Verge

I need to write.  I have no real way to alleviate stress, otherwise.  Walking is out. Driving is out.  Retail therapy is out.  At first I thought I didn't know why I've been avoiding writing, but now I do.  It's too big.  There's too many things going on right now, and once the floodgates open, it'll be hard to close them.  I will start with a list of things that are affecting me deeply, right now.  Right this minute.

Alden- He's depressed, he's self defeating, he's getting abused in school.  He practically begs for this abuse, and can't/won't do anything to fix it or try to grow up.  He's stuck in a childlike rut. He refuses to grow gracefully into teenagerhood.  He's depressed.  Just like his grandfather, and his father. He is a victim, and he likes to stay that way.

Irv- He's a complete defeatist.  He's stuck in a long rut at work, and in spite of everyone wanting him to take a white collar position he's keeping himself in a dangerous dirty place in work.  He's not progressing.  Every day he's more and more angry and frustrated, quick with his temper, and quick to take it out on us, mostly Alden.

My foot-  Surgery definite.  I'm terrified.  I'm sick of being in constant pain, sick of being immobile, and being in limbo yet I am paralyzed at the very idea of even a simple surgery, and now it's going to happen for sure.

My mother-  We're not speaking.  This is not some shallow "you call me first" bullshit.  This is "I told her exactly how I felt about her and Earl, and how I've felt my whole life and she swept it under the rug and continues to blame me for the shit going wrong in her life, and I refuse to be apart of that mess."  So, rather than torture myself, she stopped calling me, and I stopped calling her.  No mistake, she's not dialing me either.

Money- Stemming from the mother thing.  She had been handing over my father's pension money to me, since I moved out of the house.  At first, since she was married to Earl and he was working a lot, she felt weird about taking it, and felt that I could make better use of it.  That's what she said.  Well, now I realize that she was doing it for other more shady reasons, that are too long to get into on this list.  And now she stopped with the pension money. It's very complex, but the bottom line is I'm broke now.  I work, but it's not enough to cover the monthly bills that I am responsible for, and have a little financial freedom.  Even with the bit she was giving me, it was just enough that I could afford the bills and little luxuries now and then.  Now, not even that.  Irv has never paid for my personal stuff, like books, music or anything, and I won't ask him now.  I have no money for gifts for the holidays.

I am on the verge of tears every moment I'm alone, and often when I'm not.  I'm constantly tired, sad, angry, I can't sleep at night, so I take long naps, or I fantasize about taking long naps, because I hardly get the chance to.  I'm drinking quarts of coffee a day.  I quit drinking booze because I can see myself turning to harder booze as an escape.  It feels too good to get drunk right now, that's just about the worst thing ever. Same with Xanax.  I'm finding myself eating more. Lots more.  At least I can still shop for groceries, right?  I'm faking it around my friends, who have problems of their own and definitely do not need to hear about mine.