgency to clean it up after himself.  So then I have that on top of me too.
     Thankfully I do have a week scheduled off coming up, and I'd like to go somewhere in order to just get away for a while.  But...we're still in a pandemic.  I just don't know what to do about the stress overall.

     Is this little complaint fest helping any?  Maybe a little bit.  I honestly don't care if anyone reads this but I just want it to be OUT of me.  Even if it's on virtual paper.  I miss people, I miss being around people, but I also am glad I don't have to feel forced to see them either.  I really would like to just leave for a day.  I'd like to just call off work myself and spend some "me" time, but it's been really hard lately because I also have a very strong sense of devotion to my job, even if it is the cause of most of my stress.
      I miss earlier this year when I first started and felt good about everything.  Sigh.

Focus on My Career - pt. 7 - Anxiety and Job Offers

     Anxiety can be a real bitch.  You don't know when it's going to hit you or for what reason.  I know I've actually suffered from it for a very long time but never had a name to it.  Does that make it better maybe?  I'm not sure.  I'm not sure if addressing it head-on or letting it run its course is the better option.  I've read a little bit recently about facing it and dealing with it as it hits you so that you can remind yourself that whatever that immediate danger your body and brain are trying to warn you about, most of the time it's not actual danger at all.
     I think the earliest attack came around fifth or sixth grade, so I was probably 8-10, it was winter time and we were all bundled up at recess (because back then they still sent us out in the cold and snow!) and I remember wanting to avoid everyone, so went out into the middle of the field, plopped myself down, huddled with my hood over my head and stared at the snow.  Or was it actually summer, and I was looking at flowers?  I honestly don't recall for sure, but I remember not wanting to deal with anyone.  It took a teacher coming over to me to haul me to my feet and take me back inside.
     Spending a lot of time in the secretary's office, with a "stomach ache" was another favorite pastime.
     Another was being JUST stubborn enough that I wasn't allowed to go out to recess and stuck in the library during lunchtime.  Just me and the librarian, browsing books and looking outside and just being happy.
     After researching anxiety in children over the years I can definitely see myself in almost all of the different clues that are now accepted as anxiety.  But no one knew what that was, I was made fun of, I was more sensitive to all of that, I clung to adults who could give me solid answers and didn't judge, didn't give me trouble, and in this age, they would have gotten me into counseling.  Not as if I didn't try to do it myself, but I was only allowed to go about once a month, and after elementary school, there wasn't anyone to go too.

   

Focus on Me - pt. 1 - Change of Plans

     There's a lot to unload here so I hope you'll be patient with me.  If you're reading this, then kudos to you, and good luck getting through it!

     At the beginning of October, I had the opportunity to get a job again.  There were so many red flags to this though.  First off, I'd applied to this job months before and had forgotten mostly about it because they closed the job listing and hadn't responded to me.  Then I get a poorly written email wanting me to come in after hearing my passion for art restoration.  This was a job with a listing that was for art restoration, digital restoration, needing an art degree, and even though I didn't have an art degree I'd been around art for years and wrote this letter detailing how excited I was to learn the craft.
     I thought it was a craft.  I went in with these super high expectations and my interview was the general manager talking about her life, her ambitions and barely asked me about me.  I should have just said I'll think about it and left.  But I'd been searching for a job for six months and this was the first decent bite I'd received in a while.  So I took it, started my job the next week, and immediately regretted the decision.
     Nothing was organized, nothing was clear to what I should be doing and no one was informed about what my job actually entailed.  By the end of the week, I was being sent out on jobs to talk to people, driving in a large truck for hours at a time to all corners of Ohio and even down into Kentucky.  I wasn't told that this was part of the job, and at first, I thought it would be a once-weekly thing, for jobs that would be high-end art where they didn't know how to talk to these customers.  I thought, okay, I can handle this.
     But then it started to be just basic jobs, go by myself for hours and hours, trudging through these poor people's homes that had burned or had small fires and pulling artwork out, packaging it up and then driving hours again.  This was not in the job description.  Then it became twice a week, and I thought maybe I could handle it, but I started working 9, 10, even 12 hour days.
     My allergies started acting up because of these places, the smoke, the soot, the dust, the smell.  I'd come home and take a shower, change clothes and take allergy meds, hoping not to get sick.  I had a few fevers and then there were the chemicals we used when we were actually cleaning some of these things.  I enjoyed the few hours a week of doing that work, but I was sure it wasn't good for me.
     I trudged on because the others were trudging on.  But I was starting to get those anxiety attacks on the way into work again.  I didn't want to go.  I'd wake up and want to call in sick.  I didn't, but then I started realizing that my co-workers were ALL suffering from the same thing and they were starting to call off.  That left ME doing all of THEIR work.
     And none of this work was what was on the job description!  I was doing pack-outs and driving big box trucks (a skill I didn't know I had until a week ago, and I haven't tried backing them up yet but I could drive straight pretty well.)  But that wasn't what I was told the job was.
     Everyone who worked there was miserable.  The general manager spent 60-80 hours a week and kept saying 'I can't imagine not being here for everyone all the time.' I sat next to her briefly and I just squirmed and felt uncomfortable.  I wanted to be out of there, I realized that no one was happy, and even though most of them were there because they needed the hours, I didn't want the hours I was getting... in fact, I was being forced to work these hours suddenly and if I had been given full-time I'm not sure I would have lasted so long to begin with.

     So after getting through a 12-hour day, getting home over 13 hours after I'd left home that morning, listening to yet another co-worker complain about where we were working (and I had never heard a positive thing about this place in all of these weeks) I was done.  I went home and told my husband I was quitting the next day.
     Now, maybe if I had been able to make a final delivery, seen the happy looks on someone's face once their items were all back to new again and happy...maybe it would have been bearable.  But I never got to do those runs, never got to see anyone pleased.
     No, I got to be called a 'douche' by another pack-out company two days ago.  I pulled the Transit into the driveway of this nice little old lady's house and asked the people inside where she was.  "Don't know, she left ten minutes ago.  Who are you?"  I'm the art person.  I've come for the art.  The what?  I pointed at the paintings, those.  Oh.  The group of five women all sorta looked annoyed that I was invading their space.
     I finally met the homeowner and went upstairs to work out of the way of these other women.  I started to over-hear them complaining about my truck being in the way, that they wanted to go to lunch.  I finally spoke up and said, let me know and I can move to let you out.  So they finally did and I moved my vehicle into the driveway where I could more easily pack up.  But then they got back and were eating, no one said anything about me moving.  I kept working on the main floor now, they knew where I was.  I took some paintings out and I hear over the last remaining vehicle in the driveway on speaker "That douche won't move her truck.  She's blocking the whole drive and we can't get in again."  There was more but by that time I was so surprised that she would be talking on the SPEAKER where I could hear her clearly OUTSIDE of the truck... I hear, "Oh she's outside finally" (I'd been on the first floor in plain sight of everyone while they were eating) and the lady comes out, "Are you going to move?"
     "Sure, I was just getting wrapped up," I said, then as she glared at me and another truck pulled in saying "Because we can't park on the lawn" and then glaring at me from the truck, I finally stopped and said, "And by the way I can HEAR EVERYTHING YOU ARE SAYING."  And I walked in and took my time packing up the rest of everything before moving out of the drive.
     There's nothing like being glared at for doing my job and never being spoken to but behind my back.  The owner said she was next door, so I pulled into that driveway (where I'm sure the other workers could have pulled in this whole time) and went in to talk to her.  The lady was as sweet as could be and her neighbor had given her the run of the house while her house was being worked on.  I felt bad that such disagreeable people were in her house pawing through her things.  I just left.  I had more things I could have packed up and I found out later that the other guy who had come to get the electronics picked up the rest and I was to check all of those things in...

     The thing you have to understand was this job is a number of things.  Dealing with the multiple insurance companies, pack-out companies, cleaning and renovation places, and the poor homeowner who is just trying to get their house back to normal.  The place might have had a small fire that smoked up the entire place and now everything smells.  Putting out the fire might have caused water damage which, if not taken care of properly, might turn into mold and mildew.  The house is covered in soot and water, drywall, insulation, and then there are all of these people who come in to take it all out to clear the house out and start over.
     Basically, the job they gave me was to drive wherever, pack up anything art related, bring it back to catalog it, and then when the insurance companies gave the go-ahead, we would clean it, pack it up, and send it back again.  The houses were filled with soot, dust, insulation, dry-wall and who knows what else and all I was given was a paper face mask and some rubber gloves.
     I came home smelling of smoke, and not just from the job site but from every single employee who smoked cigarettes at every free moment.  My allergies from all of these things were acting up every single day and on Friday when I would be home, I'd just sit around feeling miserable all day.

