Usual warnings apply, et cetera...
I've been thinking over this lately and it's bothering me...
Since November I've had this godawful nose problem wherein I'm all clogged up and my goddamn nose runs CONSTANTLY. I kid you not, the VERY first thing I do when I wake up Every. Single. Day. is to start sneezing up a storm, then I have to tend the snot factory.
I've tried just about everything to relieve it, short of going to a doctor (which I CANNOT afford; I just got back from the damn dentist's this week to find out I'm basically sitting on a delayed time bomb that I also can't afford to treat). Drugs don't help. I've been eating antihistamines like candy thinking that this is an allergy problem - which it could very well be, because my respiratory system has gone completely to hell ever since I moved back to Illinois. I wheeze and cough constantly, and as I mentioned, the nose thing. It's driving me insane. I miss being able to actually taste my food. Some nights I swear I can actually breathe smoke in this house - the other night I was sitting here coughing and hacking and all I could taste (what I could taste, anyway) was smoke.
Part of it is probably because of my folks: they smoke. They go outside to do it in the good weather, but during the winter they always go down to the basement, which really doesn't do any good because the shit just floats upwards anyway. If it's not that, a friend of mine mentioned that it's possibly dust smoldering in the vents, which would make sense because this is an over-100-year-old house and it IS very dusty out here. And I'm sure the big damn grain elevator just down the road here and those goddamn noisemaking trains going through at all hours aren't doing me any good either, with whatever crap those spew out into the air. (Harvest time is particularly foul; there is always a red 'ash' dusting the sidewalks and streets.)
Seriously, all those ads hollering about breast cancer don't scare me an ounce. (Disclaimer: I am not picking on anybody who has dealt with any cancer, please don't take this as such.) If I get any cancer, it's going to be lung cancer, what with all the crap I've had to breathe in.
I'm not happy in this backwater podunk farmboy nowhere. It was not my choice to move here, but for all intents and purposes I'm stuck here. I feel more trapped than ever before. I eat worse up here than I did down south. I'm SO SICK of pork and chicken, and my family are the most unimaginative cooks you can think of. (I hate to cook myself, but that's because I'm 1) lazy, and 2) have not the knowledge and patience to do it. If I could eat out all the time I would totally do it.) They refuse to try new things; I'm picky about what I'll try but at least I'll try stuff. Whenever I tried cooking before, I'd throw in some new spice or something just to see what it would do, and it usually came out to my liking (I *can* cook, but like I said...), but everybody else hated it and bitched about it. And naturally I, the seafood lover, had to be born into a family of hamburger-lovers (I DESPISE hamburger and WILL NOT touch it). There are an awful lot of days when I honestly believe that I don't belong in this world.
When I lived in Florida I was miserable too - but for different reasons. In Florida I had employment (shitty though it was) and money. I had NO allergy problems whatsoever. Here, I have nothing. Even my closest friend lives 2 hours away from me, and she mostly comes down here to visit me because I have no money to get gas for my car to go up to her place.
I've been having good dreams about being back in Florida lately. This irritates me. My big fear is that if I were to go back there, I would be making the same mistake that I did with Illinois. I know now that when I was down there, I was idolizing my former home state because I was so damn homesick and had *no* friends down there. I missed what was familiar to me. And I *hated* that godawful heat in the summertime. Now that I'm back up north, I'm seeing things that have always existed but I never really paid attention to until now, and I don't like it.
I have no friends out here either, save the one I mentioned earlier - but like I said, it's not like we can just pop around each other so easily. There is NOTHING worthwhile in this town that I'm stuck in. Biggest attraction is the local gas station/convenience store, which is roughly the size of a gnat. I wish I was joking. You have to drive 20 or more miles in any direction just to get to something worth looking at/visiting, because there's farmland as far as the eye can see. I realized the other day that there is NO future here for me. (Not that my prospects are all that great currently, but for sure I can't see myself trapped in this dinky pit for an extended period of time.)
