Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him 'til he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

It would be so easy to disappear. I'm already mostly gone.

Funny, I've never seen myself as an entrepreneur....

I had a dream that [He] suddenly decided to face me. He showed up with some paperwork for me to sign. He informed me that he had take it upon himself -- with zero discussion with me -- to sell the print shop we co-owned. Yeah, I have no idea where that came from. Anyway, despite the fact that I had been the one to make the $50,000 down-payment on the shop, [He]decided that he should get the greater share of the profits. He was all weird and robotic and...weird. He showed me highlighted portions of the sales contract, and his share of the profits was something with a 5 and then a whole lot of different numbers after it: $569,736. My share was $400,000. It occurred to me that the business had obviously been very profitable and could have provided me with some much-needed supplemental income (and a larger profit upon selling if we kept it longer), but I was so tired of dealing with him that I grabbed the pen and signed on the line with 2 angry slashes that didn't even resemble words. I said, "It didn't have to be like this. Are you happy with the way things turned out? Is this what you wanted?" Then I threw the pen down on the table and walked away.

Then [He] was gone, and it slowly started to dawn on me how much money I now had at my disposal. I went straight to K and said, "K....We can buy Mom something for Christmas this year. We can buy her a motorized wheelchair!"

Then it really hit me.

I can pay my overdue property taxes.

I can get the heat fixed.

I can get the plumbing fixed.

I can get the animals up-to-date on their shots and exams.

I can pay off my mortgage and pay Mom back all of the money [He] and I borrowed.

It was so real. The feeling of intense relief was indescribable. I felt better in that dream than I ever have in my waking life. All pressure was gone. It was so wonderful to be able to share good news for a change, to be able to make life better for my loved ones instead of being such a burden.

Then I woke up and cried for a while.

Albuquerque.

Brain is not working. My prescriber said that 30 mg of dexedrine is too high of a dose, so she wrote me for 25 mg -- which just does not workfor me. It's better than nothing, but not by much.

I am getting extremely frustrated and....distraught. I am starting to fear that I'll never find that window of optimal functionality that a lot of ADDers seem to find with medication. I don't know if I'm depressed because of the ADD, comorbid to the ADD, or if I have depression that is completely separate from the ADD. I don't know how much of this is due to stress and/or lack of sleep and/or poor nutrition. Obviously these are all contributing factors for poor mental function even in a so-called "normal" person. But I have no money and no time to go grocery shopping -- literally the only time I eat is when K puts a plate of food on my desk (usually a simple pasta dish that our mom sent over) and says, "Hey. Eat something today." (Why am I so fat?!) We've been out of omega 3-6-9's for a while now, and I know that's not doing me any favors. I'm at least continuing to take my multivitamin and vitamin B12 every day.

I sit here at my desk...all day....at least 6 days a week. I technically have Sundays off, but I usually volunteer at The Day Job for extra work to do over the weekend, and I usually do that on Sunday. Mondays aren't so bad because I only have The Day Job, so the combination of those 2 "light" days allows me to recharge slightly.

On Tuesdays I get up between 5:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m., depending on how much work I have to finish for The Day Job from the day before. I sit at my desk and stare at my monitor and somehow get some work done by 2:00-2:30, which is when my manager goes home for the day. She's the one who sends completed work files to the clients, so after she's gone there's technically no point in sending any more work for that day.

Then I usually try to catch some sleep on the floor here in my office. My alarm goes off at 3:00, and then I climb back up into my chair and log into The Night Job. The hours are flexible, but we are required to spend the first hour of our shift working (in other words, this first hour is nonflexible). It usually takes me that first hour to get my shit together, going over my notes, reviewing feedback from my supervisor, organizing my references and lists, et cetera. On a good day I can work for a couple of hours before needing to take a nap, but often I can barely make it to 3:00 before hitting the floor or falling asleep in my chair. Usually I will need to sleep for 2 hours or so, which means that instead of getting off of work at 11:00 p.m., I work until 1:00 a.m. At that point, since I can no longer tolerate being in my office, I forgo the mattress on the floor and go out in the living room to crash on the couch with the kitties for a couple of hours before it's time to get up and do it all over again. On Saturdays I only have The Night Job, but I usually spend the first part of that day trying to catch up on lost sleep.

Sometimes, like when the pipes freeze or the covering for the well needs to be hammered back together, I get to see the sun and breathe some fresh air. But not often. I don't think I've gone outside yet this week. I don't know what day it is. Wednesday?

I don't feel like a person anymore. I don't feel human. I'm this sad and lonely thing that plugs into a computer and performs tasks for companies that may or may not send reimbursement in a timely manner. I have no one to talk to, nothing to look forward to, no light at the end of the tunnel. I am exhausted all the time, but I'm so stressed out over being sleep-deprived that it takes me hours to calm down and unwind at night. This week was the first week that I had a day where I didn't weep continuously while at my desk and cry myself to sleep for the mid-shift nap, and the truly sick part is that I actually think this is a bad thing, because I feel too numb and too dead to cry. I'm starting to not feel anything. Maybe because there isn't anything. I don't know.