     After a long, sleepless night, my throat hurting, my sinuses draining, nose running, no sleep and just plain exhausted after a 12-hour day, I got up and went to work.  I took all of the shirts they gave me in a bag, wrote up a couple of letters, and set it on the pile of paperwork with the key on the pile in the GM's office and just left.
     They'd recently cut a bunch of hours but were saying I'd still get all the hours.  Oh, and we'll get you a raise once we get going too... I think it was all this matter of "don't leave us, we have no idea what we're doing."  And I'm thinking this whole time that I should have been trained.  I should have gotten to watch videos on how to do things.  I should have been getting jobs from museums and art centers and spending time working on items in the office.
     I knew if I spent any time telling them I was leaving rather then this method, I'd be guilted into staying...we'll give you anything...  No, well, here's the thing, you got rid of two people who had been working here for over a year, not the person who was here for a month.  You gave me all of their jobs to do.  This was not in the description.  This place is a mess and I don't see any changes happening any time soon.  I'm sorry, my body can't handle doing EVERYTHING.
     Those feelings of anxiety I had when I saw the piles of stock at my other job just building up and my old manager not letting me work on any of it because she knew better and she wanted me doing this nonsense instead... it was all flooding right back to me again.

     I'm headed out here in another hour or so to go do a walk-in-interview somewhere else.  Maybe they won't want me (I've tried applying twice here already) but I'm going to try again.  I just want to work in a clean environment that's organized, where I get training, where people are glad I'm there and I am glad to be there.
     I realized this morning as I drove to work that never once did I celebrate getting this job.  From the very first moment, I didn't want to be there.  Everything inside of my head said, "you can't stay here."  And that's not the job for me.  Even though I could have handled it, I didn't want to put myself through that anymore.

     My husband has been supportive.  I know he's kind of freaking out inside that here we're going into the holiday season and he's feeling a bit more secure in his job but he still doesn't feel completely comfortable there yet.  I'm sure thinking about money is hard and I know that it is troubling, but if I wear myself out I won't be able to get another job.  And at this point...it's not worth it.  I need to have the motivation to do something new and find the excitement again.

     So, change of plans... onwards to a better future!

Focus on My Mental Health - pt. 26 - Introvert vs Extrovert

     I think everyone falls on that line between being an extrovert and an introvert.  They say that even introverts crave human attention from time to time, and yet, get worn out by it.  Extroverts, on the other hand, feed on that human interaction and the more they get the more they want.  That's why many who are extroverted are self-centered oftentimes because they just want to be the focus of attention.  (Not to say extroverts can't be loving, caring, devoted people, because many of them actually pay more attention to others to keep conversations going.)
     Introverts, to a lesser extent, are also self-centered, but mostly because they reflect internally upon themselves more than on others.  Mind you, these self-reflecting creatures can also learn to look outward and care about others as well, and they know the right questions to ask and the best topics to keep others talking, so they don't have to carry a conversation!
     I wonder about myself, and if an extrovert can actually be made into an introvert by simply being made to think that way about themselves.  Could I actually be an extrovert that has just been so coddled over the years that I can't help but get worn out by social interaction?

     The reason I'm writing about this today was because of a thought I had yesterday on my way to lunch with one of my friends.  I had been sitting here at the computer wondering what I was going to accomplish for the rest of the day and also feeling lonely.  After an anxiety-ridden moment, I dropped my friend a message to see if she was going to be free for lunch since she had the day off of work.  Well over a half-hour passed and I did as most anxious people do, I clarified what I meant by meeting... Only if she was free, only if it wasn't out of her way, that sort of thing.
     Then my anxious brain took over and I started thinking about being turned down again.  I keep getting turned down for doing things with people.  I ask if people want to get together, I'm asked whether I want to join someone and when I say yes, they say nevermind.  Things like that make my brain just start really messing with me.
     Take for example today, (I know I'm going on a rabbit trail here) but a friend said they weren't planning on looking at my shop today because they're saving money for this weekend but maybe next week... and I went into a pit of endless Facebook scrolling for a half hour and deleted the entire blog entry I'd already started.  So... yeah, it really messes with someone.  I crawled out of my hole fairly quickly, but I'm still in that place of, 'no one likes me'.
     So, that was my thought, because I realize that even though I've spent most of my life thinking I was introverted, most of the people IN my life thought I was extroverted.  And I, when I get to start hanging out with people, really want someone to hang out with all the time.

     I don't think my friends realize that as they're having all of this fun with other friends, I'm feeling very left out.  I want to have friends with them and their friends.  I'd like to be invited once in a while.  I have so little human interaction lately since I lost my job that I'm going batty here in the house.  I'd really like to be able to get out and do things and talk to people besides my husband and the groups of people that come over once in a while. 
     I spent about eight to ten years after I moved into a new city having very few friends.  I'd met a few people at work from time to time, but after a while realized that no one wanted to do anything with me outside of work.  While other co-workers were going out to lunch together, I was having a packed lunch all by myself in the breakroom.  When others were doing quilting get-togethers after work, I was going home to watch TV and be miserable.  It took a LONG time to get friends again who would want to do things with me again.
     And now that I have a few friends, I'd really like to spend more time with them.  I'd like to go out on the weekends and be asked to go out to lunch.  But, it doesn't happen.  I crave for it to happen, but it's so rare to be asked... and yet this craving doesn't go away.

     So, I might have a tinge more extrovert in me then everyone I know has thought over the years.  I think they believe I'm introverted and I'm completely happy just staying at home and doing things on the internet and not having a job.

     It's actually quite miserable.

     At least for me.  I think a couple other friends I know who don't have jobs are doing okay.  They have their bad moments, but I think overall they don't seem to be miserable by not working.  Unlike me who thrives on hard work and lots to do and maybe that's why these last five months have been so hard on me even though at first I thought it was going to be a great thing.
     I think I really needed all of that social interaction throughout the day, really needed that so I could just go home and relax and be introverted the rest of the time.  But I got that attention, I got the talking out of the way, I got to spend time with my friends, and even though we don't do anything with one another the rest of the time, it was okay when it was like that.

     So, am I really introverted or extroverted?  I have no idea.

     But maybe we're all on both sides a little bit and it just depends on how we're leaning each particular day.

     Meanwhile, on a whole different topic, I'm almost off all of the medications I had been taking.  I'm just sorta wondering what it will feel like to be off all of the fake stuff I keep putting into my body.  I'm still really worried about going off birth control (I never really needed it to keep me balanced, just to make things easier with my husband...)  I know I'm going to be worried again but at least I can see if any of this depression or numbness was because of the pills.  I guess only time will tell.

Focus on My Mental Health - pt. 24 - Raising the "Children"

     As of yet, I'm not sure what to title today's blog entry.  I suppose I should come up with something by the end, but if it's still titled "24" you'll know what happened.

     This past week has been a roller coaster of things.  I started out things on a rather drab note, but because I had company coming over early in the week and I'd be gone during the weekend, I decided to concentrate on all of the chores that were necessary, and attempted to move away from my career.  It rather started something like this - be miserable but slog through the weekly chores.  Keep forgetting things because I didn't have a list written down, get more miserable for forgetting to take things out of the freezer or forgetting to go to the grocery store.
     Make myself more miserable by realizing that we shouldn't be eating out all the time for dinners and then guilty because that's what ended up happening a few days this week.  All because I couldn't come up with a grocery list and I keep trying to come up with new things but I only remember the things I've done recently and I didn't want to re-do them all again... or should I?
     Scroll through the job listings and get even worse than before until finally my husband said that even one of his old co-workers said maybe it's best if I just stop looking for a bit.  It's not doing me any good and I'm just miserable doing it because I keep getting turned down.  And he was worried at this point if I got into a job then suddenly I won't be able to help with the convention and I've been doing a lot of that lately and we think it's helping.  (Not that I'm doing any of that today, but I'll get to that in a bit.)
     So, I agreed and decided that maybe I should attempt to convince myself that THIS is what I want to be doing with the rest of my life.  That taking care of the house, being creative, and helping out with the convention is actually better than working and I should be happy having the time to myself.

