Aaaarrrggghhh

I never, ever buy the yarn that a pattern I like is made in.  It's usually too expensive, and there is already so much yarn in this house, odds are there will be something that can be used to make just as lovely a garment.

Seldom, though, do I ever have precise matches.  The pattern I like calls for more yarn than what I have on hand. or the pattern calls for considerably less, which leads to the problem of leftovers and what to do with them.

A couple of days ago, I found Perfection.  Pattern I love, yarn I'd just bought with exactly the amount needed for the project.  I foresaw a garment in a new color, easily knit and put together, and I cast on with a smile.  A fancy rib back, just a rectangle, and two sleeves that are variations on feather-and-fan.  Couldn't be simpler.

I have started that freakin' back THREE times.  And have always messed up the stitch count.  So I decided to try a sleeve first.  

Yeah.

So the search for other possible patterns began.  But that shrug out of that yarn is IT.  It is ideal.  Why can't I get it right?  I think I'll try once more.  And if it doesn't work then, it's deep into the back of the stash with the yarn, and deep into the bookshelf for the pattern.

The Past Few Days

Finn scared me deeply Thursday by first vomiting and retching, then literally collapsing against one of the bathroom cabinets.  It was the first time I'd ever seen him anything but jumpy-happy, and it was unnerving.  I laid on the bed with him, gave him ice to lick, and, within a couple of hours, he was back to normal.  Still pretty tired, though:

Pretty sure I put something about this organization on my facebook wall.  Well, the bracelets I ordered from them arrived:

The top one says "Dropped + Made in Laos."  Hard to realize I'm wearing parts of bombs or guns or ammunition around my wrist.

Spent a good part of this morning updating my etsy page.  I didn't make a single sale over the holidays, so it isn't like I had to re-stock or anything.  There were just some pictures hanging around that needed to be posted.

On THE other economic issue, I am still unemployed.   I told myself I was going to jump back into the hunt with renewed vigor in the new year, but all that's out there are the same jobs I've applied for anywhere up to six times.  Even the teaching job in Atlanta, which I phone-interviewed for, has come up empty,  I've sent e-mail after e-mail to them, left phone messages, but have yet to hear the first word back.  Not at all encouraging.

How's your 2013 going?

Temporariness

It struck me at some point over the weekend that most, if not all, of my headaches and knotted stomachs and a good deal of my depression has come from temporariness.

Since I last worked, in December, 2010, every aspect of my life has been unsettled.  My mother's health.  Her death, and having to deal with the estate.  Being unable to find a job.  Problems with my children's lives.  Them moving out of the house, then in.  Finances.  All of these issues have been ongoing, without any ends in sight.  I've been saying that it feels as though my life has flown apart into pieces, and those pieces are just circling my head.  I can't catch any of them and put them to rest.  Or think clearly enough for long enough to try and make sense of them.  My life has been, still is, up in the air.

And although I still have no idea how to deal with all of it, it's comforting to understand it a little more.

It is 11:57 PM, I have taken SEVEN Klonopin, and sleep is not in sight.  That is double the dose I am supposed to take.  I'd take more, but that seems a little dangerous, and I am so awake now, I doubt it would help.

I am angry, and I am in pain, and I want to lash out at people in my anger, and I want them to hurt like I hurt.  Because they don't seem to care right now.  My son and I had a SCREAMING telephone call this afternoon, and I'm willing to bet when it was over, he went back to playing video games or whatever he was doing and never gave it a second thought.

My daughter spent all day in her room, until friends came to take her our for pizza.  We've said maybe 8 words all day.  I've got plenty of things I could yell at her.

Why am I so angry?  Where is this consuming rage coming from?  I just want to smack everybody down.  I'm being cruel to our pets, I'm throwing things --- I don't have any control.

I lost my mind once this year.  Is it happening again, only in a different way?

Memory

Yesterday was the first year anniversary of my mother's death.  I was the only one who remembered.  Which would have mortified her.  She was one of those write-the-thank-you-notes-the-evening-of-the-event-type.  She never wanted to look anything but completely together, with everything handled.

She was determined to be perfect, to stay on top of things because of pride.  She wanted to stand alone because of what she was capable of.  Her isolation was due to her idea that dignity was the goal, and dignity is usually a one-person-at-a-time event.

I find myself doing almost everything by myself.  Remembering dates, occasions.  My children don't have a clue.  Don't even show an interest in paying attention to anyone's lives/feelings/activities but their own.  I'm the only one who seems to realize that there are things that simply have to be done, just have to be thought about.  Even if it interrupts a DVD or a text or a phone call.

