I am trying. I will not give up. I just hope I figure it out before I destroy my family, my children, and my own sanity. I absolutely refuse to live my life as if I need meds just to be normal. I am normal and I WILL find that calm loving normal life I have so-longed for. Without the drama; without the arguments; without the passive aggressive silence.
Since I no longer have Facebook as an outlet (more on that in a moment) I have to find other ways to vent. Ways that I can say what I feel without worrying MIL will run back to hubs with what I'm posting. I've tried journals but when you're more afraid to write in them for fear of being read by your mother its a mute point. But I need an outlet. Creative as I am, and I love to make things, there is just no room in our finances for that. I enjoy writing and I love being connected to the outside world but I cannot trust the MIL not to run back to hubs with the latest gossip on subjects that don't require his intervention or knowledge. Hence the Facebook debacle...... there will be some beating around the bush here but I'll get to it. I promise.
If there is one subject hubs and I go round and round about its jobs. I've accepted it long ago that I will never get another chance at that dream job - the UA position, or something similar. That boat sailed away long ago and I figured that out way too late. But when you've worked your ass off all your life just to get ahead; when you've made sacrifice after sacrifice for most of your life; when you've gone from stocking shelves at the local janitorial supply company in po-dunk GA to being in charge of every aspect of the entire month's operations for 64 soldiers in a military company - its hard to face the music and open your eyes to the reality that is - I am 40+ years old. I am under-educated. I have been out of the work force for more than eight years. The best employment opportunity I can hope for at this juncture is entry level, minimum wage jobs with corporations that care nothing of their employees.
Sorry. Its a hard reality to swallow but it is the only reality left for me in the world of working. I have had my resume on Monster.com since June 2011 and I've not gotten one single interview offer. Not one. Been on CareeerBuilder.com and Snagajob.com for almost as long. Nothing. I keep applying and they keep ignoring me. Granted I haven't gone out of my way to do a massive scale job search but I have looked and in all honesty there are a thousand jobs I could do but because I don't hold some stupid sheet of paper that says "Yes, this individual was crazy enough to sink thousands of dollars into a college degree that she will probably never use" or "Yes, this fool is focused enough to commit to and finish four years of school" I cannot even get past the qualifications requirements. I see these jobs a dime a dozen and I keep applying for them even though I know the answer will be "Yeah, right", but I keep applying and they keep passing me by.
John and I have had in depth conversations about the amount of salary I would need to bring in just to afford before/after care for the girls - that shit's expensive !!! We have sat down and hashed out schedules of how to make things work so we could avoid the cost of paying someone else to raise our girls. Truth is there are no jobs that I qualify for that will pay me what we need, and the jobs that do pay that well I sure as hell aren't qualified for.
So a while back I decided if I can't find a job to pay me what we need; one that is flexible enough to work with me around taking care of the girls; then I would start getting down to brass tacks on how to save as much money as possible. I've gotten back into clipping coupons and that has been helpful. One monthly trip to the stores scored me a net savings of $150+ on groceries. SWEET !!! I've searched out and found discounts for just about every possible thing we could use and I've stopped spending $$ if I didn't have to. The girls lunches were streamlined to make it easier for them to pick out what items they wanted to have each day and I found suitable substitutes for items they wanted but are more expensive. I've started shopping dollar stores and discount stores for off brand groceries and thankfully, the absolute biggest way I found to save money was by using BJ's coupons at Giant. THAT is an amazing amount of savings.
But things were still tight and when you get a bill saying the taxes on one of the three vehicles you own is more than $500 you can't help but feel your heart sink. All that work to save money has just been negated for one unexpected bill. So you start thinking - there just has to be another way to make/save money. So I started posting stuff on FB to sell on the local yard sale sights. And it was working. I was unloading some of the stuff from the girls past years and making some extra cash on the side. Granted it wasn't a lot but it was something. Then one day I get a request for me to meet two ladies in the next town over so they can go through all my girls clothes. It was an opportunity to make something big happen and I woke up excited.
I packed the car with every article of clothing I had. Sent the girls off to school and hit the road. All the way there I kept thinking "I sure hope this isn't a waste." "I sure hope I can make at least $25." Imagine my surprise when these two ladies offered up $60 for what was the equivalent of $30 worth of yard sale clothing? I WAS ECSTATIC. Bouncing off the walls happy. I managed to unload a ton of stuff and make a chunk of change in the process. I headed back with the rest of my stuff, stopping at the local dollar store to stock up on Halloween candy and decor (my thought was I don't spend what I don't make).