     A true introvert probably would be happy.  I don't think I'm a true introvert, so instead of making me happy like I always thought it would; I'm miserable and alone with my own thoughts and the only time that I'm relaxed and not depressed is either when I'm writing it all out on paper or I'm doing some task that is so mind-numbing that I can't think about other things.  So sometimes, like today for example, watching TV, cleaning the house and mowing the lawn are my mind-numbing things but then I forgot to go get groceries and plan dinner, and thus I'm behind again; even with a list out on the counter I've started to cross off as I get things accomplished.

     Last week was a mix of all of that.  Wanting to search for a job, convincing myself that it was okay that I didn't, and eventually just getting caught up in having a stomach flu of some sort that I felt miserable and just wanted to watch TV when I wasn't running back and forth to the bathroom.  But I also started to feel a bit better about myself.  Got more things done for the convention, got more painting done, had an order from a family member that I got to mail off, got out of the house and did some shopping.  Got excited about doing things for the weekend.
     Then I tried to pump myself up for the convention stuff and I was kind of excited about all of that while we were having our meeting.  I was pretty happy at the excitement for the artwork and all of the advertising and such and that was pretty cool.  That, after spending a day sick to my stomach and feeling like crap.  And oh yeah, getting yet another rejection letter after all of the time I spent just having no clue why I wasn't hearing from any of the job applications I still had out there.

     And yesterday I really wanted to have a good day.  But I'm miserable because I've gained weight and my outfit was too tight.  I was miserably hot.  I was running to the bathrooms every few hours because of whatever flu it was that still isn't going away.  And I was miserable because I have no job and thus feel like I can't spend anything...and then I allowed myself to get talked into buying this hat that I really didn't like and wished that I could just instead walked away and bought something else I actually wanted...but I wondered if I would feel better.  I didn't.  But I wanted to.  I wanted to have that excited feeling I got when I bought my first potion bottle or when I bought my crystal ball, or perhaps when I bought the outfit that I wore and it was a small and the woman was amazed how well it fit and now it's just too tight because I'm nearly 20lbs heavier again and it was just miserable.

     I really don't want people worrying about me.  I really don't want to tell them that I feel useless.  Sure, maybe I catch someone's eye by posting stuff online, but it's not MINE.... let me explain, as I came up with this idea earlier today.

     My husband, back when we had just met, had taken on the convention just earlier that year and his friends were all pushing him to do his best to grow this thing.  If you wanted to compare it to a child, let's say someone had this kid, then after it turned two years old put it up for adoption and my husband and a couple of his friends took it to start raising it.  I met my husband right about that time and started throwing in my two-cents of how to raise this 'child'.  I didn't have a hand in it myself because I lived too far away, but they took my ideas and got it through its third year.  I didn't really start raising it myself until half-way through it's third year and got to celebrate its fourth birthday.  But, still, I was only helping it in little bits and pieces.  It was still my husband and his friend's 'child'.
     Skip forward to its teenage years and I spent most of my time helping to raise it with my husband and yet his friends (or rather, the vice chair) still acted as if it was HIS and that I had very little to do with it.  Even though I spent hours and hours of my time devoted to clothing, feeding, and bathing it, it still wasn't mine.  Now it's very nearly grown out of its teenage years and I see how much it has grown, that it isn't a child anymore, but here I am, still helping bathe it, still feeding it, still cutting its hair and dressing it, and only just recently have I started to get some of the credit for it.
     Look how much attention its getting on social media!  You're sharing all of these pictures of it and look how popular its getting!  What proud parents we are for watching it grow and doing so well for it!  But, you know, it's HIS kid...  So yeah, it's still my husband's "child" even though I've raised it and helped him nurture it and protect it from all of these people who sought to do what they wanted it.  But, it's not MINE.

     So, that's why I started making up my own business.  This one could be MINE.  This could be my tiny child that I raise up from nothing... but because I'm starting from scratch, it feels so lonely and I feel like I have very little ground to stand on.  I've had to push myself to do this thing - put together the stock and make the website and go to the craft shows and promote myself - all while having this "teenager" hoisted upon me... make him behave.  Watch it, feed it, keep it happy...
     But it's a teenager.  This is a baby - well, rather, this project is so new it's only a few months old, and in order for it to grow I need to spend a LOT more time on it, and yet here I am being stuck raising both, and we all know that teenagers need just as much attention as babies do in their own way.  But what suffers?  The little thing I want to do because I keep having to be forced between one or the other, especially when my husband now has a new job in order to take care of my dead-beat ass.

     Sorry, but that's how I've been feeling and it's a pretty good analogy.  So I figure, maybe I can see things through and maybe once I've gotten past the convention this year I can concentrate on my own project.  Maybe then I can find a job.  Maybe then I can be happy with whatever it is that I can focus on...I just don't know what anymore.

   

Focus on My Mental Health - pt. 22 - Craft Show & Intense Anxiety

     Back around the end of March, I made some plans with a friend to head to Indianapolis to watch the Critical Role Live Show.  If you don't know what that is, then you're not as much of a nerd as I am, and that's okay.  It's basically watching a bunch of anime/video game voice actors playing Dungeons & Dragons in front of a live audience of some two thousand or more people.  We happened to get tickets to be two of those people.

     Then the two of us stressed out for weeks hoping that we'd be able to get the time off together and that our terrible manager wouldn't throw a wrench in our plans by telling one of us we couldn't go (because, as I've mentioned so long ago, she didn't want us being friends or spending any time outside of work together...miserable woman.)

     Then just a few weeks later, I got fired and suddenly didn't have to worry about having the day off.  Well, sort of since I'd really hoped I'd have a new job by then and would have the worry about asking for it off instead of worried about what our manager would do to us.  So, with that off the table for the time being, I ceased worrying too much about it.  Then a few months later, my friend got away from that woman and her new job told her it would be fine if she went, she'd just have to do her test a day early (which she passed after only missing one question, so go her!)  Meanwhile...still jobless, I still had no worries with regards to whether I'd have a day off or not.

     Skip forward to May.  After a few weeks of being miserable (and coming down with colds TWICE) I pushed forward in my plan to make money somehow, by actually going after a spot at a craft show at a local church brat fest that I'd been thinking about for quite some time.  I finally got a table!  Got the payment turned in, got the confirmation, I was so excited... and then I realized that the two things were on the EXACT SAME WEEKEND.

     Well....this is awkward.

     I pushed forward with both plans even though as the days crept closer I started to freak out more and more that I couldn't pull it off.  But I had a lot of craft stock done and even though I took time in between to work on my D&D stuff, job application stuff, failing at unemployment stuff, and website/social media stuff...I somehow managed to get enough stock for the craft table and that was pretty awesome.

     But how to cover a table when I'd be out of town and they were very specific about having to have someone there the first day?  Thankfully, that's where my husband and my in-laws came in and we started preparing for them to set it up and run it on day one and then to tell everyone it was a last minute thing that I got tickets to this show and had to go.  Okay, it would have been a lie, but later once that Friday was over, he'd never had to tell the lie even once because no one asked where I was.

     The picture above was the prep setup I did so my husband could take pictures of it and have an idea how to put everything.  He actually sold quite a bit that first day (more then I sold on the last day to be quite honest) and it was a relief to me that no one ever asked about me and for all the staunch rules I was given at the outset - we were still given a form for the next show, so I guess no one actually missed me at all.

     Meanwhile, I was facing a challenge of taking a road trip with someone I'd never taken a road trip with before, hitting all of these stops along the way, and getting to that Live Show I mentioned in a city I'd only visited a few times when I was much younger.  

     I was a bit nervous about it all, but the drive was easy (I'd done 90% of it before) and we had lots to talk about and there were only a few lulls in the conversation but never enough to turn on the radio, and I was super amazed because it's been a long time since I've had a friend with me in a car for a three hour drive that wasn't my husband.  And even longer since I'd stayed in a hotel with someone that wasn't family.

     But it all turned out okay - we made our stops, we got to our hotel in time (even though the payment system online is really lame and was supposed to be paid for in advance but in reality they don't take any money until you check in...so weird).  And we even managed to find a parking spot in that crazy town when the stupid venue parking was filled with food trucks......  Not a happy camper about that honestly - it was so nerve wracking to get back to the car in the middle of this big city after midnight.  I can't say I've done that since my 20's.

     In the middle of it all though, I get a phone call from a job I'd applied to.  They leave a message.  I get to the hotel, I get a busy signal.  Then another...  really?  In this day and age?  Then I get an answering machine.  WUT.  I leave a message.  I have 45 minutes in the hotel room and hear nothing.  I get on the road and am driving in circles around Indianapolis trying to find a parking lot somewhere and they freakin' call back.  I told them I was traveling...  They shoot back they'll be there until 6pm.

