I’m breathing.

Say a prayer please. Steve’s garage sale has brought in $3.50. The dog is out of food. G is home for the week and the food stamps won’t refill for 2 more days. The water is set to be cut off NOW. We need an extension and $134. I’ll have it if they give us till Wednesday. Then it will be the fight to keep the electric on…$218. O EM GEE. I have nothing to pawn, nothing anyone wants to buy. I have a hat I’ll get a $20 check for this week. Again, I am breathing.

I have put in 38 applications for seasonal work at the mall, at Walmart, Kroger, Ingles, Publix, Auldi, JoAnn’s, Walgreen’s… no response. I could bang my head on the wall. I call the stores, I go in when I can – I can’t help that my resume now has 4 years of self employment on it. FUCK! Sometimes I wish I could just claim disability but being in pain isn’t being disabled. When I take the pills, I’m not in pain. When I don’t, it’s BAD. I don’t know why I think I can skip doses of meds. I skipped it yesterday and woke up near screaming this morning. This shoulder pain lasted 6 minutes before easing… so freaking sharp – all I did was roll over. Man.

Anyway. Things are what they are. We fight saying we are permanently poor, and we hope daily that things will get better. My positives are so strained. I hear all the time how my pain is from stress and until I address my stress, my pain will remain. Maybe so. THAT is a very depressing thought considering the situation. I know people are sick of us and think we just aren’t trying. I hear that all the time too. They harp on us that we should move. How the hell do you move with nothing? If you can’t be helped with a water bill, you sure can’t be helped with a move. You have to have a truck, no one wants your pets…

and we have 4 vehicles…which the code enforcers of Gwinnett Co decided to write us up on because the tags aren’t current and we have 2 weeks to correct or get them removed. We have the registrations suspended which is legal. Steve starts them and rotates their positions each week, jumps the batteries, etc. We just don’t need this crap. One car needs rotors and the controls for the windows but runs fine other than that. The Hyundai needs a transmission but runs. The Buick is an antique and runs fine. We haven’t been able to sell any of them, but they aren’t junk cars. We may need to fall back on one of them if the Jimmy konks out. It has 225,000 miles on it.

Honestly, I’m out of ideas. I am so focused on not crying. I knit. I try not to think. I breathein and try to remember to breathe out…