[Inky]

An hour and fifteen minutes until work. Eight or nine hours until it's over. Then I get to come home and count the hours until I have to go back.

I don't get to spend the mornings with my baby, because she gets upset when I leave and it's easier for her if I don't even start that.

When I get home, she's asleep.

I'm missing five out of every seven days of her life, sometimes six.

She's a different child every time I come home, and I never get to see much of the last one.

She's growing out of her clothes, and I don't have ten dollars to go spend at the thrift store.

Last night I dreamed that one of the salespeople, not one of the managers, told me to go home. I asked her why, and she said she was just tired of me and the terrible job I do. I'm not that bad, but I guess subconsciously I think I am.

It doesn't help that they all think I am, too.

I'm still losing weight. 110 and dropping. Before long I guess I'll start losing hair, isn't that the way this goes?

I don't know who I'm closing with. Probably the office manager, since everyone has a set schedule but me and they work the hours they want.

At least that's something, he's the only one down there that doesn't give me a hard time.

I don't understand how some of the people who come into the store can make so much money, and we've been beating our heads against life's brick wall for so many years, being good people, trying to trust in God, and we struggle to hold on to what we have, never moving forward, sometimes backsliding.

It's not like we throw money away. It's eggs, beans and oatmeal at every meal. We don't buy new clothes. We don't go to the movies. We don't even leave the house, except to go back to work over and over and over for nothing.

Well, maybe not for nothing. The baby is well taken care of, except for the fact that she's growing out of her clothes, and I'm sure I'll think of something there. Mom is working on sewing her some things.

Sometimes I think it would be better if I left, but then I realize the baby would be in daycare with strangers and I'd only end up supporting myself, my baby, and my parents and sister from a distance, instead of right here.

My shoulders are already torn up from the Army injuries, and there's just too much weight on them.