I'm so sick of me. This seems so pointless. It is vaguely painful to realize that I don't matter a whole lot in my own life -- I spend all of the energy I have (and more) trying to hang on to a life I'm not even living. I barely exist. I am pouring myself out into a massive void and I've got so very little left. What would be worse:  Somebody reading this, or nobody reading this? I have no fucking clue. Sometimes I wish I could force myself to stick with a paper journal -- my hand would get tired long before I could get most of this garbage out. I can't seem to get myself to shut up. Shut up, Self. See? Doesn't work. I'm still talking.

I need help, urgently and immediately. My brain is not functioning.

I have been having moderately intense pain in my tumor lately.

That is all. Back to work.

Jane! Get me off of this crazy thing!

For the very first time in my life, I have a mentor. (Does this make me a padawan? Or merely an apprentice?) I'm not really sure what mentors are good for, but apparently mine likes to check in by phone once a week to do evaluations and "touch base" (I hope to work the word synergy into my next work-related injury update). Yesterday I had my first evaluation. It took about 4 minutes. 

My goals for last week (apparently I had some?) were to transcribe 1500 lines, reduce non-critical errors by 50%, and achieve an accuracy of 96%. I had vaguely been keeping track of my accuracy rates and knew I was doing pretty well, but I didn't bother to do any fancy arithmetic to figure out an average. Frankly, Dear Reader, I don't give a damn. Maybe it's the ADHD, but I tend to gauge things like that pretty accurately just by how I feel about them. I guess that sounds dumb. Or maybe delusional. Egotistical? At any rate, I know I'm good at what I do, so I don't ever sweat it much. The weird thing is, I think the reason I'm so good at transcribing is because I work very intuitively. I know the rules well but couldn't repeat them back to you -- they just pop up out of my subconscious when I need them and then fade away again. 

Mentor said she basically had nothing to discuss with me because I was doing phenomenally well -- my accuracy rate is literally almost perfect. My production for last week was 1779 lines, which is "189% of predicted." My accuracy was 99.3%. God, I hope they promote me. I'll make a whole 'nother cent per line!

Most of all, I wish I was this good at something that actually offered fair wages. The work I do is important, and I am simply too skilled to be making $9-$10 an hour. That's not bragging -- I got lucky with this career. My therapist suggested it to me as a way to work from home, and it just so happened that it's a perfect fit for me and the way my brain works. Add to that the fact that I had a pretty solid base of medical knowledge via osmotic transfer from living with [Him] for all those years as well as my uncanny ability to remember obscure facts, and it was a match made in heaven. I love doing it. I just wish it loved me back.

Also:  I am taking a painting class!

I am a fully evolved pastry.

I've been up for 20 hours, and all I've done is transcribe. K brought me a plate of Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner, and that's the only thing I ate all day. In 5 hours I get to wake up and do it all over again. Not complaining. Just...can't believe this is my life. I'm scared as hell that this is going to be my Eternity, that I'll just continue working this hard for practically nothing until I drop dead. Melodramatic, I know.What can I say. I'm fatigued.

I'm sitting in my recliner now, wrapped in my MIL's Snuggie and a Christmas blanket. It is so fucking cold in this house. I couldn't feel my hands at all today. I drink tea and Teecino all day long just to have something hot to hold. Feeling really lonely and lost and afraid tonight, so I started going through my MIL's letters. I saved them all, tied them up with a ribbon. I'll keep them forever, these pieces of her that she was kind enough to give to me. Hard to believe it's been more than a year. Everything has changed so much -- I have changed so much -- but some things haven't changed. My phone rang today and I randomly thought it was [Him]. Not in a "Greetings, Abandoned Spouse. Give me $800 a month or I'm going to sell the house out from under you" kind of way, but in the old way that he used to call to tell me he was coming home. It felt so strange....even after all this time, it strikes me as so unbelievable that everything we built together has long since crumbled into dust, the years we spent together meant nothing all along. So why do I still feel the same? I've changed in so many ways except that tiny shameful one. I'm embarrassed that I can still love him. Proof positive that I am a total effing moron. But on the other hand, I don't want to have to feel bad for loving anyone. I don't want love to be a bad thing. I'm not the one who should be ashamed. Eh, whatever. Tired. Must sleep.

I thought reading her letters again would hurt. I was right, but it isn't a bad pain. It isn't even unwelcome. The pain is a reminder, in a way, of love shared. But then it hit me, and it actually took my breath away: Why did she ask for me? Why me? How did I get to be so lucky as to be that person for her? I don't understand it. I don't understand it at all, and I probably never will. It would probably have been a little bit less confusing if her son hadn't recently decided that life was way better without me in it, but not by much. Why did she ask for me? I don't really need to know. This is just me turning it over and over in my mind, treasuring it and trying to feel worthy of it.

I have no idea where I was going with this. My feet are numb. I'm going to sleep on the couch for a few hours because I cannot go back into that office yet. It feels like a tomb. Or a cuckoo's nest.

Tim called me a donut earlier, though, so that made my night. I'm "a donut that wishes to be a blob....cake smart, but with an appealing flaky pie crust. So to speak." Heh. I'll be writing those down for future reference when smiles are much needed.

Holy hell, I need to be unconscious immediately. If I don't get paid soon, I'm going to run out of Silk nondairy creamer. If I run out of Silk nondairy creamer, I won't be able to drink shitty instant coffee. If I can't drink shitty instant coffee, I will turn into a mole person. Okay. All I have to do is make it to Sunday, and then I can sleep for an entire day. After I see my mama, of course.

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget." 

~ Arundhati Roy