[Wants2Fly]

Hello Everyone --

3:38 a.m. – In the wee wee hours of the morning.

I spent hours and hours photographing and listing five items on ebay. I bought two pictures and a mission-style lamp at the Thrift Store. I want to see if I can double my money. Ha, ha, I still won't have enough money to buy a tank of gas if I do. Lots of stuff that I list on ebay doesn’ sell. The photos weren’t uploading correctly, so I never did list the one item that I could get some good money for. And a bracelet that has some value, I can’t photograph because I don’t have high enough resolution or a close-up ability. Not that close.

<font color="purple">SHOULDA SHOULDA.</font> I should have been grading and doing things for my classes or unpacking, but I didn’t. I don’t know why. I don’t keep agreements that I make with myself. That doesn’t make me angry with myself so much as sad. I didn’t used to be like this.

<font color="green">Me in my thinking cap</font>

<font color="purple">FAMILY VALUES.</font> I have been thinking about how we are raised and what kind of values that gives us. I admire Pat for volunteering. There was no tradition of volunteering in my family. Not just my parents, but in my neighborhood. It was blue collar, and people worked really hard. My family wasn't as bad off as some other people, because my dad had a Navy pension, so we had that income. But ours was the kind of neighborhood where people were more likely to experience the kindness of volunteers than to be volunteers.

<font color="purple">FRIENDS?</font> When I was living with various people throughout last year, friends and relatives, I had a chance to find out how many phone calls other people get, and how often they go out. I thought I was very strange for staying at home all the time, isolating. I guess I had some idea that other people were living great, nourishing, lives – that they were more alive than I am somehow. I guess I thought their lives were like one big, long episode of Cheers.

But other people my age pretty much live the same way. Little social contact. All of us in our houses “and they were all made out of ticky tocky and the all looked just the same” as a folk song from the seventies went.

Whenever I’ve tried volunteering, I’ve felt a bit resentful. As if I should have been paid for what I was doing. As if the work I was doing wasn’t important enough. So I guess I don’t really get, in a deep inner way, the charity thing. I’ve known other people who’ve gotten jobs by volunteering, like Pat, and the books about getting employment recommend it.

But it’s hard enough to keep my life glued together as it is.

<font color="purple">PLEASURE? </font> Another thing I didn’t learn from my parents was how to enjoy myself. When people in my family wanted to enjoy themselves, they got a keg of beer, and they lined up the hard liquor on a long table, and the women made food – potato salads and hamburgers in the summer and roasts in the winter – and people drank til they were stupid or fell down or both.

I guess it was no wonder that I grew up to be a drunk and a pothead because what other example of having fun did I have for how to relax and have fun?

After I got sober and could think and wasn’t hung over all the time, I went right into graduate school, and life was just flat-out work. And I worked hard to get tenure, and now here I am, over-educated, out of work, still paying off the school loan, middle-aged and worn out. I spend a lot of time feeling that the rest of my life is just marking time til death.

Sometimes I feel angry and cheated by life, but mostly it’s too much trouble to bother with all that negative energy or any kind of energy.

<font color="purple">WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?</font> When I see people go crazy on TV shows because they’ve won a car or a refrgierator or even some money – I mean screaming, jumping up and down, going bonkers -- I think: Who are these people? I wasn’t that happy the day I got married, and I was passionately in love. Or the day I graduated, when I was proud and pleased. It’s as if I have some other genetic structure from those people.

[i]<font color="blue">So this is how I feel at 4 in the morning, and I guess this is more of a blog than a topic post, but what else is there to do at 4 in the morning? Well, I will take a shower and see if I can get some sleep, and then I’ll wake up tomorrow eventually and the whole tedious process of accomplishing little in a lot of time will start again.

[Kathyanita]

i really think this is a common enough existential crisis in our generation of the blue collar middle class. And i see in my peers an overall low grade fattening out of affect and expectation. Strangely- i see the next generation (in thier early 20s) having the same feelings. I just rented the movie Garden State with my daughter and she had a lot to say about the themes , was happy to be recognized by the movie and to recognize herself and peers and was explaining things to me- preaching to the chior!
Its funny to me how usual this crisis is and that we reflect and ponder and charge forth as true believers at first and then keep up disappointing ourselves.
I wish we could infect the next generation with joy and mindfullness but we have to teach it to ourselves first.

