Life -Back to Back....

Sometimes, when I get depressed, writing helps me alleviate various levels of stress. Sometimes though, it's difficult to tell if I am depressed because of stress levels or just plain depressed for no particular reason -or none that I can attribute it to at any rate.

Sometimes too, I don't write when I'm stressed and depressed mainly for fear of either not being able to articulate myself properly or completely or from articulating way too much too then.

Tonight, I took Sammy out for a late night stroll -not as late at night as some evenings when it's after 1 or 2 a.m. and I venture out with him and my trusty little flashlight in hand, but late by the standards of a lot of folks in the neighborhood. It was a little after 10 p.m. tonight -which in all respects and comparisons of late night hours, in my household, 10 p.m. is very early. Not late at all!

But I was thinking as I walked tonight too -and sometimes that's not a really good thing to do either. Especially not when a lot of things are bothering me -a lot -and depressing me and stressing me and I don't know which way to go then.

I was thinking tonight though about something I saw on Facebook the other day and which I had shared. It was a photo post of Robin Williams and the statement under it was about being afraid of being lonely and that he used to fear being alone and that was lonely -until he also realized he could be with other people, lots of other people, and still feel lonely.

Ah ha! An epiphany of sorts as I thought about that.

In many respects, much of my life I have been alone. I was an only child and hated it -because I was alone. I got married, had children and often found I was still alone -even if my ex-husband was present and even if the kids were around and were behaving too, I still frequently felt alone.

Now, I don't live alone as I have my daughter and my two younger, beautiful grandchildren here as well so I'm rarely actually alone, but yet, same old, same old thing -I frequently feel very lonely.

A lot of that is because I rarely have anyone to actually talk to.

Yes, as long as the kids are awake and running around, there's conversation aplenty at times but much of that concerns settling little spats between the kids, trying to cajole them into cleaning up their toys and other messes they have made before they have to go to bed, or doing homework or getting ready to eat and washing up before supper. Those conversations don't lead to much in the way of scintillating chats, ya know!

Last night was a prime example of things that set me off though.

I'm currently working on a tabletopper that is a stamped piece and is worked in cross stitch. Very fine, small cross stitch, with lots of color changes and often, difficult to follow to get the color shading done properly. For that, I need light -lots and lots of light to be able to see each of the tiny x stampings on the cloth.

I was all set to tune into one of my favorite Saturday night programs on the tv that I would more listen to than actually watch, all the while, working on this embroidery piece when my daughter enters the living room with a video that she and her boyfriend wanted to watch and to let the kids watch it with them too. Okay -fine -later this year I can no doubt see the program I had planned to watch as it will probably be a re-run later in the spring so not really a big deal there. Although, once I saw the video begin to play, I was a bit disconcerted as it was a cartoon type of flick -not in color though, and a rather boring topi -in my opinion -something about some spooky stuff and more along the lines of a kids Halloween cartoon type thing. So I figured well, no problem, as I could concentrate easily then on working on my embroidery project then.

However, in short order after the video began, someone mentioned turning off the lights to watch the video and I objected to that. Why? Well, because I can't do embroidery work in the dark, ya know! Sometimes, if I'm doing knitting or crochet and if it's a relatively easy pattern, I can work on that stuff in the dark -or by the light of the TV screen, but Embroidery? Not so much applicable there!

Well, that set off some others in the room who had a bit of a hissy because I wanted the light left on and eventually, the comment was made that the person upset said "Someday, I'm going to have my own living room to sit in and do whatever I want to do then."

HMMMM! Ya think?

As it turns out, unfortunately, the living room is the only room in the house where I CAN work on my embroidery craft stuff! Oh, I could go sit at the dining room table, on a hard chair and try to sit comfortably there for the length of the video -about 90 minutes worth -but would I be able to deal with the pain that would then inflict on my back and legs? Not likely!  I could take it out to my bedroom and work on it but the lighting isn't strong enough there to be able to see very well and trying to sit up in bed, with my legs stretched out flatly on the bed and with about 4-5 pillows behind me isn't exactly conducive to enabling me to be even halfway comfortable while doing the stitching either.

So, I decided to put the embroidery up and went out to the kitchen, washed up the leftover dishes, swept and mopped the floor then too.

