There comes a time in every persons life when they just have to say "what the uncle nephew-son, satellite dish hooked up to the trailer, kool-aid without sugar, frozen pizza dinner, five teeth missing, creek water sippin', tobacco dip spittin', dumpster divin', out of toilet paper so I had to use my hand, tractor drivin', catfish sellin', cat piss smellin', dog food chompin', yee yee yellin', camel cigarette smokin', bull butter is this place and how did I get here?" You know we've all been there.
Well here I am. I feel like that guy in the Matrix that didn't want to take the pill. Or the line in Hotel California "You can check out any time you want but you can never leave."
I have dug myself into this hole now I don't know how to climb out.
My decent into brokehood-ism was a long but rapid one. I was married for 15 years with 3 beautiful sons in private school. I had just bought my first home. Every thing was going good on the surface. Under neath there was something else life had in mind just waiting to rip the good times rug out from under my feet.
Less than a year into having my home which keep in mind is a fixer upper my already sick dad gets sicker. And right before Christmas he goes into the hospital. I got to talk to him for a few minutes while he was on manual life support before the doctors put him to sleep and onto full life support. He was in the hospital for three weeks and never woke up. My beloved father passed away on Wednesday, December the 23rd 2015 at 10:13pm. Everything stopped. Everything was too close but very distant. Everything was so loud but at the same time I couldn't make out what any thing was because it all sounded muffled. Everything was moving so fast but I was standing still. Missing him was an ever present constant thing in my life. I didn't have to think about him to know he was no longer there. I was living the quote by James Dashner “I felt her absence. It was like waking up one day with no teeth in your mouth. You wouldn't need to run to the mirror to know they were gone."
This was the first tragedy in my series of unfortunates events.
After the terrible loss of the greatest man and most influential person in my life, I was lost. I walked around lost, shopped for groceries lost, laid in bed lost. I was utterly and hopelessly lost. Needless to say losing my dad was the first loss, then comes the second string of losses. Friends, I lost friends. I didn't think I wanted them, didn't think I needed them so I lost them by shutting them out. Welp you know what they say folks, "But wait there's more!" (In my best Billy Mays)
I didn't just shut out friends I shut out everyone. My Mom, My husband, My life... Heck I am pretty sure I shut out myself... If I wasn't thinking then I was wasn't... Well, thinkin' so I can't hurt if I don't remember, right?
So here is the third loss in my now track history of losing things... My husband. Yep, lost that too. You would think he would be hard to lose at 6ft4 and 240 pounds but nope I managed to lose him after 15 years. I pushed him away and shut him out so on April 24th 2016 he was gone. He felt he had no choice. I mean he suffered the loss of my dad too but I made him feel unwanted and not needed. So he was gone, just gone. He was angry and lost and I was angry and lost. Together the combination was volatile and poison. There was months of screaming and mean words. You think how could two people that had so many good years go so bad so fast. It's mind blowing really.
Now the issue with him leaving besides the whole obvious loss of a relationship and breaking up of housekeeping and all that. I mean the financial issues. I didn't work .I was a stay at home and he was the bread winner. So now I have a house (fixer upper) 3 kids (still in private school), and of course I am still walking around lost from all the losses so far. My life is spiraling out of control. I have zero control of my life, and now I have bills and unfinished projects from the fixer upper on top of it.
Which brings me to my fourth loss. I have completely lost control.
I had a surgery on August 30 to have some stuff removed from my belly. I was cut from hip to hip. I had 2 unfortunately placed drains in the top of my (well never mind you get the picture) within 11 days I was having a second surgery to fix the first surgery because my first surgery burst open. It's technical term is dehiscence (look it up if you want) Well the second surgery had to open wound heal hip to hip. I had to be packed 4 times a day. It took nearly 6 months to heal enough to be able to get up and move around some. I had to wear belly bands, side note those things are the devil. I drained all the time and it well it was just terrible. Needless to say my depression was worsening. I saw no end to the spiral of depression and bills and loss of control.
Christmas. Christmas was upon us. Art Alexakis of Everclear nailed it when he said "They have never had the joy of a welfare Christmas " Well I guess my kids were going to learn the joys of one this year. The only good thing that I had going for me was that my kids always only get 3 presents each on Christmas (it was good enough for baby Jesus, it's good enough for my boys). So my boys weren't Christmas spoiled. So some how I had to come up with 9 presents with less than no money. If I had a dollar I would put it in my mouth and pray for lockjaw. But I had to make it happen. My boys loved me despite my many flaws believe me there are many. They have stood by me despite my depression. They have suffered the losses with me. They deserve a half way normal Christmas. Then it hit me. Anniversary. 1 year. My sweet, hateful, loud, beautiful, rough around the edges Dad. Gone a year. Oh the depression is real. The struggle is real. I managed though I pulled off a decent Christmas and convincing smile for my love doves. Good job Jaimee, you did it.
Once I was healed enough to be able to get around and work. I got a job at a fast food restaurant My hours were crazy. Early mornings, late nights. in between shifts. It was dirty and the people were rude. But I was bringing in money. Yeah, barely. My checks wouldn't even cover my basic bills. So they kept piling up, piling up and getting bigger. You know the cartoon of the guy at the desk with the overdue bills stacked and piled all around him. Yeah I am that guy (girl, woman, lady)
My kids schooling is $420 a month, electric is always astronomical at my house, and of course all the unfinished projects aren't cheap so needless to say 3 steps forward 12 steps back.