That evening when the kids got home they were super active. As usual every five seconds it was "mommy", "mommy", "mommy". Talk about fingers on a chalkboard. Then hubs shows up (I never know when he will be walking though the door). All I can think about is how much money I made today and I couldn't wait to share the news. So imagine how it felt when you husband makes the comment "Well, only one of us has a job."
Wow.
Sudden and unexpected deflation. It was like standing on the bow of the Titanic watching the blades of the turbine below. No matter what I did I was always going to end up in the worst case scenario.
Of course my uncontrollable reaction is instant anger. How the fuck dare he make such a comment? Its not like I haven't been looking. Its not like we haven't talked about this situation a thousand times over, and yet he is still peeved at the idea that I'm home, supposedly doing nothing, while everything lies on his shoulders.
Normally I would have gone off the deep end - yelling at him and the girls, throwing things, stomping around the house in a fit of anger. But not this time. I silently walked away. Dinner finished I chose not to eat - seriously, I can't be around someone after they've pissed me off like that. Instead I focused on cleaning house. Hubs was ticked and clearly it had to be that the house wasn't clean. Ok, decision made. He has this twisted notion that I do nothing around here so its time to show him just what I do when he's not here - what I take care of.
A set of index cards and a pen and a roll of tape. Each card was used to post an upcoming event - the girls TaeKwonDo schedule, the girls cheerleading schedule, field trips for the girls, etc - everything happening that I have always taken care of made it onto an index card stuck to the refrigerator door. Paperwork that needed to be read, signed, returned was piled on the island counter. I even went as far as to tell myself that regardless of what job I got; regardless of what schedule I would work that I was no longer going to worry and fret about how the girls were going to get to their appointments or even how they were going to get to or from school, or who was going to take care of them when I'm not home. For years now I have passed up jobs that I knew would have no option for flexibility to ensure I could get the girls on the bus in the morning and off the bus in the afternoon.
I have gone as far as politely forcing my foot into the door of other peoples businesses in hopes of landing a job. Even volunteered to take on a teaching job for free if it meant getting back into the work force, and here I am a year later. Waiting for any of those things to come through. Nothing. I give and give and I've not gotten anything back. Not a thing. What I did get was the equivalent of a swift open handed face slap from the hubs because "I don't have a job." Yeah. I know.
The silent treatment went on all night and wouldn't you know it, the girls decided that would be a good time to see which buttons to push on mommy. So instead of going to and staying in bed so I could get online and submit applications to any damn job available, they opt to play; to go back and forth from each others room. At 9pm I make them come down stairs and sit in their favorite seats next to the fireplace. Actually they hate those seats more than a swift pop on the butt. And instead of leaving the situation alone at that they started taking verbal jabs at me. "I hate you". "I wish I had another mommy." "I want a mommy who isn't mean."
And I blew it. Fine. You want another mommy so bad go tell daddy you want me gone. Go tell your daddy I am not your mommy and be sure to tell him you hate me because I tried to make you go to bed. I'm done. Don't even care if you hate me. I'm through giving you everything and getting this crap in return. I'm the one who took you to baseball games. I'm the one who got you into the pageants. I'm the one who made your interview outfits and your other clothes. I'm the one who searched for weeks for your formal dress. I'm the one who takes you places during the summer. I'm the one who sits down with you and helps you with homework. I'm the one who is trying to teach you how to ride your bike without training wheels. I'm the one who cooks, cleans, and does the laundry. I'm the one whose spent weeks planning and creating your Halloween costumes. I'm the one who decorates for the holidays. I'm the one who bakes all those cookies. So if all you can do is hate me in return then I'll be sure to not do any of that anymore.
Oh, and you can pack your own lunches for school. Got PE ? Hope you know when because I'm not telling you when you need to wear your tennis shoes. Hope you can figure out how to read a weather report 'cause I'm not telling you how to dress so you're not too hot or cold. Back to school night ? Hope your daddy knows because I'm not going. I'm not doing anything else other than what I absolutely have to. Sure hope you two and your daddy can figure out how much of your lives I help run smoothly before its too late because I'm tired of being everyone's punching bag and I'm not taking it any more. So when I DO find a job I'm not going to worry about how you're getting from school to TKD or if anyone is going to be at the bus stop to pick you up. I'm not going to worry about your homework getting done and I'm not going to care that you have no clean clothes. Need clean undies and socks - better figure out how to do your own laundry or have your daddy do it for you.
THAT is how angry I get. I really do get sick of being taken for granted.
I truly do love doing things for my girls and I seriously would give anything to give them the opportunities that I never had, but at some point all that giving takes a toll and I just have nothing else left.
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