[Myzen]

Hi Wants,

You write in a gentle and perceptive way. I always want to read more.

I was very interested in the idea of the 'blue collar' and of working really hard to get an education and academic tenure.

In the UK we talk about the 'working class intellectual' and I think that my wife and I come within that description. I have often had discussions with people who say that education is everything. My experience has been that in this country it is class (and the money that comes with it) that is everything.

The moneyed and land owning classes do send their children to university, but it's not defining for them, it's just part of the ritual. Sometimes I think that to be well read, and politically and socially aware, is just a burden for those of us without the silver spoon.

When I was teaching in adult education, and running employment projects, I saw it clearly. People tended to live and work within their own class, where they were most comfortable, and real 'upward mobility' was a rare thing, and hardly ever triggered by education. It was usually a lucky break in work, in business, or maybe marriage that changed lives.

This is only my own observation of course, I don't want to make any great sociological claims. I'm just thinking aloud, after reading your thoughts.

I try to accept my situation, including the depression, but I do sometimes envy those folks who have the easier road. We're only human after all.

I hope yours gets easier,

Good thoughts, Myzen.

Wants: i'm sending you a big bunch of love today.........i have had so many of the same feelings that you wrote about. you articulated, almost in my own words, the feelings that i've had for the past ten years. there seems to be one aspect of my life that is different and it is that i have two daughters and that impacts my life in a way that sometimes really throws me for a loop. i don't tell my feelings IRL because my oldest daughter seems to be very angry that i'm not the woman i used to be, before my depression/bi-polar got so much worse....our communication ends up with her yelling at me...i can do nothing right in her eyes..and when she yells, i leave. we used to be very close and now she cannnot be accepting of who i am now. when i told her that my nursing school tests were scheduled...i got no response.....i've only been to her house once in two weeks and that was because i missed my granddaughter so much....

i've digressed a bit..but wanted to talk to you about my big picture.
i had a much different, in a way, upbringing than you in that the spirit of volunteerism was, at times, the only thing that kept our community going. i grew up on a small ranch in Oklahoma...my father drove a road grader for years and years...he worked for the WPA and my daughter and granddaughter and myself still swim in a river where he helped build a dam. we were very poor when i was small. we got our first vehicle in 1951. before that, we went in a wagon pulled by mules....

i grew up knowing that you helped everyone that needed it. i wuold wake up at night and someone would be out front, needing my dad to pull their vehicle out of a ditch, etc. etc...my mother delivered all the babies in the area. no "training", she just did it. the politicians all knew that if they wanted to carry our county, they came to our house and enlisted my parent's endorsement....my dad traded watermelons and potatoes, that he raised, for work with people in the area.....my mother milked a cow and made butter..she also had hens and she would trade eggs for other things.......

i simply grew up knowing that you volunteered...the difference in that volunteering, and what i've done today is that alot of it was done for survival... but what i've done in my life has always been for a "greater cause".......whether it was working 5 years for the Humane Society, investigating large animal cruelty, serving on a board for victims in our county, being on the board of Planned Parenhood, organizing art shows for my church, raising money for Hospice and most recently, working undercover for The American Humane Society, going to MoveOn.org meetings and working endless hours on the computer for the Democrat party, True Majority and Common Cause...it has always been something that i believe in, as in rabid.....that's how i got this job offer...and my link to it was through "League of Conservation Voters"....

looking back, my feelings about myself were always better when i was serving the "greater cause".......my feelings about myself seem to originate from what i'm involved in...you know that my job, now, is ***** and my moods get momentum from that.....after reading Myzen's post, i agree with him about "wanting the easier road" but i don't have it...so i'll trudge on in this one..

i've learned so much from you and it pleases me that we can have these "discussions" because i so envy your skill with the written word....i hope that i haven't muddled your mind with my rambling tale of how i got to volunteering so much....

there have been many, many times when i've hated the whole tedious process that we have to be in, to live. here i am....no money, a few friends, barely hanging on by a thread but i have a life plan this time.....now, i will worry about whether or not the "plan" will work out. i pray that it will, because i'm not sure i'll rise from the ashes many more times........much love, pat

[Wants2Fly]

Hello Pat --

I think you've done an excellent job of providing contrast between the non-volunteering mindset (mine) and the giving volunteer mindset (you.)