I want out of here. I want something better. I don't know where the hell I'd go, I just know I don't want to be stuck in this dump. It's probably my fate to be miserable no matter where I'm at; I'd just like to choose my own damnation for once. Ironically I have nowhere in Florida that I could go to, since we sold our Florida house right just before the market got really really bad. Theoretically I could stay with my uncle who lives down there, but he is *not* an animal person and there is NO way in hell I'd even consider abandoning my cats. (Nor would I force them on someone who didn't want to be around them)
Naturally all my family loves this pitstick. But then my parents are getting on in age and my brother and his family wanted to move out of their former crappy town (which is notorious for drugs and high school dropout rate), so it figures that they'd want something quiet. Technically I'm young enough (32 - though a lot of days it feels a helluva lot older), and while there are some people in my age bracket around here, they're also people I have absolutely nothing in common with (for starters, they're married and most have kids, two subjects which hold little to no interest for me. Not that I can never be friends with parents, it's just that their lives are naturally going to revolve around that and I have no interest in it myself). I don't want to live in a big city; I couldn't handle that chaos without going crazy(er). But I don't want to live in this farmball isolation either, especially not one that's as conservative as this. (Some of these people's politics are downright scary - there are people here who still use the N word on occasion and have all sorts of not-so-lovely adjectives to describe Hispanic folks. Ironically, I saw more liberal-leaning types down south than I ever met up north in my lifetime.) There has to be a happy balance somewhere and dammit, I want it.
I kid you not, I have spent the past nearly-two years as a virtual shut-in because I didn't have a car and can barely amass any money (unemployed; I do chores which I occasionally get a few bucks for). Coupled with my apparently worsening health, this place is literally killing me.
I can't talk seriously to my folks. I've given up on that. A lifetime of being ridiculed, dismissed and ignored if not outright yelled at has just soured me on serious discussion. I'm stuck picking up everybody else's mess because apparently the goddamn trashcan is too much effort to walk to to throw away sweetener wrappers less than 3 feet away from the countertops. And they wonder why I don't bother cleaning my room. I'm too tired to give a shit about my own mess.
I wish I had a ton of money. I'd blow this popsicle stand tomorrow if I could. Not surprisingly, Illinois has one of the worst unemployment rates in the nation, and thanks to Assholevich (kudos to whoever thought that one up ) the state is also about 9 mil in the red ink, making it harder to finance support programs designed to aid people. Not that I qualify for any of those either, since I don't fit any of the main criteria and I can't get my folks to help me out on the damn paperwork required to apply for any such stuff (tax info is required and being that I live at home, they require this info for their records).
I don't know what to do. I'm reaching my limit for bullshit.
I've been thinking over this lately and it's bothering me...
Since November I've had this godawful nose problem wherein I'm all clogged up and my goddamn nose runs CONSTANTLY. I kid you not, the VERY first thing I do when I wake up Every. Single. Day. is to start sneezing up a storm, then I have to tend the snot factory.
I've tried just about everything to relieve it, short of going to a doctor (which I CANNOT afford; I just got back from the damn dentist's this week to find out I'm basically sitting on a delayed time bomb that I also can't afford to treat). Drugs don't help. I've been eating antihistamines like candy thinking that this is an allergy problem - which it could very well be, because my respiratory system has gone completely to hell ever since I moved back to Illinois. I wheeze and cough constantly, and as I mentioned, the nose thing. It's driving me insane. I miss being able to actually taste my food. Some nights I swear I can actually breathe smoke in this house - the other night I was sitting here coughing and hacking and all I could taste (what I could taste, anyway) was smoke.
Part of it is probably because of my folks: they smoke. They go outside to do it in the good weather, but during the winter they always go down to the basement, which really doesn't do any good because the shit just floats upwards anyway. If it's not that, a friend of mine mentioned that it's possibly dust smoldering in the vents, which would make sense because this is an over-100-year-old house and it IS very dusty out here. And I'm sure the big damn grain elevator just down the road here and those goddamn noisemaking trains going through at all hours aren't doing me any good either, with whatever crap those spew out into the air. (Harvest time is particularly foul; there is always a red 'ash' dusting the sidewalks and streets.)
Seriously, all those ads hollering about breast cancer don't scare me an ounce. (Disclaimer: I am not picking on anybody who has dealt with any cancer, please don't take this as such.) If I get any cancer, it's going to be lung cancer, what with all the crap I've had to breathe in.
