Thursday, July 30, 2015

Another year another post

Okay, so I'm a horrific blogger.  But since I doubt anyone but me even knows about this blog, what do I care.

I look back on myself last year about this time and I see a more hopeful and positive person.  Where did that person go?

I'm thinking she's been beaten into submission by the world to become a much more negative person.

Why? Well let's start with the family.  In the last couple years my father has had some significant health challenges. He's had surgeries to replace veins in both legs. He had a bout with stomach cancer. He's broken his back twice and had two back surgeries. And, he's been diagnosed with a lung disease which gives him a lesser lung capacity than most people.  Okay, so none of that has happened TO me. But I love my parents and when they suffer, I suffer.  Plus, never knowing if this visit or that phone call will be the last you have with your parents makes things a bit more serious.

Then comes home. Now I love owning my own home, but the upkeep is a LOT more expensive than I ever thought it would be. Plus I truly thought both my housemate and myself would be earning more money than we are these days and so I had planned on the upkeep being better.

We still have a roof over our heads and nothing horrible is wrong with the house YET. But the yard is overgrown a lot more than it was and neither of us has the skill or honestly, the desire to fix that. Our church friends have helped, but I would dearly love to spen $500-1000 to have someone really get things back to a manageable place.

Add to that the myriad of things that need work inside and WHAMO! another hit to the positive thought process.

I also live with a drama princess. What's a drama princess you ask.. It's someone whose mother is a drama queen and the daughter is following very nicely in her footsteps.

Now I love my housemate, BFF, sister-from-another-mister and I wouldn't want to live without her. But sometimes it would be nice to just have a month, or a week when there was no drama, real or imagined.

Then comes the gosh-darm.... world.  What with transgender former Olympians, SCOTUS saying gay people can marry, Planned Parenthood selling baby parts, and people acting like every police officer is out to murder black people and every white conservative is a racist nut-job; it's not easy being a right-leaning thoughtful person.  I honestly hate politics, really I do. But I live with someone who doesn't and I do care about things, so it's difficult to read the news or even go on Facebook without it all being shoved down your newsfeed.

And then there's work. In April the company announced it was closing the manufacturing portion of the CT location and moving all of the manufacturing (and the jobs) to Mexico.

There's a huge part of me that doesn't like change.  Add to that the huge part of me who doesn't want to be unemployed and you can imagine my terror. Thankfully for me, and about 49 of my coworkers, the engineering and tech support department, and me are all staying in Connecticut for now.   My job has changed a lot. Not only are my tasks a bit different, but many of the people I got along well with have either moved to Georgia, or have moved on.  Add to that I'm an empathetic soul and so watching the parking lot get emptier and emptier and being handed a bunch of security badges and told to inactivate them, it makes going to work not so much fun.

How have I gotten through? Well, I watch a lot of The Waltons.  It's funny how a tv show set in the Depression and during World War II can bring me peace. Maybe it's the yearning for a more simple time, or maybe it's just that I love(d) Ralph Waite as John Walton; but it helps to watch those shows.

I try going to Church but that just makes me want to scream at God, so that's no good.

I eat crappy food. I've gained weight and now feel even worse about myself. So really, I don't know.

Lately I've tried to look forward instead of backward and that seems to help too.

We'll see what happens in the coming months. Maybe I'll write another post by then.