The place where you are coming from is not "charity" in the sense that it is usually used -- and which I used when I said people in my neighborhood were more likely to be the objects of "charity."

What you describe is that intense involvement in community -- community that encompasses the entire human community, and animals and nature, "gaia" as some naturalists call this holistic vision of Mother Earth. It strikes at the heart of what many of us long for and only get intimations of in shows such as Cheers and Friends, which was actually the show I meant, but Cheers depicted it, too.

It is that desire for community that the Sufis talk about, but I to to prayer and do not seem somehow inserted into the "community" in some vital way. I am "here" and "not here." Always a bit apart.

I had thought of moving to Austin this summer, and I may yet. There is a very large and active Sufi commuity there, and I know people in it. My impression is that Austin is much more dog-friendly. I yearn to have a dog again. Who knows? Perhaps I shall be piling in on you some day. Actually, I'm not the "piling in on" type. Rather reserved, in fact. Don't panic about having a guest before you have a home! I have other contacts. Wink, grin.

In sum, you really presented what I was getting at -- that our earliest experiences shape our world view. If it was one of giving, of being in community, we will carry that forward. If it was one of, "Money is hard to come buy, so I dang well better get paid for this," it is very challenging to shed that snakeskin and find the community I long for.

Thanks as well, Myzen, Fury, for your thoughtful replies.

[lenjan]

OK. I apologize if I'm not being "supportive," but I have enough of my own crap right now to deal with.

I have to say, Wants, that I don't really understand your problem. You have no money, because you have no job. Um -- wouldn't it make sense to go get one? Believe me, I know you think temping or something is beneath you -- my mantra when I did it for 10 months to survive being unemployed was, "I got a MASTER'S DEGREE for this? -- but I wanted to eat and pay my rent, no matter how hard it was (usually took me 2 weeks to make enough money to pay my rent and they eventually kicked me out for it), so I worked crappy jobs for low pay.

I understand the lethargy. I didn't get out of bed till 3 pm either today or yesterday. Part of it is because I'm having "those thoughts" again, but then I feel guilty, because one of my best friends is rapidly dying from oral cancer. He's 60 years old and he doesn't want to die, and I'm going to be devastated when he does. Here I am actively WISHING to die, when he would give anything for life at any cost.

I have to deal with the fact that the person I knew as "John" doesn't exist anymore. He was my sports-going buddy, and he was the team chaplain for the local minor-league hockey team and used to take me to games and get us in the press room for free (catered, very good) dinner. Then we had seats on press row, the best in the house for seeing the entire rink at one time. The horrible irony of John having a tumor on his tongue is that he loved good food more than anything. Radiation didn't work. The surgery didn't work, and they had to take a significant part of his tongue in the process (sorry, I know that's gross). He's now on a feeding tube for the rest of whatever his life may be, and doing chemo.

I dunno. For me, though grieving in advance, it gives me a little perspective to get off my *** and DO something, because life is short.

I think you need a purpose in life. Having somewhere to be every day and having some responsibility would help you out of this ... whatever it is you're in. I was unemployed for almost all of 2002 and I can tell you that waking up at 8 a.m., realizing that I had absolutely nowhere to be and nothing to do and that I had to wait all the way till 10 p.m. just to go to bed again, was one of the worst times of my life emotionally. You're still young enough to be productive. Go produce. :-)

I wonder too why you are thinking of moving again. A very wise woman told me when I was about 19 that "you can run wherever you want, but you still have to take yourself with you, and that's usually the problem in the first place." Maybe you need to find out what's making you move 3 times in one year instead of picking up and doing it. How do you know things will be better in Austin? You'll be out even MORE money with the move, and you STILL won't have a job, and then what?