I'm not happy in this backwater podunk farmboy nowhere. It was not my choice to move here, but for all intents and purposes I'm stuck here. I feel more trapped than ever before. I eat worse up here than I did down south. I'm SO SICK of pork and chicken, and my family are the most unimaginative cooks you can think of. (I hate to cook myself, but that's because I'm 1) lazy, and 2) have not the knowledge and patience to do it. If I could eat out all the time I would totally do it.) They refuse to try new things; I'm picky about what I'll try but at least I'll try stuff. Whenever I tried cooking before, I'd throw in some new spice or something just to see what it would do, and it usually came out to my liking (I *can* cook, but like I said...), but everybody else hated it and bitched about it. And naturally I, the seafood lover, had to be born into a family of hamburger-lovers (I DESPISE hamburger and WILL NOT touch it). There are an awful lot of days when I honestly believe that I don't belong in this world.
When I lived in Florida I was miserable too - but for different reasons. In Florida I had employment (shitty though it was) and money. I had NO allergy problems whatsoever. Here, I have nothing. Even my closest friend lives 2 hours away from me, and she mostly comes down here to visit me because I have no money to get gas for my car to go up to her place.
I've been having good dreams about being back in Florida lately. This irritates me. My big fear is that if I were to go back there, I would be making the same mistake that I did with Illinois. I know now that when I was down there, I was idolizing my former home state because I was so damn homesick and had *no* friends down there. I missed what was familiar to me. And I *hated* that godawful heat in the summertime. Now that I'm back up north, I'm seeing things that have always existed but I never really paid attention to until now, and I don't like it.
I have no friends out here either, save the one I mentioned earlier - but like I said, it's not like we can just pop around each other so easily. There is NOTHING worthwhile in this town that I'm stuck in. Biggest attraction is the local gas station/convenience store, which is roughly the size of a gnat. I wish I was joking. You have to drive 20 or more miles in any direction just to get to something worth looking at/visiting, because there's farmland as far as the eye can see. I realized the other day that there is NO future here for me. (Not that my prospects are all that great currently, but for sure I can't see myself trapped in this dinky pit for an extended period of time.)
I want out of here. I want something better. I don't know where the hell I'd go, I just know I don't want to be stuck in this dump. It's probably my fate to be miserable no matter where I'm at; I'd just like to choose my own damnation for once. Ironically I have nowhere in Florida that I could go to, since we sold our Florida house right just before the market got really really bad. Theoretically I could stay with my uncle who lives down there, but he is *not* an animal person and there is NO way in hell I'd even consider abandoning my cats. (Nor would I force them on someone who didn't want to be around them)
Naturally all my family loves this pitstick. But then my parents are getting on in age and my brother and his family wanted to move out of their former crappy town (which is notorious for drugs and high school dropout rate), so it figures that they'd want something quiet. Technically I'm young enough (32 - though a lot of days it feels a helluva lot older), and while there are some people in my age bracket around here, they're also people I have absolutely nothing in common with (for starters, they're married and most have kids, two subjects which hold little to no interest for me. Not that I can never be friends with parents, it's just that their lives are naturally going to revolve around that and I have no interest in it myself). I don't want to live in a big city; I couldn't handle that chaos without going crazy(er). But I don't want to live in this farmball isolation either, especially not one that's as conservative as this. (Some of these people's politics are downright scary - there are people here who still use the N word on occasion and have all sorts of not-so-lovely adjectives to describe Hispanic folks. Ironically, I saw more liberal-leaning types down south than I ever met up north in my lifetime.) There has to be a happy balance somewhere and dammit, I want it.
I kid you not, I have spent the past nearly-two years as a virtual shut-in because I didn't have a car and can barely amass any money (unemployed; I do chores which I occasionally get a few bucks for). Coupled with my apparently worsening health, this place is literally killing me.
I can't talk seriously to my folks. I've given up on that. A lifetime of being ridiculed, dismissed and ignored if not outright yelled at has just soured me on serious discussion. I'm stuck picking up everybody else's mess because apparently the goddamn trashcan is too much effort to walk to to throw away sweetener wrappers less than 3 feet away from the countertops. And they wonder why I don't bother cleaning my room. I'm too tired to give a shit about my own mess.
I wish I had a ton of money. I'd blow this popsicle stand tomorrow if I could. Not surprisingly, Illinois has one of the worst unemployment rates in the nation, and thanks to Assholevich (kudos to whoever thought that one up ) the state is also about 9 mil in the red ink, making it harder to finance support programs designed to aid people. Not that I qualify for any of those either, since I don't fit any of the main criteria and I can't get my folks to help me out on the damn paperwork required to apply for any such stuff (tax info is required and being that I live at home, they require this info for their records).
I don't know what to do. I'm reaching my limit for bullshit.
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