Was I pissed? Yes, you could say that! More than pissed though, I was hurt that someone thought that it was so important that they had to turn the lights out and prevent me from being half comfortable to work on my craft hobby because I had no interest at all in the goofy video they were already inflicting on me!

Childish? Probably that too, on my part as well as the others too. But it is what it is at times ya know.

By 11 p.m. though, the kids were out like lights on the sofa and loveseat and my son had come down to use the computer a bit -and do his own version of calming himself down then too -and then, the other adults went to bed.

Which left it to me and my son then and we decided to have a nice conversation -a serious one, which isn't a really frequent thing to share with him -but it was nice to have another adult to discuss various things with and express feelings on a myriad of topics of interest to both of us. (None of which involved a lot of automotive discussions though which is more the normal topic of conversations with my son!)

We did however talk a bit about the whole vehicle problems I'm currently embroiled in here though.

On Thursday, I got the word from the insurance company that they were going to total my jeep! The mechanic who had towed the jeep from the scene when it caught fire two weeks earlier had told me a few days after the jeep fire that it could be repaired and he had given me a price for the repairs it would need that was -we figured -probably easily doable with what I would stand to collect from the insurance on the buggy. Then some friend of Mandy's had questioned what the mechanic had quoted for repairs and was wondering if his pricing was accurate as he felt it was way too low a figure and that we would end up having to pay a good bit more than the figure he had quoted.

That had led me to call my ex-husband then this week and question him about the price I'd been quoted and if he felt the work could be done correctly at that price. Frank had told me that he felt the price I'd been quoted was a decent, fair price to me and to the mechanic as well and if I really liked the jeep (which I did) and wanted to get it fixed, to go with that plan.

Well, that was all well and good until I spoke to the insurance adjustor Thursday and learned before any thing could be done, if we went that route, I would have to go through a whole bunch of paperwork with the state to get a new title -an "R" title, indicating the jeep had been rebuilt, and all that paper work involved with that would take at minimum, at least 6 weeks time before the jeep could then be fixed! ARRGH!

I told my son what the insurance company had said and his thoughts then about getting the jeep fixed were that it would be way too much rigamaro to have to deal with all that kind of mess so may as well just take the payout and get it over with!

So, now I am in the process of surfing all kinds of various used car sites and stuff, trying to find something very reasonable in price -okay, cheap, but not just cheap but DOWNRIGHT cheap -to get myself a vehicle again!

Lucky for me that I always carry liability (required by law in PA) as well as comprehensive insurance on any vehicle I own regardless of the age of said vehicle! At least, I will get a little bit of money to shop with -just not shop for something fairly newish!

This morning, after church and at the congregational dinner, my neighbor told me about a 1999 Buick that was for sale if I might be interested in it. Turns out he was referring to the car that belonged to a neighbor of ours, an elderly lady, who passed away back in November and her family was trying to settle her estate. Well, knowing that woman and the car too, I knew she had bought it new so it was a one owner and the mileage on it -a mere 61,000 miles and I knew the vehicle would be in very pristine shape too. Only one problem, the asking price is about $1500 more than what I will get from my insurance payoff and there is no way I can get a loan for the balance there if I were to try to get said car!

Mandy thinks I should just "jump on" this and get this Buick but I know my income level is such that there is no way I can afford to take on a car payment! So, for me, that car is totally out of the question. Back to the internet and surf some more!

This is pretty much the first time in my adult life that I have felt truly boxed in, financially. In the past, I've always had a job and a means too of getting a part-time job as well, if necessary, to meet expenses. Now, I just have the lowly little social security income and apparently, I'm considered to be unemployable in even non-physical work that involves my degree and which I would be able to handle!

Disgusting that age interferes in lots of ways with us, isn't it?

Oh well! If need be, I do know where I can get a 20-year old car with around 240,000 miles on it but which runs quite well -just no 4-wheel drive (Which I've come to love that the Jeep had) and who knows how much longer that buggy would hold up for me!)

I'll figure out something but this not being able to go where I need to go without making all kinds of transportation arrangements is something that makes me feel that much more dependent on way too many things over which I have absolutely no control whatsoever!

It's the loss of independence that really annoys the living daylights out of me, stresses me out to the max and totally depresses me!

At least I figured that much out as one of the areas creating the depression issues for me at this point in time. Just back to back crap where I lose a bit more of my independence these days.

Peace and G'nite!