Wishing things to work

Y’all, it is one of those weeks where I find myself wishing so, so badly that things would just be consistently easy, even for just a few days.

Reporting to you live, from here! (Photo by Timur M on Unsplash)

But there is always so much to do, sometimes two to three times because they don’t work the first time. It might be someone else’s fault that they didn’t work, but I’m the one who has to fix it if I want/need it fixed. Here is a list of a few of the things that needed fixing over the past week:

1. The family who generously took care of my dog while I went to Veracruz every other weekend to see my partner is no longer able to take care of her. She’s an escape artist and everyone’s busy anyway, so I had to cobble together a plan for various people to stay at my house with her. This also meant that I had to thoroughly clean my house, change the sheets, leave no dishes, etc., because I am not going to ask someone to do this huge favor for me and then have them show up to an unclean space. By the time I got to Veracruz, I’d done a full day’s work. It will be like this for the foreseeable future.

2. I ordered some stuff on Amazon (I know they’re evil but ugh, sometimes you just need something very specific) to be delivered to Veracruz, and the delivery people kept marking “unable to deliver” even though they very clearly did not try, because it was to a business that was open and easy to find. I had to call and go through it all on the phone to work it out. There’s still something scheduled to arrive tomorrow, so it’s anyone’s guess as to whether I’ll have to do a similar running around.

3. I got paid yesterday by one of my vendors, sort of, but it wasn’t the right amount (obviously, it was lower), so today I sent an email to see what was going on there, and I imagine it will require some more back and forth. In the meantime, I’ve got bills to pay!

4. Another vendor suggested that I could start charging more after a certain point, but never followed up, and now I need to send in my invoice and am stuck between following up with him (I already sent an email and got no response) and having him be possibly annoyed at me for it, or possibly leaving some much-needed money on the table, because maybe he just forgot. The invoice has to go out today, though.

5. While I was trying to adjust a lamp that had gone out, sparks flew out of the chord and all of the light sockets on the bottom floor stopped working, including the one the modem was connected to. This was late at night, so I left it for the morning. It took some hunting the next day to find the breaker switch for the bottom floor lights (the house was built in two parts so there are two sets), but I finally found it and — thank the gods! — resetting the switches worked. Whew! Now I could…do my work.

   

   The breaker was conveniently located behind this impenetrable jungle about half the way up the wall.

6. I want to sell my daughter’s loft bed/drawer/desk-in-one thing, and upon dragging it up the stairs last night in pieces, discovered that it seems to have termites, which will of course need to be taken care of before the sale. I also want to repaint her room, and I enjoy painting, but there’s never a time when I think, “okay, I’ve done enough of my work to take a day or two off, I can do something else instead today.”

7. I am deathly tired all of the time, to the point of feeling as if I’ve been drugged. I am certain that it’s peri-menopause hormones that let me feel okay basically one week out of the month. I went to a new doctor a few months ago who sent me to get all kinds of blood work done, and then just never really contacted me again when I sent them back to her. I contacted the office, and they just told me to call back later because they were busy. Oof! I personally think I would really, really benefit from synthetic hormones (new research shows that health risks associated with them are for people with specific co-morbidities, none of which I have), but no one seems to know about that here, everyone simply having taken as gospel the “it causes cancer” message on the 90s. Meanwhile, I’m basically comatose with very limited energy for continuously seeking out help.

8. All the normal stuff doesn’t stop: cleaning, making food, showers, making sure my kid has everything she needs, exercise, taking the dog for walks, keeping up with friends (kind of — lately, mostly disappointing friends), working, working, working, and always being behind on everything.

I’m exhausted, and fear that maybe the reason nothing seems to be working out is because I am going about everything all wrong. In my heart, I know this is mostly a capitalist myth designed to make sure we all keep our eyes on our own work and not at those who are handing out these increasingly more difficult exams in the first place, but we’re all products of our cultures, and that includes me.

Is this how we’re meant to live?

This is my eternal struggle: to what extent should I care about all the goings-on outside of myself (either because I want to or must — mostly the latter), and is there a point that I should just ignore the world and become a crazy homeless person a la The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe? Can one cultivate an attitude of simply keeping a very light grasp on things, and also not starve or become homeless? Because I know that if I personally let up on the intensity of my money-making activities, none of them stable, promised, or consistent, then it all falls apart very, very, quickly. Is it time to just run away to the mountains and learn how to grow my own food and live without the luxuries of plumbing, electricity, the occasional ice cream?

It’s sometimes appealing, but I’ve got a kid who needs fed, clothed, and sheltered. Plus, I am also a fan of creature comforts.

I’m not even sure how to wrap this up, y’all. I’m just tired, like everyone else. I want justice for us all. I want real community so that hard times are shared, and joys are multiplied.

After all this time learning to rely solely on ourselves, can we find a way back to each other?