     At the restaurant my friend convinces me to call back.  They answer, they schedule an interview - no other talk, nothing - just, can you make it on Tuesday?  Hmmmm.  They'll send an email confirmation.

     I don't get this email until I finally thought to check my Spam three days later.  Not entirely sure this place is on the up and up, if you catch my drift.  I start to worry about whether I should even go.  I'm having a full-on anxiety attack of - nonononononono - but at the same time I think, "but it might be a job, right?"

     And then another friend tells me that she found out the reason I didn't get hired at the other place was because I didn't have call-center experience.  I almost lost it.

I wanted to scream.

     Like ALL those years in retail weren't experience with dealing with phone calls one after another after another??  Do you have this item?  Can you tell me this price?  Why isn't my online order going through?  Can I sign up for a class?  What's wrong with my gift card?  Can I speak to a manager?  ALL WHILE TAKING CARE OF PEOPLE RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME.

If ANYTHING... my job was a LOT HARDER then some stupid call center job!!!!

But...I don't have experience in a call center.

Bullshit.

     So... between that and this interview which I feel is going to go no where like every other stinking job interview I've had - plus it's a half hour drive away - the only thing that's even vaguely making my consider still going is a morbid curiosity to go into an area I've never been before.  Apparently it's right next to Amazon or something.  But once I really read this job description, it sounds like this "receptionist" job is actually just "warehouse mom" because you have to man the phones, keep the breakroom food stocked and the supplies stocked... help do shipping when needed, etc etc.

     I have no idea if I'm even going to feel like it tomorrow.  Especially when I'm balancing my husband having these wild swings between - you need to get a job now -  to you shouldn't go to this one... you should help me with the convention - you should do all of this work for me and I'm stuck doing even more housework than normal because his new job will have him away so I'll be back to cooking and cleaning and doing all of the stuff I usually do in my normal housewife fashion...and I honestly am getting so many mixed signals right now.

     Does he want me to help with the convention and keep up the house to keep up my side of the household?

     Or does he want me to get a job and make money and take care of things like we used to do?

     I just don't have a single clue because he swings wildly from "we'll be fine" to "you need to get insurance NOW."

     And I thought that maybe doing this online business thing and craft shows might be a good way to pass the time and start my own business.  I had an enjoyable time listening to everyone (on Saturday and Sunday once I got back from my trip) tell me that things were "cute" or "did you paint these?  They are really good."  And all of those compliments were awesome even if I didn't get as much business as I'd hoped I'd get - it was about what I expected overall.

     But I don't know if I can spend time working on that any more.  And if I get a job, I definitely won't.  Sometimes it really doesn't feel like I have enough time in the day to do all of the things I want to do, even when I force myself to really work, suddenly my day goes from noon to dinner and I have no idea what I accomplished during that time sometimes.

     As usual, this blog was an attempt to square away some of my feelings about things.  I want to feel really excited about stuff but I haven't actually felt relaxed enough to feel happy and in the moment as I would like.  My mind is always on the next thing and worried about getting through it and maybe a moment here and there I really can stop and relax, but I'm starting to get afraid that my body has been so tightly strung it can't unwind anymore.

Help.

Focus on my Mental Health - pt. 21 - Routines

     My week typically goes something like this...

Sunday: Have breakfast, read the paper, catch up on television shows, spend some time outside either walking or gardening, watch more TV, scroll the internet, have a big dinner, and overall just waste a lot of time.

Monday:  Realize I haven't gotten anything new done for my websites and get a bunch of painting done in order to update my Facebook sites, shop site and blogs.

Tuesday:  Clean the house because we're going to have company over that evening to play D&D.  Now that we have a big ol' table (read the previous post if you'd like more details) and since almost everyone lives on this side of town and our FLGS (friendly local gaming store) decided to up and close on us, except for on rare occasions, games are held here.  So, floors swept, kitchen and bathrooms cleaned, etc etc.  Prepare for a game if I am running it that way (which, thankfully I am not currently.)

Wednesday:  Realize I did nothing but clean house all day and return to painting and try to get as much done as possible so that I can schedule posts and can forget about Facebook for the rest of the week.

Thursday: Get burned out and start feeling lethargic and annoyed that no one has bought anything from my shop, no one is responding to my posts anymore and scroll endlessly on Facebook and Reddit.  Maybe do some other household cleaning, make dinner, grocery shop, or anything else that keeps my mind off of feeling like a jobless loser.

Friday:  Most likely I have a D&D game this night or Saturday that I have to prepare for.  Put off planning on it until the day it's due and a few hours before.  Think about it a LOT.  Throw stuff together last minute and attempt to finish painting figures for it and then get overwhelmed and give up and start typing fiercely to get it done in time for dinner and the game.

Saturday: If the game was last night, I feel burned out and just want to relax all day.  If the game is tonight, I realize I wasted all day yesterday by not getting prepared and then have to clean the house again, and don't get the game prepped until a few hours before.  Realize that I've run out of time and should have spent more time on it as when the game actually occurs it's not as engaging as I hoped it would be and disappointed in myself.

REPEAT

     At least, for the last few months, that's how it's been going unless we're gone somewhere for the weekend or someone else is gone and we cancel or postpone games for another time.  I personally think I'm getting a bit burned out with playing so I'm looking forward to having a good week or two to refresh with all of my other plans here in August.  I LIKE playing and have guests over, don't get me wrong, but for YEARS (literally) I never had anyone over except for the occasional family member so now that it happens twice weekly (or heck, last week three times) I feel like my life is swallowed up by this routine that I've been keeping.  And I start to wonder if I'm prepared enough for this craft show that's coming up.
      On the plus side, I know I have well over 60 items - probably onwards of 100 now - and I'll have even more by the time two weeks is up.  But I've also sold a total of 5 things the entire time I've been working this website since April/May and that's sorta depressing.
   
     So...in other news I still haven't heard anything about the job.  My husband went in for an interview for a new job, received the offer, worried about it for three days, talked to everyone he knew and they were all split on whether he should take it or not, then he freaked himself out more by reading about jobs similar to it online, and I kept feeling like a terrible wife because I couldn't tell him that he should take it or not.  He's his own person is how I feel, and yes, he's taking care of me at present, but would less then a $100 a paycheck be worth the extra work that he was likely to take on?  I think once I finally broke down the math with him and told him straight out that if he was going to take the job that he shouldn't be having this mental anguish...he turned it down.
     It's not like he doesn't have a job like me.  I think at this point if I were offered any job I'd take it just to get my butt out of the house and learn something new.  Even if it didn't work out and I hated it, I'd have something new to talk about and possibly start looking all over again.  But, alas, no word after that interview and even though I tell myself it's probably a good thing I don't have the stress to worry about while I'm prepping for everything that's coming up in two weeks... I'm also going through the full anxiety string in my head every thing I paint and every time I stop and think about it.

Things I'm anxious about:

• I won't receive a call which means I wasn't good enough, or didn't ask the right questions or they thought I was too stupid or they don't want me because I didn't have references or anything along those lines.
• I WILL receive the call and they'll want me to start right away and I'll be so stressed out over having to deal with my craft show and my new job that it'll send me into hysterics.
• I'll get the job and everyone will hate me and I'll be as miserable as I was at my previous job.
• I'll go to the craft show and no one will come by and no one will buy anything and now I have hundreds of items that I've spent all this work on and they'll end up just becoming Christmas presents for people because I'll never sell any of it.
• My husband will lose his job and then beat himself up over not taking this other job he's been offered because his company starts having major layoffs or the CEO decides to retire which sends the whole thing into a tailspin.
• Another recession will kick in because of Trump and everything will just be terrible because we'll both be without jobs and struggling to make ends meet and we'll never be able to take the cats to the vet or pay off our cars or our house and....well, you take it from there.

     There's a whole lot more where that came from, but I'm sure you get the gist.  Sometimes I just write it down to get it out of my head.  Does it work?  When I'm in the process of doing it, yes.  A few days later when I start to panic that I've completely overwhelmed myself with all of these projects and won't sell a single one... yeah, so it'll come back and I'll freak out again and again.