To quote Woody Allen in Annie Hall, "A relationship is like a shark. If it doesn't keep moving forward, it dies. What we have on our hands is a dead shark." Don't let your shark die -- get moving!

&lt;cowering in the corner waiting to be blasted,&gt;

Candy

[Wants2Fly]

Candybear -- I teach two days a week at the Community College and get an amount of money that is more like an allowance than a salary. I am also teaching for an online university. So I produce!

Not enough to stop the negative cash flow, but I'm doing the best I can.

Sorry it's not good enough for you.

[lenjan]

Somehow I knew you would avoid the real questions and concentrate on the one thing that doesn't matter at all -- who gives a damn if it is or isn't good enough for me? That wasn't my point.

Never mind. I promise never to say anything challenging again, or that isn't happy and cheery.

[lenjan]

And BTW, I work THREE jobs to keep a positive cash flow. But of course, I don't know what I"m talking about.

[jmo531]

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((WTF)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[Wants2Fly]

<font color="#000099">Dear Candy –

I am sorry that you have to work so hard and that you are hurting. I know that life isn’t a bowl of cherries for you and that lashing out at me is a symptom of the stresses in your own life. Your posts are not "challenging"; they are myopically self-centered. In fact, you have done a tremendous amount of extrapolating and inference.

The post that started this thread doesn't mention my joblessness or money situation. I did mention it on another thread. Have you been saving up resentments so you could hit me with them all at once?

It's a long way from "I may wind up in Austin yet" to "Why are you thinking of moving again?" In fact, I cannot move for 2 years because of the capital gains tax that prevents me from selling and condo rules that prevent me from subletting for 2 years. You charge that I am avoiding the "real issues" -- but you are creating issues out of whole cloth. Your posts say more about your resentments than anything that could possibly be construed as useful to me.

When we come to the Forums to post, sometimes we don’t want to give our whole life story, and other people, who come here with their own problems, don’t have the time or the energy to read it.

I should think, having coped with the hand you’ve been dealt, you might realize that a simplistic answer, such as “get a job” is not always as simple as it seems on the surface.

The last time I did temp work, I had to spend more money on chiropractic and massage than I earned at the job. The arthritis in my neck and shoulders also caused severe headaches. I now know that is probably due to some form of interconnective tissue disease.

My current work as an adjunct professor and the online teaching from home creates a schedule that would make it difficult to accept temp jobs – even if my body could take it. When I was 40 – your age – </font><font color=" purple">SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO</font><font color="#000099">, I had more energy and was coping better, in terms of working my ****** off, than I am now able to do. The cognitive disorientation created by post-stress trauma syndrome also makes it difficult for me to do what I used to do. I still can’t read more than a few pages in a simple novel. I would not be able to read over 200 pages a night of theoretical research as I did in grad school—what seems like such a short time ago, but is actually more than 9 years in the past. A lifetime ago.

My experience of temping is that it is quite rigorous. One has to be a “fast study.” Go into an office where there is too much work for the regular staff – that’s why they are hiring you, the temp – and become the life-saver. Moreover, the temp is not part of the regular staff, so you are an easy person to dump on when tempers flare.

Would I temp anyway, despite the physical pain and the tremendous fear that I can’t cope with the stress of temping? Yes, I had picked out several places to put in applications. Then the online teaching job came along (and it involves rigorous training with a mentor), and it takes all the energy I have to keep up with that and my ground class. I am increasing my ground class teaching in May, and upping it yet again in the fall. I think this is a relatively safe way of figuring out how much stress I can take. Considering that my post didn’t mention money or joblessness, I wonder why you seized on that as something to lecture me about.

I am doing what I can to sell things I ebay, experimenting with items owned and cheap found objects, to see if there really is an income to be made there.

I have applied at bookstores, but I may have to minimize my education, as I’ve not had any bites so far. I’d like to work in a frame shop for a while, if I can find anyone to teach me the craft of framing and mat cutting. I apply for 40/hr week jobs – anything that is even mildly suitable, even though I am concerned about whether I can handle the rigors.

I currently am actively searching for a new therapist because my old one is an hour and a half away. We had a reached a stuck place anyway.