My isolation is loneliness.  An only child, never the best at making lots of friends, raised by a woman whose message was always "backbone" instead of "heart."

Stump

For some reason, both our dogs have been whining all day long.  It has driven me insane.  Rupert, in particular, has been persistent with his shrill yodel.  I have no idea what the problem/issue is, I just know I have a column of agony in the right side of my brain drilled from the top of my head down to my top teeth.

My psychiatrist refused altering my medications, though I begged him to.  He said, firstly, I am taking so many things, trying to pinpoint exactly what to change and how much would be almost impossible to do.  I can understand that, but I NEED HELP.  His answer was that since depression is such an isolating disease, I need to get out and with other people as much as possible.  I told him that I volunteer once a week, and have my knitting group every other week.  Nice "start," he said.  Add one more activity before the year is over was what he sent he me away with.

I could have punched him in the throat.  I am so angry and so tired and so devoid of hope.  And I am now in physical pain, which I trust will be lessened by a massage tomorrow afternoon.  (It is agonizing to even knit.)  I am running wholly and completely out of ideas here.

Seriously

It is just after 1 AM, and here I sit, unable to sleep.  I've taken 6 Klonopin and 4 sleep aid tablets, and I'm as wide awake as I can be.

Which stinks because I have to be at my psychiatrist's in the morning.  For him to say, for the jillionth time, "Well, let's just stay with what we're doing, and let me see you in about 3 weeks."  I have begged him to try something else.  I have brought all my medications into his office, poured them on the floor and said, "These aren't working.  DO SOMETHING ELSE."

I realize that as many drugs as I take, it's a delicate process of figuring out which are effective and which are not, and then calculating how much more or less or each to take.  But nothing, nothing, nothing is working right now, and I have to make him understand that.  Surely telling him I'm now going to therapy twice a week because I couldn't make it with just one session will make some sort of difference.

Scream

My clothes are aggravating me.  My skin is aggravating.  I want to rip the entire world away from me, or me from the entire world.

I am angry and I am hopeless and I want to scream, but I have no idea what I'd say.  Nothing --- nothing --- is calming me.  I have the TV on because silence is deadly.  But noise makes my skin crawl.  

My son is having very serious mental health issues, but he is not sharing (and he certainly has every right to keep his business to himself.)  My daughter is all over the map emotionally.  I gave each of them until December 31st to save enough money to live on their own --- I can't imagine that either of them have even a tiny percentage of what it would cost.

If they cannot pay rent somewhere else, I will allow them to live here, but there will be rent and bills and rules.  Frankly, the idea of all three of us under one roof again scares me.  We are not good for one another in a long run.  And the feeling that they will have that they have failed will only blacken their moods.  And as they go, I go.

Why can't I get better?  My therapist and my psychiatrist and I are trying all we can, but I'm just sinking more.

The Panic, It Devours Me

When I am having a particularly bad depressive day, or in this exact situation, several in a row, the feeling that lives inside me is that I am being torn to shreds.  Thoughts hurt, clothing is a nuisance, the sadness has depth, breadth and width.

These are the days that make The End (as in the righting of the ship) seem impossible to see, much less imagine.

I see people who care enough to get dressed, go out, keep their heads up, look others in the eye, talk, and I want to SCREAM at them "HEY! I'M DYING HERE!  And no one cares." I used to have my mother to pray for me --- now I'm not sure I even know anyone who prays.  My children are dealing with issues of their own (though they weigh exponentially on me), plus neither is of an age where anyone's world matters but their own.

I am sitting on this couch right now wondering how I will make it through the next ten minutes.  That's what my life is some days.  How am I going to make it through?  Why should I try?  Nothing interests me.  Nothing inspires me.  There are no conversations to be had.  There is no energy to be creative or proactive.  I just sit.  Sit on the edge of panic.  My throat closes and my heart races and I cannot take a breath and I'm going to faint and please don't let me faint and I break out in a cold sweat and I just want to now why this is still happening to me after all these years.  I've gone through therapies, I've gone through medications, and I have never been so low, so despondent in my life.  Nothing --- God help me, sometimes not even my children --- gives me reason to stay conscious anymore.

And yet, I keep waking up every morning.  And my first thought is always the same: "I hate my life."

Hammer Time

In Tennessee, have made one trip to the house, loaded up quite a bit of stuff --- mostly pictures and things, and see quite clearly most things, even the wanted and cherished things, will have to be left.

Went to the graves and cried and asked for forgiveness.  There is no way to describe how bad I feel.