Plans I have for the near future:

• Get through the two D&D games for the week and try not to be anxious that everyone hates me.  (my character in one game had an in-game argument with another and it actually started to terrify me even after I realized that I was NOT my character, and this was all role play...it was still kinda odd since I've never played into a game enough to have a discussion like this.)  Also, I keep having these worries that my friends only like me for the game and even though we hang out otherwise, I have crippling anxiety when someone cancels plans with me and I start to want to withdraw from everything.
• Work like a beast to get as much stock done as possible because if I can do that maybe I can sell quite a few things because I'll have enough variety for everyone.
• Try not to fret about not getting a call back after my interview because they're all ill-organized and I'm sure I'd hear from my friend if she thought something wasn't going well.
• Also just concentrate on getting into August and getting through the long weekend and out the other side - hopefully make or break this craft thing I've been trying to hard at.
• If I don't hear from a job by that point, start applying to all the places AGAIN, and see what happens.
• Maybe convince my husband we need to take a short vacation before I begin the job because I think I just need to get out of this house soon before my brain explodes.

     So...that about wraps up quite a bit of what's been going on in my head lately.  I just like to please people and by putting myself out there I want to get results and when I don't it really throws my anxiety into high gear.  I know I've always suffered from these issues, but only more recently have I really paid closer attention to what triggers it.  I know my friends cancelling the meetup yesterday wasn't because they didn't want to be with me (I didn't even invite them, so why did I take it personally?!) but then I felt attacked because I read everything very curtly from those who responded the next day.  And I'm sure I was reading into it that way because I felt sad.

     I need to get out of the routine of feeling bad about myself.  But sometimes you need a little pick me up, you know?  And who better to give you that then your friends?  And I feel bad because I feel like I'm not really close friends with any of them, and I shouldn't be bothered by that but I am and I guess I just really miss having a close friend that's not my husband... I know I've talked about this before but I come back to it often enough in my thoughts.  Maybe it's because of how it always happens slowly and I try to do my best to keep in touch but the next thing I know they've all but stopped talking to me until I just give up...  I don't want to give up this set of friends, it's taken years to get this far.  Oi vey.

Focus on My Mental Health - pt. 20 - Cleavage & The Table

      Haven't written in here for a week and had really hoped to have had an update on the job situation by now.  I don't.  The only vague news that I received was that they were still doing interviews this week (over a week later) and that I might hear by Friday or by the beginning of next week.
     I keep having these anxiety moments though.  A moment of complete and utter panic when thinking about having to start a new job and all of the ins and outs of starting in a new place and what will the people think of me and what if I can't cut it and get fired?  But then I try to remind myself that I haven't even received a single email to say they're still thinking and the anxiety of dealing with that has gone down a wee bit but it's still there and poking at me from time to time.
      This past weekend we went out to a convention for a few days to do some gaming.  The first day was just fine, the second we found out how irresponsible the guy who was running our D&D games was with time management.  I was stuck in costume for over an hour past what I'd hoped and starving since I hadn't eaten dinner, and it was one of these moments that I made the decision to just get up and go to the hotel room.
     What I had already taken into account (and certainly made me uncomfortable even at the age of 40) was the fact my costume had a very vaa-vaa-voom boost to my bust and after being gawked at by a few middle-age men during the convention, I also got honked at while heading to the hotel and gawked at in the hotel waiting for the elevator and that sent me in full-on panic mode as not only was I waiting to enter an elevator with ONE guy, I had a box full of money and very little clothing on (well, sorta - I never dressed with cleavage at ALL until just recently - so I became really self-conscious of the fact all of a sudden) and with that I turned tail and climbed up to the SEVENTH floor in a leather corset of sorts.
     Believe me, I couldn't breathe and I was heaving and thought I'd die by the time I threw open the hotel room and started stripping it off as fast as I could.  All the while storming around with my hangry mood and upset that I was all alone and have never really dealt with being gawked at.  I just never dress like that and I thought now that I was older it might be okay.
     My husband mentioned last night that he knew things were different for my reactions to things because he was absolutely certain when he'd finally made it back to the room (an hour and a half later than we were supposed to be) that I'd be sitting there in my pjs refusing to go back.  I was this close to messaging him, but just hadn't quite gotten to that point and I was starting to feel a bit better after eating a slice of disgustingly cold pizza (the microwave was missing of course).  So I'd calmed down a bit.  But in the past I'm not even sure if pizza would have done it.  My mind cleared up a bit and once I had on a t-shirt and jeans we went back.
     Then the one guy we sat down next to had an anxiety attack and left with his friend - I could literally feel the young man tense up when we sat down (for whatever reason he wasn't sitting next to his friend) so the two headed out.  We never finished the game though because the guy running was of course, the same one who had no time management skills and oh well.

     So, skip forward to what... Thursday?  Yeah, so here we are, I've been making a bit of money by doing commission work for painting miniatures and attempting to look for more business that way.  But also working on my craft table stuff hoping in a couple weeks to be able to sell a good chunk of it and at least feel like I'm contributing to the family again.
      Last night my husband got an email from the job he'd applied for a few month's ago and hadn't heard anything from.  They'd contacted him again asking if he was still interested.  So now today he accepted the offer to come in and talk again so the interview is set some time tomorrow afternoon.
     I sit here beating myself up over not going into I.T. because I probably would have found a job by now.  Why was I so stupid to go into retail???  WHY?!  Because...again...I'm female and that's what was expected of me...get an easy job that I'd quit when I became pregnant and then have my husband take care of me....wut?

NO.

     And in the middle of this today a FedEx truck with music blaring backed into the driveway with our "TABLE OF ULTIMATE GAMING".

     You have to say it in all caps, you know.

     My husband had ordered this because of course we wanted a bigger table for our D&D games but honestly I had told him when he ordered it on a whim that it was going to be TOO big.  I showed him with the measuring tape.
     He wanted to put it together today, so we moved the kitchen table downstairs thinking we'd put it in the kitchen but he just didn't see how HUGE the flippin' thing was until it had all four legs (but thankfully not the topper yet) and I think at that moment he realized, yah, it fit, but you'd never be able to get around it.
     Take the legs back off, move it to the basement, move the kitchen table back... and since then he's been down there working on it.

     I was just stressing out trying not to cry.

     My mother told me once that she and my dad had bought this big living room furniture and when they finally got it into the living room she cried because it was just so big.  I didn't get it myself because it was comfortable and we had that furniture for quite a few years.  But it was a lot bigger than the stuff she had and the stuff she has now (although I think we all regret allowing her to get it replaced because that's money she'll never get back).
   
     But now we'll have to get more chairs for the basement and we'll have to clean up down there (which I've been wanting to do for awhile anyway since he keeps moving his stuff down there and it's a wreck most of the time).  But the table fits down there a whole lot better then in the kitchen and I'm waiting to see what it looks like completed.  I'm also looking forward to surprising the heck out of people who come over in the next few days with it.

     But I felt like utter garbage this afternoon because I kept saying it was too big and I was just so upset when he didn't see how big it was until it was eating up the entire dining room with no room for chairs or people.

     And I still feel kinda useless because I still don't have a job and I'm trying to be confident in myself but it's awfully hard.  I think if I could sell something - gain a following...something...

A brief moment today on a walk I felt happy.  I hadn't felt that way in quite awhile and it passed quickly...but maybe it will come back someday again soon?

Focus on My Mental Health - pt. 18 - The Best Friend Equation

     Even after some forty years and a few days on this earth, I realize that there are some things that never change about me.  Maybe the way I handle them changes, but the basic, deep down issues that affected me thirty years ago, bothered me twenty, ten, and even now.  I think we all have problems that we must handle at some times in our lives over and over again, and sometimes we don't know even know they're popping up again until you can do that 20/20 look back thing and realize, "oh crap, it was THAT again".

     Today on my long ride home from the dentist (thank goodness my husband could put me on some of his insurance even though neither of us wanted him to put me on his normal healthcare, I will survive) I started thinking about the people that I talk to and the friends that I've had over the years.  

     I might be wrong, but I'm fairly certain that most humans have a need for close human relationships, and even if we get very overwhelmed by some of them (like those of us who are introverts and need to refill our emotional bank accounts from time to time) we still need that human interaction.  In order to get that interaction we look for people who are typically like us enough that they don't drain us mentally (or physically) and we can stand to be around for more than a few minutes at a time.

    

     Children, when they are introverted like I was, tend to be seen as "shy" around other children.  Over the years I've realized that I was never shy, I actually craved to be around people.  But I wanted to be around different people.  These friends this day, this friend this day, this group the next, and I could handle it and I fed off of that need.  But just like an extrovert, if I had too many days by myself I would spiral into depression and self-pity and misery.  The only reason I knew that I was more introverted though (as my mom would tell everyone "she never used to be this shy") I was just as likely to sit and read a book by myself in school and I could deal with being completely alone and not reaching out to anyone.  I never got bored of activities by myself, so long as I got over the hump of depression that came from having plans cancelled on me.

