16 hours till the 20th anniversary of my 22nd...

And I'm sitting here transfixed by a desire to sob like a baby. I really thought I was getting better. I was going to pull out of the total and complete funk I have been in since December. Yes, I am running a marathon but the end is in sight.

Sigh. Not so much. First, to be clear. I love my birthday. I know it isn't in vogue at my age to like it so much, but I do. If nothing else, I'm impressed I haven't killed myself in a car accident before now (anyone who has ridden in a car with me can attest to the problems a limited attention span can cause to one's capabilities as a driver.)

So, generally speaking, I am happy weeks before my birthday as I anticipate the fun of being delightfully happy all day long. Presents are lovely, yes. But it is nice to have people be nice all day just cause it's my day.

Inadvertent though it may have been, something about being told to compare myself to my younger version makes me want to weep. I loved younger me. I was confident. I still though I could choose my own destiny etc etc.

I look at myself now and NOTHING has gone the way I thought it would. I am in no way living the life I envisioned for myself. I think I've mostly learned to be happy with who and what I am, but it doesn't mean that I might not have wished things had gone differently.

And, of course, then I get to think about where I am today, literally specifically today.

Living with my parents is exhausting. They are lovely, and I totally appreciate the fact they let me move in with them as I work through this stupid house purchase, but it doesn't mean I have enjoyed living through months of being in a 10x10 room with most of my stuff in storage and unable to find ANYTHING I'm looking to find. I am trying to be respectful of Dad's desire to be the only one to answer the phone and to not be on my phone in the house and to come in a respectful time when I have been out and to do all the other crap you do when living in someone else's house. I'm sure I'm failing at all sorts of stuff and annoying the hell out of them too. But every minute makes me tired. I've gone to bed at 8pm so many times, I think my parents are slightly freaked out.

I am exercising. That is great. But it is an obsession because I can't control anything else in my life. Quite honestly, I hurt most days when I finish and I always dread starting. The kids make me feel guilty for leaving them to go run, and then I'm tired and disgusting but still at work for another hour or two trying to get pages done.

And this is the year that I can't seem to motivate the kids, get them to meet deadlines, etc etc and I have a weird mother trying to get my job (ha, she can have it) and next year I'm responsible for the regular yearbook AND the district 100th anniversary book. I'm certain THAT'S going to go well.

I am buying my 4th home. Great. But I am paying more than I wanted to pay. I'm going to have less money once I buy than I planned on having. And I am without a doubt moving into the most disgusting place I've ever bought. Possibly seen. Seriously dirty and the more I think about it the more I think how much I need to do to be able to fix up the home...with money I don't have.

Oh, and relationships.....hahahahahahaha. To have met a guy that I think is really amazing and fantastic and to now be uncertain about if it will ever work itself out or if I have just been wrong about him and us makes me just a little bit nuts. But on top of everything else? It just all makes me want to weep. Right here. Right now. Non stop. And I can feel the acid in my stomach burning holes through the lining. Super.

A small example

All year I have been dealing with some weird dysfunction in the yearbook room. Here is a small example of what I mean.

Yesterday I said to the senior staff: I must have all of the people pages printed with the correct page numbers by tomorrow morning. Period.

Today: No pages printed. EIC says Oh, I forgot. She gets them printed. Shows me then takes them away??? Leaving an index editor sitting in my office for an hour with nothing to work on.

We have 12 days to finish the yearbook. Completely. Period. This is what I am dealing with.

Well, it's not ALL bad

So about a week ago I was still in the "things can't get any worse, my life is terribly NOTHING is going ok" then God reminded me that my car had been working just fine cause I got hit with $1500 to get it working again.

Now, the house that I'm not even sure I want anymore has FINALLY been approved by Citibank (the seller's bank) to sell. Yip freaking pee. Next stop: inspection on Friday to see if the house being sold AS IS is in good enough shape to be worth buying. Keeping my fingers crossed and the prayer lines open.

The insanely crazy mother of a student who desperately wants me to be fired is at bay for the moment. I hate having her daughter in my class because it's like walking around on glass to be sure I don't say anything that could be misconstrued as negative...who are we kidding? I have to not say anything. Sigh.

I did get an email from the air marshall saying Happy Valentines day and he wanted to talk but he was flying to France would I be around this weekend. Ha. As if I do anything anymore. Clearly he's not reading the blog. hahahahahaha I don't want to think too much about that either. My feelings for him haven't changed, but I know that things aren't going well for him yet either. So, I don't know what that conversation holds. Gonna try to not obsess over that too. (Let's be honest, he's not a thinking deal, he's an obsessing deal.)

The yearbook staff is working. Pretty consistently at the moment. THANK YOU GOD. They have to get 45 pages in by this Friday and then another 20 next and final the book Feb 27th. If they pull it off, it will be a miracle but we need a miracle to get this book out on time. Never have we been so close to failure.

I spend most of my days trying really hard to NOT think too hard about any one part of my life. My brain flits around all topics constantly reminding myself to stay calm and trust in God.

In the meantime, I don't want to talk about ANY of it because it ALL stresses me out. I went out with friends the other night and literally said, "You can not be overly nice or solicitous. I will cry." I should call my sister, but I can't because we haven't talked in months. I don't have the energy to either catch her up or listen to her talk about her life. It takes energy to act interested. I haven't put a lot of thought into that before now, but it's true. It does. And all of my energy is being used up. I want to take a day off. But what would I do? Sit at home and stare at Pete and Mona? haha. No.

Ironically, it probably stresses out everyone around me to have me not wanting to talk about anything, but really I am doing the best I can at this point. I am like a marathoner just trying to make it to the end. I don't have a lot of witty banter in me. I don't have any fun stories. I don't have a lot of idle chit chat. All of that takes energy. Energy I don't have.

Right now, I feel like the end of my marathon is March 9th. If it goes through, I'll close on the house. The new yearbook staff for next year will be chosen. The main book will have been finaled. The real estate book will be off my plate until the next step in June, and I'll be able to focus on moving forward.

Today, I'm just focused on breathing in and out and staying vertical. I mean it.

Now, I'm a Tweaker

Poverty forced me to stop drinking the SLAM I was getting from Avocare. That and being too depressed to actually make the purchase of the Slam happen.

A couple of days ago I started hearing on the radio about this product called Tweaker...much, much cheaper than the other options on the market.

And you know, it doesn't taste half bad. And it amuses me to no end that now I'm a "Tweaker."

Definitely feeling the rush from drinking this stuff. A rush, I most definitely need.

step right up, I have plenty of time

Do you ever look up and realize that you have signed on for way more than you actually have time to do? And, then realize that it only takes one or two "unexpecteds" to totally rock your world... yup.

I have been working on the Real Estate Book, I know, I know. That darn thing just won't go away. They want to re-print the coffee table book in another year. At any rate, we are recreating "the Tree" and the "History" (spreads within the book) and I am scheduling interviews with the latest two recipients of the award.

I also got contracted to work on US Government through the FVS. They of course chose now to start sending me stuff.

The counseling department finally accepted the fact that really it was easier to just give me the Academic Planning Guide than to pretend that I wasn't doing all the work as I trained a new person almost every year. Good, cause I'm actually getting paid, bad cause they said oh, we need this now. Grrrr.

And in the middle of all of this, I got the news that I needed to start the new house search. Holy Crap batman, that's a lot of stuff at once.