So, its 4:38 in the morning and I haven't been to sleep yet. Lay in bed and let my brain wander until I couldn't take it anymore. There's just so many things going on in my dingy head, I can't stop it.
Here's the thing - I feel like I'm drowning or suffocating or something. I mean, I have a knot in my stomach that won't go away and I think I'm finally over the plague but, still, I feel like hell. I am tired. All the way down in my soul, I am tired and weary. I've been holding my breath for too long. You know, waiting to exhale?
Months and months of working as much as I can work, picking up errands to run or the odd house to clean just to make a few extra dollars (and keeping my mouth shut about it so no one knows because they will worry). Sitting at my computer and making myself available to my boss whenever I'm not doing those things, just in hopes of an odd extra hour or two of commission work (that means I only get paid for the work I actually do, not by the hour) and leaving the housework until its time to sleep. Teetering like I'll fall over when I finally do get up to do some of my own housework because I sat so long my ass is numb and my ankles look like boats. Praying and borrowing and juggling to pay this bill or that. Robbing Peter to pay Paul and knowing that I have got to keep it together. I have to stay sane because, as I understand it, maths are even harder after you've had a mental break. All the while, the big bad wolf is at the fucking door talking about "Little pig, little pig, LET ME IN MOTHERFUCKER!"
I spend hours and hours checking out sale ads for every store within a 2 mile radius of my house and then shuffling an extra 20 bucks into the budget to go around to all the stores that have what I need at the best price. Sew up the seam of those pants and go over the stitches with liquid stitch just to reinforce my work, check. While I'm in the stores where I only need to pick up two items, I visit the clearance sections and markdown racks. Meat, $3/lb? Nono. Our budget allows for $3.32 per person per day for food. We're buying the fifty cent hotdogs, the pork loin (which, frankly, looks a little bit suspect) marked $1.29/lb and the ground beef that's $1.79/lb. Ramen, lots of ramen. Damaged packages. Sodas in 12 pack boxes that are missing a can. Bread from the Butternut/Earth Grains bakery, 2 loaves for $1. Did I pay for that shirt that was stuck under my jacket? Check the reciept. Go back into the store and pay for that, its only a dollar and I have that much change in my pocket, I think. Kids don't need any more clothes for now but this is a size too big and its on sale now for the best price I'm going to get.
Niece is in the hospital. Phone won't stop ringing. Keep praying. Ask everyone you know for more prayers. Feel helpless. Don't fucking breathe. *knockKnockKNOCK* The big bad wolf is still waiting for you to open up.
Good and trusted friend and confidant (whom you tell everything to when you can't tell it to anyone else in the world) is very sick with cancer. Pray some more. Sit on your thumbs while she's in the hospital half a world away and you can't afford to drive across the city, much less fly to her. Feel super duper king sized helpless. Cry a few tears, but not too many because the baby needs a bath. Wait to hear something - anything - from her family. Pray more. Don't breathe, for the love of God.
Reach the end of the day and collapse into your chair to work a few more hours online. Wish you could just read your kids a story but you don't have time and, oh by the way, they're hungry now so you have to catch up work and put something on to cook. Catch up more work, check in on the food. Catch up again, serve the food. Husband making lewd remarks over your shoulder once the kids are in bed, but no time for that because work isn't over yet and there is another half hour to stay after your shift to help the other operators catch up again. Can't drown out the noise with music, tv or movies. I drank two pots of coffee today without realizing it but I'm still tired. To screw my husband, or not to screw my husband? Is the house clean? No. Laundry done? Well....the kids' laundry is anyway. Fuck it, I'm going to sleep....if I can.
Husband finally found a job. Will this one last? Maybe. I hope so. GOD I hope so. It's a really good job and we need it desperately. Now? Sit still on a razor's edge waiting for him to get through his probationary period and get into the fucking union. Unions are good. Unions are safe. We like unions. YAY unions! You keep people employed and shit!
So, now I only have to wait 87 days before I can breathe again. But I don't know if I have 87 more days in me. And its 5:28 now which means I can either try and sleep for 2 hours and risk not hearing the alarm go off if I do fall asleep OR I can just stay up and run my morning errands before I get the oldest off to school. Then I could sleep for, hell, maybe three - four hours. That'd be so nice. I haven't slept more than 4 hours straight in months. Mind you, I have slept 4 hours, been up for twelve and then slept 4 more a few times - but that is very rare.
So yes, here I sit, praying and typing out all the crazy in my head just in hopes of getting to sleep a couple of hours. I'm still not sleepy though.
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