     So, as children, we start looking for those people who we can depend on being around on a regular basis.  We find a neighbor we can knock on a door, or see out in their backyards.  We find school friends who will always be in the class the next day and maybe they'll come to your birthday party.  We start looking for the "best friend" because those are the people you can come to depend on being there when you most need them to get over that introverted streak, and they're also those people who will sit there reading in the quiet when you need that as well.  (Unless you're outgoing and you have a different set of criteria, but you're still looking for someone who fills your check boxes.)

     When we get older, obviously our lives get in the way, but we all look for that one person (or people) who is there for you all the time, you can call your "best friend" and in the teenage years it's most likely a boyfriend/girlfriend/partner, whatever you want out of your life, they're there to fill it.  Sometimes you marry, sometimes you live together, sometimes you only talk to them online, whatever it might be, you need that emotional connection to a single person (or perhaps a few if you're really lucky) to just feel whole.

     Here's where things get tricky, and this is where the title comes in "the best friend equation" is that even after we find a lot of friends, we still think about one over everyone else.  And that person we call our "best friend" and it's usually the person you're married to, living with, etc etc.  But I think once you've been comfortable in that relationship for a long time your brain might still want another connection with someone else.  Someone you can talk to about all of the things you do with that person in your life.  After all, your husband/wife/partner/etc knows everything about you already.  They're always there experiencing the same things you do, so you don't need to tell them about what you did earlier that day while driving home.

     There's a weirdness to it, and this is why I'm bringing up the fact that even though I am happily married and I feel like my husband is indeed my best friend, I also sorta want a best friend who is a female in my life.  Someone I can talk to about girly things that might make my husband a bit uncomfortable.  Or maybe we don't need to talk about those things but sometimes I just want to share little quirks about my husband without sounding like I'm nagging about him, and for that I'd like someone (besides my mom, because that's even kind of embarrassing for me at times) to be that "best friend" as well.

     I've been this way for over thirty years, maybe longer (I'm not sure when I picked my first best friend, maybe when I was five?) and I doubt it will ever completely fade because I recognize this need and urge to have someone important in my life.

     The friends I have in my life though, even though they are all terrific and I love them all dearly, all have "best friends" of their own.  But I do feel like sometimes even they want me to be their best friend only, even as they call someone else their best friend.  I don't mind, and that's something I've had to realize about myself is that you can be friends with someone without being their only friend, and accept that they aren't telling you about their deepest, darkest secrets because someone else is getting to hear all of that - and it's OKAY.

     It's OKAY to not be someone's best friend.

     It's NOT OKAY for you to expect to be someone's best friend when you yourself consider someone else your best friend.  But it's a damn well hard thing to accomplish because you become super possessive of these friends because you love them and you want what's best for them.  And maybe you believe that YOU are what's best for them, and it's really hard to just let it go.

     And that's where the best friend equation fits in.  You most certainly can be a best friend to someone else but also not be their best friend.  You can be a really great friend to a bunch of people but when they go home at night they're not thinking about you.  You might be thinking about them non-stop (like most of us anxious types are... I still think about almost every person who called me a best friend, it's like a non-stop wheel of - what did I do wrong, why aren't we friends anymore???) but they don't have to be thinking about you.  Maybe they do, maybe they send you a message or text, maybe they send you a meme online, but the rest of the time they're busy thinking about other people.

     I thought about these things on the way home today because I have a couple of friends who were both trying to get me to work with them, and I'd love to work with either (I loved it even more when I got to work with both of them!  But we can't have everything all the time.)  And I thought about how I felt like I was betraying one by applying to one job, and then betraying the other when I didn't get that job and applied at the other one.  They both have their own sets of best friends so I've never gotten super duper close to either, but the thought crept into my head - would they feel betrayed, or sad because I worked with one and not the other?  Would they feel like I was less of a friend to them then to the other?  

     I don't know.  And then it occurred to me that this is the weirdest thing to be thinking about at forty years old.  By this age we all should be secure in our friendships enough to handle it, so why was I bothered by something that a ten year old would be obsessed over?

     Because we don't change.  We always want close relationships.

     And that's what I'm dealing with today as I cross my fingers I can get a job somewhere with someone before my birth control pills run out and I need health insurance again.

     I think I still have a long way to grow still.

Focus on My Mental Health - pt. 17 - Small Steps

     Shortly after I posted my last entry I received an email about a phone interview.  I wasn't quite sure what to make of it as it was the very first place I sent my resume to back in April, but it's also the last place that appears to still be hiring as the majority of the jobs I applied to have since been taken down.  I scheduled the appointment for this afternoon, the first opening I could get.
     Maybe it's my anxiety (I'm sure a large part of it) but I immediately felt they were pitying me, or perhaps humoring my friend who had told her boss about me multiple times until he finally said he'd look at my resume.  A week later I finally got the phone interview.  I was nervous the entire night after getting it scheduled, slept better the next day but was exhausted this morning.
     I hate having to schedule a meeting for the afternoon because it made the morning completely worthless to me (well, not completely, I did get some painting done which of course is now my side job) and when the time came for it, I had my notes in front of me, both phones (because I couldn't remember which number I'd given them) and finally had the first interview with the third place I'd actually heard back from.
     And after the half hour was over, I can't honestly tell you how it went.  Unlike my first place, I didn't hear back from them this evening for a face-to-face, but it is getting onto the 4th of July holiday, and he did mention I probably wouldn't hear right away... but it was how he reacted to every single answer I gave.  The canned response, over and over, "I love that answer... that's a great response..."  It felt (and it's possible he's not good at interviewing and it's also possible he wasn't actually listening, but I hope the typing on the other end was making notes and not responding to something completely different) sort of like I wasn't getting anywhere.

     Is it anxiety or depression that makes me feel this way? Am I just projecting these imaginations on these interviews?  Or am I right on the money?  I can harken back to the first interview back in April and how hopeful I was in almost getting that job, but I'd barely been looking for a few weeks, surely there would be a better option soon enough?  But then nothing for so long now until the second interview and I thought that had gone well enough too...but then that job didn't turn out either.  Now I'm on interview three and I just don't know.

     So, I'm taking little steps.  At least there's one last little light of hope, but depending on the next few weeks I'll probably have to start the process all over again.

    To address another thing in my life that I'm dealing with anxiety about is my painting crafting table.  It's a website too and I was hoping that by sharing it online on a regular basis I might get someone interested in something and buy something or anything actually... It's like when I was going to get married and everyone was so excited and promised they'd come celebrate with me and then we set up this huge party for all of these people...and no one showed.  So, it's like I'm setting up this big old party and I'm the only one celebrating.

     It's hard not to feel rejected isn't it?

     I keep trying to remind myself that a lot of my stock is related to Christmas and people just don't buy stuff until it gets closer...so, crossing my fingers?  I also had a failure this week with getting things up on Google (which mildly sucks after it seemed like things were going to work only to have them dragged down all of a sudden) but I'll keep trudging on.  I don't have the fan base that I used to have with some of my artwork.  Now I'm starting nearly from scratch.

     Then a bit of a blow to my feminism today.  So, obviously we're closely approaching the end of month three without a job, and I've been doing okay paying my own bills and helping with groceries and things with my savings.  That's why my savings exist - why I've pushed so hard over the years to have so much of it built up - forgoing vacations and fancy clothes or expensive trinkets (I have a lot of trinkets but they're usually less than $40 and I spend very little on things for myself) - so except when we go out to eat dinner, I don't expect my husband to buy anything for me.
     But then tonight at the craft store he whipped out his credit card and paid for my purchase.  I just didn't know what to do because I don't expect that of him, and I'm sure he didn't mean anything of it, but it was my purchase, for things I'm going to use... so it just felt like a bit of a punch in the gut.

     I'm making steps.  They're very small, but I'm trudging on.  I don't know what I'm doing since I have so much time booked up with other things - which I guess is good to keep me busy, but it's weird to feel so busy and not actually have a job that's keeping me busy.

    I just need to keep keeping on.