I agree that it would be beneficial if I believed that I had a purpose. I cannot manufacture one out of thin air, however, just because I know it would be a good thing, anymore than I can wave a wand and be healthy in body, mind, spirit.

Our various manifestations of disease create a variety of symptoms. I would have thought that you, struggling with your own symptoms, would be sympathetic to that.</font>

<font color="blue">I am neither stupid nor lazy nor unresourceful. I deeply resent the implications of your post. What is challenging about a simplistic solution to a complex situation? </font><font color="#000099">

I think you would be hurt if someone at Psych Central responded to anything you posted by implying that you weren’t doing everything of which you were capable to keep control of things.

[lenjan]

O silly me, for thinking all 7,000 members of this place are "myopically self centered" -- which would be, you know, pretty much the raison d'etre for a support forum. People come here to lay out their problems and get sympathy and advice. Sometimes they get neither, and sometimes they don't get what they want. Welcome to life.

I'm sorry if I offended you. Think what you like of me; I have living, breathing, in-the-same-town friends to talk to who don't appear to think I'm a stupid, rude, ******. (I never said you were any of those things, either, or lazy, or whatever else you accused me of.)

And yes, I have had my challenges, and some of them I've met, and some of them I'm working on, but never have I used them as an excuse for not being able to do something. Frankly, I don't come here much anymore because I have an active life and a good therapist and don't need the artifice of the place.

[Myzen]

Hi Wants,

I'll be the same age as you in a few weeks. I'm 57 on June 3rd.

Someone once said 'life begins at 40." Well that's easy to say. I find that my energy levels have diminished during my 50s and while I have some acceptance, and maturity about this, I just don't have the energy levels.

I have immense respect for both you and Candy, as you are holding down jobs while dealing with the illnesses that we all know so well. I just don't know how you do it.

Here in the UK we do get some benefits and help with housing if we have a severe illness, and I know a few people who manage to live like this, even on their own. I am fortunate to have a working partner, and believe me, I know what this means - there's no complacency here.

I think that you folks deserve some breaks.

Cheers, Myzen.

[Wants2Fly]

I have put you on ignore status for the time being. Please leave me alone.

As a friend of Wants, and thinking that I know more about her, than you do, Candy, I find her to be a very resourceful, compassionate and giving person. I've waited until this hour to respond, because I was so upset with your attacking Wants. I don't understand why you felt you had to do what you did. I've interacted with you previously and have found you to be a level-headed woman with a lot to share. I'm so disappointed in the direction you took on this thread. In no way do I see that your rudeness towards Wants was warranted. Pat

[h0kie]

((((((((((Wants2Fly))))))))))

Thinking of you today fellow teacher. I know just what teaching pays...AND IT AIN'T MUCH! Even if you are "full time". A lot of the teachers I work with have second jobs doing things such as waitressing (uh...no.)

Please let me know if I can help. I know what it feels like to strive and scrimp to get by and see no end in sight. It's very disheartening.

[Wants2Fly]

Thank you, Pat, and 1day. I appreciate your empathy.

I, too, have known a more understanding side of Candybear, and I am sure that we will all see that side again. I am looking forward to it.

And yes, 1 day, the salaries that teachers make are pitiful. (The salaries for newspaper journalists also are pitiful, so no wonder Candy is so cross, since she combines work in both professions.) Also pitiful, if not stark raving mad, is the philosophy that teachers are solely responsible for a child's learning, when so many factors in the home affect that. We have elementary schoolchildren here who must be their parents' translators in all dealings with the outside world. This is a heavy burden for an 8-year-old! Or the child may go home and have to help with a large family of smaller children. There is no time for homework in such a family. Or students arrive hungry, because of familial poverty. Research shows that learning ability is severely affected in children with nutritional deficiencies. Yet, the teacher is supposed to compensate for all this! Well, I am hijacking my own thread. But since it started out as a blog on various thoughts, maybe that's okay.