Loss number six. I get the notice that my income taxes were red flagged and seized due to student loan debt. I was counting on those to help me get me head above water. I was like walking around imitating real life at this point. I was faking it. I was like a duck, above water I appear calm but below the surface I was paddling like crazy to stay afloat. Now I had no idea what I was going to do. Income taxes were my ace in the hole. Life's a gamble you never know what the river holds.
Let's move on to my seventh loss, there isn't much more to say about losing my income taxes to student loans except I lost my income taxes to student loans. So I get a notice in the mail (you ever notice that when you get a notification in the mail it's never good's news. I mean let's face it it is never publisher clearing house for real. Well this lovely piece of parchment was lovingly notifying me that the property taxes for my money pit, I mean fixer upper, I mean house were bought. So now the taxes that I couldn't afford at $548 are now $1090 with the attorney fees and all the stuff that gets tacked on to the bill. Yep, definitely not affordable now but I can just throw that on the ever expanding pile of delinquent notifications.
Of course I haven't even mentioned the kids school tuition is still going unpaid all this time. So those bills are also filed haphazardly into that perpetual aforementioned pile.
So then winter bills at my house are a sick joke. My electric is 6, 7 and $800 dollars a month for three to four months every year. Well that stinks like bad cheese for a person with a good job so take someone in a deep, dark, never ending spiral with piling debt and a crap job that a high schooler would scoff at and put those bills on top of it. Fun times right.
Surgery number 3 leads to loss number 8. Not a huge loss mind you but a loss all the same. I lost my income from my fast food restaurant due to another surgery to fix the first 2 surgeries. This time I had 4 drain tubes. not as unfortunately placed but still drain tubes are evil. The healing wasn't near as bad as the open wound healing and didn't take near as long. Still the surgery created a loss of income even as little as it may have been.
Debt thy name is Jaimee.
Let's fast forward to September 2017. We can skip a few months and not miss anything real important. Just imagine piling debt and me treading water to stay afloat. Yep all caught up.
So September comes along and I see an ad for a good job. I fill out the app on line and get the go ahead to come in and take some tests for typing, proof reading and comprehension. Passed, flying colors. Great, good job to start September 25th. Three weeks to get some good clothes and figure out a ride back and forth to work. I have failed to mention that I have no car, right. Well, I have no car it broke in 2016. The job is located around 50 miles round trip. I inconvenience my mom for money to go to GoodWill and get some clothes. I also inconvenience my mom for a ride to and from work. I guess she figures this is going to be my only way out of the ever mounting bills and past dues that I have.
With the good job I receive loss number 9 food stamps and medical cards. Which seems like a good thing on the surface. Look deeper I am already struggling, just getting started, still behind on everything and now I lose the little assistance I got in life. Oy vey.
Loss 10 is brought on by luck of the draw I suppose. There are several things in this list but we will lump them into one big loss. Appliances.
Let me explain. Mid October my cooking stove decided it was done so it no longer works then I woke up Thanksgiving day and my refrigerator had quit working. Two weeks later my microwave started getting too hot and breaking every glass thing that was in it. Including it's turntable. Perfect! More things I can't afford.
Oh wait, It's Christmas again. I have to pull off another Christmas. Really, does Christmas have to come every year? I mean really, really? Since we don't have cable maybe my kids won't notice that it's Christmas time again. Yeah, right. Oh yeah 2nd anniversary too. Bring on the rain. I pulled off another Christmas for my babies. But,
winter in my house brings the ginormous electric bills too.
When it rains...It pours.
This winter in Ky was super cold. You know what that means? No? Loss 11. Pipes (and maybe a touch of sanity). Any way, Frozen pipes. Along with frozen pipes comes burst pipes. Every. Pipe. In. My. Plumbing. System. Broke. Every single one. Inside walls in the basement. Under the sinks. All of them. I know what you're thinking. Yeah right. This girl has got to be making this up. Nope, gosh I wish I was.
Not only did my pipes burst but my water heater cracked also. So on January 2nd 2018 I woke up with no water. Once it finally un-thawed I had entirely too much water. Water spraying all over my kitchen floor. All over my bathroom floor and all over my basement. Also spraying out of my water heater. FML.
I have a dear life long friend that eventually heard about my water or lack there of. He came over and fixed my water lines. So I went close to 5 weeks without water. I still have no water heater. We are still having to shower at my moms and stuff. But, at least we have water again. Right?
My last loss that we are going to talk about is my loss of hope. I am not sure that I will ever get out of debt. You remember the large bills that
I am so accustomed to receiving in the winter time at my abode. Well, the most shocking one I have ever gotten came in the mail yesterday March 2nd 2018. My electric bill is $1249.69. Take your time if you need to re-read that.
How is a person ever supposed to get ahead if they keep falling further and further behind. I have lost all hope of that ever happening. I have lost all hope of ever truly being out of my depression. I have lost all hope of ever having my children seeing me completely happy again.
I know that I will travel a long distance on rough pavement before rediscovering the smooth highway I have lost...
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