Focus on My Mental Health - pt. 16 - Finding More Purposes

    Skip forward a bit over a week from the last time I wrote here about my mental health, and I'm still having dreams about my old job.  I dream that I go in and am asked to help, to put something right again, and I do so very willingly as I'm needed, and it's about halfway through the dream that I realize, or rather, remember, that I no longer have that job and I just put it down and walk away.  Or sometimes I give the task to someone else (rather in a managerial way) and even in my dream I have to remind myself that I no longer have this job.  My purpose for so many years has gone, and I feel like I have no purpose.
     But, I shove on, and I put out those applications and I waited my turn for another purpose to come, because, maybe everyone has more than one purpose on this world.  God can't just give us a single purpose, He is too great for that, right?  I can't imagine making us in His image means that He gives us only a single purpose.  Some it's to work, be a wife/husband, mother/father, sister/brother, daughter/son, etc, and maybe for others it's to become famous or be a role-model or politician, or lawyer or judge or priest or some other thing.  And maybe you fulfil your purpose and maybe you screw it over royally but never know until you're standing at one of the gates (pearly or firey) and realize that you did good or fucked up.  But, you really don't know until that time, and if the people who don't believe in those things don't go anywhere, then I guess you'll never know because there's no heaven or hell waiting for you on the other side.  But it is what it is.
     So, me thinking about the depths of how many purposes I actually might have, leads me to think that Insurance is probably not one of them.  I applied to the first place and it just didn't fit with me, and then I applied with another (who, I'm told, I may still be under consideration with, even two months later, although it's rather hard to believe at this point), and then yet another (the one I told you about with the phone interview) I got a rather blunt letter saying that they had filled the position with someone else and that I didn't have what they were looking for.  'Nuff said, end of story, don't bother to apply for a different position.
     Trust me, it hurt.  But then I realized that just like I said last time, I didn't really want to work there and I guess Insurance really isn't my thang.

     But, what then, is my purpose?  I can go back to the very beginning, back to when I first could write, and I felt my purpose was to share the magic of unicorns and awesome stories and drawings with people.  My third grade self felt her purpose was to write books about unicorns and dragons and even though she had completely ripped off a story she had read to make this book her own (well, she did change a few things to make it unique, so it was her story now, right?) and Miss Williams was still the best 3rd Grade teacher a girl could ever have, encouraging her to write and then perhaps bring back stories to her younger students years later (and she did) to teach others about drawing and writing.

     That writing purpose was still strong when the 13 year old me learned how to type (slowly) on a typewriter she borrowed from her aunt in order to start her very first novel.  She wouldn't finish it until she became 17 year old me, but she plugged along at it for a very long time.  And not only that, wrote a bunch of other stories as well, and learned how to draw and paint, and painting was a really awesome thing.  And she painted on walls and she painted on doors and inside her closet and she painted on wood things and later on canvases, but she liked to paint, and her mom bought her ceramic things to paint and she got to paint at school and so painting and writing became her purpose.

     College me felt her hoped for purpose to write would actually mean being an author, but that didn't work out so well.  But college me also met a bunch of friends who taught her how to play games and paint miniatures and that was pretty cool for college me, so I worked really hard to paint up an army to use at my very first Origins and my friends and I never did play in a tournament, but we did play games together until they all moved away or stopped going to college together.

     After-College me learned to really like artwork and learned how to work retail and it was pretty cool, even if it was boring so she thought that maybe retail merchandising was my purpose.  Especially in art type situations and she still wrote and tried to re-write that book that she had finished at 17, but only got in a few chapters.  But she liked the retail world and really wanted to get into the framing world too because she liked being around art so much that she eventually got a job doing just that.

     Twenty-two year old me's purpose was to custom frame, but also draw manga, and paint.  Lots of painting was in order as she did a mural at the store and still painted at home and gave away paintings to her friends, and it was a lot of fun.  My purpose at that time was to make other's happy with her drawings and paintings and manga, and also, to a lesser extent, writing, because she had discovered fanfiction and had been writing that since her college years and it really made her friends happy when she wrote for them.
     But that was also around the time that she realized that might be the only reason her friends liked her and each time she would stop writing for her friends, those friends would go away.  And those friends would eventually disappear, every single time she stopped writing for them, and that made her sad on multiple occasions because it just kept happening... first with Highlander, and then with Trigun.

     Twenty-something me realized maybe her purpose might be as a wife, so when she married and settled down, she tried to be the best home-maker she could and budget-savvy and saved and scrimped at the retail job which wasn't as fun, but she still liked the framing purpose because that certainly seemed to make people happy.  And she wished she had never attempted to find a management purpose because that did not make her happy, and as she got older she wondered if maybe her purpose wasn't that at all but people kept telling her that maybe it was her purpose.

     Thirty-something me felt that everyone who told her that her purpose would be to run a store was full of bullshit and was miserable for literally years.  She couldn't make friends as a manager, couldn't write as a manager (she'll admit, she still felt her writing purpose was there since her manager used to leave her alone in the frame shop and she wrote things regularly when they had forgotten her) and couldn't really do much of anything except work and sleep and be a wife (and cat mom) and that was slowly taking the life out of her.  So...maybe the manager thing wasn't a good purpose?  But she knew that she did serve a purpose because people liked her and she knew the job and she was a good manager even if the woman above her made her purpose seem drab and worthless.

     But then thirty-eight something me discovered stories again.  She discovered painting again.  She discovered, of all things, Dungeons & Dragons, and then allowed her to be creative again.  It brought her friends again (to hell with that saying "managers shouldn't make friends with their staff") and she started writing and creating and painting those miniatures she'd felt her purpose had been as a college-her and she was still a wife, and she felt like all of those things were coming together nicely.

     She still....rather, I still, worry about my purpose as a dungeon master and whether or not I'll still be friends with these people if I ever stop my story, but it makes them happy and it makes me happy, and I'm a very big fan of being happy.  I know my few purposes at the moment are:

• Painter
• Writer
• Dungeon Master
• Friend
• Wife
• Cat-Mom
• Daughter
• Sister, Cousin, Niece
• ????

     The problem that I have now, as I try to fulfill all of these purposes in my life, is to see if there's actually another one out there.  I used to think so before I was fired.  I used to think I'd be in retail my entire life and that would have been fine with me, but I don't think management was my purpose, and I think that's the reason I've always had such a tough time of it.  (Come to think of it, my first boss took months to promote me to assistant, dithering over a couple of us, and my last one did the exact same damn thing...which basically sums up my entire life with those two jobs, honestly.)  And this Insurance thing I keep trying to get into (come on, who doesn't want a 9-5 job with weekends off?) just doesn't seem to be working either.

     So am I just trying too hard to find the missing purpose?  Am I searching for something that just isn't there?  I really wish I lived in another country where healthcare actually helped people rather than hurting them, because I think all of those purposes above would be a lot less worrisome, not having to think about the fact that my birth control runs out in three months and if I don't get back on it I have no idea what might happen.  I'm 40-something me now and I really don't want to add "Mom" to the purpose list because it's hard enough being a cat-mom.

     I have a lot of thinking to do, a lot of painting, a lot of writing, and a lot of praying and working to do to find this last purpose.  And maybe it's not my very last purpose, I'm sure there will always be more.  But, as you can tell, the writing and the painting thing seem to be at least two purposes that are probably always going to stick.  So besides making people happy with them (and myself) on a rather small scale, is there a way to make these on a large scale where I can make life work for me?  I don't know.... but until another purpose rears its head, I guess that's all I've got.

     And maybe being one or two less purposes for awhile isn't such a bad thing.

Focus on My Mental Health - pt. 15 - Missing Purpose

     I changed the title of this series to "Focus on My Mental Health" as it doesn't really touch on mental health in general, but my own personal journey as I have gone from being a miserable human being in a job that was destroying my mental health - to a human being that is miserable from the inability to find a job that can bring me back to a healthy mental state once again.  I've been still doing the job of working on my stock for my craft booth, and now too my website, but the fact that I haven't actually sold anything means it's not an actual job yet.  If I had a following before this point, if someone had seen my paintings all of these years ago and said "you should sell these" and then started throwing money at me, maybe I could have already sold stuff by now.  So, it feels rather hollow, even though I had promised myself that I was merely starting on stocking the table first.

     My mental state is fairly low today, just as it has been since this last week.  I started off in this place of "I don't really want to get a job here, but I'll do it so I can have a job and maybe I'll like it eventually" a week ago today.  I'd just had a telephone interview that sounded really positive, except for a couple little hints that were dropped that sounded to me at the time like maybe I wouldn't hear right away because someone was out of the office.  But I was assured I'd hear by the end of the week.

     But I didn't hear by the end of the week.  And if I were in a better place, I think I would have called or emailed and said, "hey, what's the verdict?"  But when I start to open up that email to do so, I start to get anxious and remember that I really didn't want to work there.  I balance back and forth between feeling depressed that yet another job doesn't want me, but also feeling like it gives me a chance to find the right job.