the whole tedious process of life.....i have to find another house. i froze here last year.....i found a cute little blue cottage..i mean little and called the realtor and it is almost two hundred more than i pay now..............so, i started my search again. i have about $4 til payday. i have cat food and dog food...so that's covered. i always buy that first.....
Wants, Austin is such a dog friendly city. they were the first to have "dog parks" where you take your dog to run unfettered by a leash....and get this...we took the dogs down to the creek and all these people were swimming and their dogs were swimming too. so tippy and igot in and did our old people's dog paddle. it is a total dog city. i can see you with a rescued, tall and elegant girl greyhound. they are sooooooo special. colleen and i have rescued 9 in our lives. they are funny, silly, lazy and the sweetest ever.....
gotta get ready for bed........my early get up time manana.........love ya, pat

[Wants2Fly]

Hmmm -- a greyhound. Yes, my neighbor who raised teacup Yorkies said, "You like those long-legged dogs" when I got the biggest, longest-legged terrier -- an Airedale -- after my long-legged Royal Std. poodle died.

I have been thinking of getting a smaller lapdog, though. Something I can put in a purse-bag and take everywhere with me for company.

Yes, that Austin is dog-friendly is a huge consideration, too. Florida is perhaps the most pet-unfriendly place I've ever been. Partly it's bec. of all the fussy old people. Partly it's bec. we are living on a sand dune -- and that means fleas are everywhere. Even carpets of homes and cars with no pets can get infested with fleas from bringing them in from the beach. There is rarely a cold snap to kill off the fleas for a few months, so there is a 12-month egg laying cycle. Austin has a real winter (ugh) but it also brings relief for the doggies.

Well, Austin is not in the immediate future, but it is something that I and my next-door neighbor are both contemplating, bec. of all the activities there in which we are interested.

I think you will enjoy it very much. Perhaps we will meet if I attend some activity there. Sufi School will be held in July but I don't know if I can afford to attend.

[dovemt]

New here to this particular community.
Are we not all a bit melancholic at 4:00 AM when we feel that we are the only ones awake? You write beautifully. Why is some of our best writing accomplished when we are feeling so bereft, disenfranchised from self and others. Do we all struggle? Is life about struggling? I don't know. It seems like I struggle more than others, less than some. Your writing speaks of a very interesting person who is interested in life but just needs a kick start. You have got a spark, I sense it. I wonder how you will choose to ignite it? Whatever you do, I hope you keep writing. Your observation of others are very clever.

[dovemt]

I am stumped. What are the real questions?

[Wants2Fly]

Hi Dovemt -- Welcome to the forums. And bacatcha -- keep writing and posting!

Wants and all: I've been thinking about the title of this.."whole tedious process of life"....and I have something to tell you. As some of you know, I've been taking tests, being probed and prodded and in general, evaluated for nursing school. I'm so happy to tell you that I didn't find one bit of it "tedious"..It was a very interesting experience. I've found out what my IQ is..I know now that my hand, eye and foot coordination isn't all that good..and I excel when put up agains the scores of men and women my age!! Hot-Diggity! It's so nice to do something that you've been dreading and you find it all to be quite entertaining. I met a young girl, who has three children, who could not divide 4 into 100. Her children have all been removed from her "home".....but she's still trying....a young man who was burnt over 86% of his body, when he was 2-1/2 years old. He is 19 now and wants to be an auto mechanic. He's had 18 surgeries. Tonight, on the plains of Oklahoma, life rocks!!

[dovemt]

Thanks, Wants. I wish that our world was less virtual and truly more communal. I don't know if we as humans can honestly thrive well in this type of environment. Perhaps if my only means of entertainment and companionship were a PC, it would have to do, but I sense this is a poor substitute, IMHO, for the comraderie we seek. I can't wait to get back to work in order to get out of my head. Doing good works for others is my cure for getting away from my own self-involvement. Just some ramblings. . . Laurie

[dovemt]

Fayerody,

Excellent observations. As you progress through nursing school and enter your profession as an RN, you will be continually humbled and inspired by the courage and tenacity of people who don't have a whole lot, except their ability to accept things as they are. I cannot think of anything more fulfilling than to be able to have the ability to "walk in another's shoes" and to be grateful for all that we do have. Compassion and empathy make very good bedfellows. Good luck to you in school. Laurie