     I know it's only been two months, but it feels like it's been so much longer.

---------------

    Took a quick break from writing and switched over to some more crafting instead.  To be completely honest with myself, and with whomever is actually reading this (the one or two people I notice have "viewed" this site from time to time) - I was really excited about my "business" when I started it a few weeks ago.  I've started pouring my time and effort into creating a profile, a website, an email address, a facebook page, and a store.  I started getting people interested in it, started getting likes and follows.  I started to get interest in things and that was pretty exciting for me.

     Then I got a "review" which was basically to say "copied but cute things" (to paraphrase) and even though someone was nice enough to recommend my page to someone else, the way they did it was kind of discouraging.  I pressed forward, told myself, that yes they are a bit "copied" but only in that when it starts getting harder to find things like it from China for this cheap (what with the tariffs) people will start buying things from me... right?  And maybe the kitschy retro stuff will be popular?

     But the review has stuck with me, and I guess in a way that's started to push me to start doing other unique things or at least learning new painting techniques.  But in the back of my mind I keep thinking "why would anyone want to buy something from me?  What makes these things unique?"

My answer is - they aren't.  There isn't a reason.  That's why they haven't bought anything yet.

     So, that's the reason why I'm depressed about this business endeavor.  But it's all I've got.  I keep telling myself that I need to work on my job applications, update my resume, do something to get a new job.  But then I pull up those job listings and tears spring to my eyes and this crushing anxiety just hits me.  I stare at the screen, I scroll the listings for a minute, then I close the browser because I can't look at it anymore.

     And I get these emails from the state because I had applied for unemployment, but I haven't gotten a dime and have absolutely no idea if I'm even going to get anything, so it feels rather worthless to be filling out the paperwork for no reason.

     If I had any leads at all, then maybe I'd feel better.  But instead, I sit here with no purpose, wondering why I'm here.  I'm miserable as the stupid neighbors bounce balls non-stop, drive stupid mini-bikes up and down the block for HOURS and I can't work in my garden because I can't have any fucking peace and quiet here.

      And I can't leave because I have no jobs to get away from it.

I just want to cry.

Focus on My Mental Health - pt. 14 - An Hour to Forty

     I have just a little over an hour before the day of my fortieth birthday.  Officially it was around 7:35pm, so I guess I have over twelve hours before I would be "officially" forty years old, but it doesn't really matter.  What matters is that in an hour and a few minutes, it will be June 8.  I will be a whole year older, and I'm just that bit further away from where I thought I'd be at this age.
     Not only have I reached this milestone, I also feel more worthless than ever this evening. I woke up feeling fairly good, got going and made some awesome blueberry pancakes, coffee, and then watched my email inbox.
     I had a phone interview on Monday morning.  She said, "you will definitely hear from us by the end of the week to set up an in-person interview...after I review it with the right people."  My friend who also interviewed for this company had heard back from them to set up an in-person interview within a day, and a week later she had the interview and a day later, a job.  I have heard absolutely nothing.  Four days, not a thing.
     What is wrong with me?  I thought I did a good job, sure, I didn't ask a ton of questions because I really thought that maybe they'd be honest with me and say, 'oh you aren't what we're looking for in this particular job but if you want to apply for another one....'  But not even that.  I feel worthless.  I feel like everything that I've done up until this point has lead up to this fortieth year and I have absolutely nothing to show for it.
     I don't have the ambition to go for another management job and even if I were to get one I think it would slowly kill my soul.  And apparently I can't find a job in another field, even a stinkin' part time one - and now I'm blaming myself for not doing my second round of interviews at the first place because I feel like that bridge is gone and why did I do that?  Why didn't I just take the damn job in the first place?  Why did I think I was better than $12/hr and having to deal with paying for parking forever??
     And no, I haven't been able to get unemployment and no one has bothered to notify me why - or even just a "nope, you can't get it, sorry."  NOPE.  Not a word.  Not a word from anyone.

     My mom is here this weekend and I slogged through the zoo thinking that maybe that would be enjoyable but because we had like three and a half hours we couldn't do it slowly and we didn't get to see everything and I really couldn't afford it, but we went anyway.

      And for a few minutes here and there I was happy.  I love the flying foxes...  Don't you just want to boop that snoot?  These things, without me realizing it, were what inspired the whatchers of my childhood.  Back when I was thirteen and having a hard time in my life, I had a lot of friends but I was also miserable when they were away - I think I realize now that while they were with me I felt good because I wasn't inside my own head, but when they left I was back there with a vengeance and life now is sort of the same in that regard - I came up with this invisible friend "Blacky" and he was basically a flying black fox except my critters had slightly exaggerated ears and a long fluffy fox tail too.  But, anyway, for those bits of time at the zoo yesterday when I took these photos, I realized that I was at piece, and I probably could have spent all of my time there just watching them.
     But then I was also miserable because I realized I hadn't received any messages and I'm just getting my business going and haven't sold anything (but I feel I need to get a lot more made and need to do more and that wasn't happening while I was wandering the zoo, so of course that made me feel worse).  And also no one was asking me a damn thing about the interview - had I heard anything?  What was I feeling about all of this?  No one had asked how I was holding up.  Now, a different friend had asked but honestly, I got no response at all back, so it was like...I guess, why ask at all if you don't feel like responding?  Some times all you want is a kind reply, some kind of recognition that you're going through a real hard time in your life and yes, we understand, it sucks.
   
     We got back from the zoo and I was miserable listening to the rotten children next door bouncing basketballs all night long.  I just wanted to go strangle them, but before 11:30 they were finally done.  But then I thought I'd make an online purchase to cheer me up but that only made me feel more miserable too because I have no money coming in and suddenly my entire life it dependent upon someone else and slowly my savings is starting to dwindle because of some damn woman wanting to 'set an example' with me or some stupid thing and I'm just sad all the time now because I don't know whether I should be putting all of my focus on this new project I'm doing or whether it's completely a fool's errand and I'm just going to drown myself in it.

     So, here I am, less then 45 minutes away from my birthday and realizing that all of the other years I've had these big plans for my birthday, but I'm also kind of stuck with only doing things that my mom can manage because the zoo nearly dropped her a few times and we were only walking for a few hours!  So my idea of going down to Hocking Hills is off, it was bad the last time we took her but it would be worse now if she was huffing after only a half hour at the zoo...and resting every fifteen minutes after that.  I really feel like I can't afford to do anything else and feel guilty even asking...  In the past we've done all sorts of things and every year I want to go somewhere I've never been before and see something I've never seen to make my birthday a remarkable one, one that I would remember.
     But this year it feels fake and sad.  And I was really waiting to get that email saying "here, schedule your in-person interview next week" but didn't get that so after waiting with anticipation and knowing I won't get anything the next two days, and oh yeah, my other plans for the weekend have already fallen through...I just feel lost.

     I tried to make up for some of it tonight by a really awesome D&D game and a pizza party and DQ ice cream cake too...but that somehow just felt off too, but probably because most of the day was a lot of hurry up and wait and I had that shadow of an interview that just won't be over me.  And no one asked...  So it feels like I'm suffering by myself.
     Then my husband found out my cat has been peeing on things in the basement again and it was probably a combination of him and I moving things so may have destroyed hundreds of dollars of items and I'm staying up to wait for the washer to finish in hopes that we can save the bags they came in... which will hopefully salvage it all... But he's miserable and found it in the middle of the game and I couldn't drop everything I was doing because there were a bunch of people over.  So he was distracted and I was distracted and trying to help because I feel miserable like it was my fault but also just wish I could get rid of this cat that every time we leave alone for awhile we start to feel bad for him but then he makes us get angry again too.

     I don't know what to do.  I think the kids have finally stopped dribbling the basketballs.  The washer sounds like it may be on its last spin or so.  I have a half hour left.  I wish I had an answer to all of this.  I wish I could say that I could just put on a happy face and move on.  I also wish I knew if I really had to apply for jobs twice a week for unemployment because it certainly doesn't feel like I'm doing any of it for anything...  THEY screwed ME over.  I didn't do anything on purpose - I worked there for 16 years!!  And now in almost two full months now I can't find a job, can't get on unemployment, and I just don't know what to do.  And here I am... 40 (or rather almost) and I feel like a lost teenager leaving High School back in 1997 with no plans for the future, no job, no colleges lined up because I have no goals in life...and I just want to make things better again.  I want them all to go back to the way they were when everything was RIGHT.  And nothing's right.

Why isn't anything right?

Why?

I really need to sleep...