If You Don't Talk to Anyone, No One Will Notice That You Haven't Talked to Anyone

I can't do it anymore.

Since the only reason I exist is to work enough to keep myself alive, why am I alive?  I'm not making a difference in anybody's life.  Well, not a positive one- I'm an annoyance to a few people occasionally.

I'm seeing a therapist.  I'm not sure how that's gonna go.  Her first bright idea was that I should write down what triggers my depression.  As though: 1. I don't know what triggers it and 2. As though that would help.  I told her, "If I were capable of writing about my problems in a way that helped me solve them rather than wallowing in them, I would be doing that already and I wouldn't be here."  She at least acknowledged that made sense.  Because I DO know: it's an unwavering conviction, with fairly sufficient evidence, that this is all there is for me.  My life's over.  I'm never gonna be anybody, I'm never gonna do anything, I'm going to die in a box office because I lack the ability to do anything else, and that includes act like a normal human being with actual relationships.

There's a secretary position at my boss's husband's theatre.  It's another city venue.  It pays 42k, so 6k more than I made last year.  It's a longer commute, such that it would be nearly impossible to do anything apart from drive to it, and it's a secretary job, which I actually consider a step down due to it being the exact same kind of job my mother and paternal grandmother did for most of my life. Neither of them went to college (mom went to business school), and I can't quite adequately express the shame I would feel if I had to tell people I was a theatre secretary. At least assistant box office manager has manager in the title and I supervise people.  But it's more money.  Yes, but at what cost?  Is this irrational?  Sure.  But it's perfectly rational to me because it would be one more indication that I am no better than any other member of my fucked up, dysfunctional family and how hard have I tried to distance myself from that, anyway?

Theatre?  My voice doesn't matter.  I'm a lower class, college educated, straight, cis white girl.  I've got nothing to say that nobody hasn't already heard.  And nobody likes me enough to say, "Hey, come and do things for us."  I fuck it up, because I'm not normal.

People can't like me as I am.  I'd need to at least be of a similar species.  And I'm some kind of reference library, not a human.  If I could figure out how to be a well-paid reference library, I might not care.  But that takes effort and drive I lack.  I started over once before.  I fucked it up.

So this is it, and I don't wanna do this anymore.

I Do Believe in Spooks

About a month ago, I applied for a second job as a ghost story tour guide.  Every step of this process has been such to leave me wondering whether this is actually a real job, or a very weird scam, or what.  The tour script is abysmal, with details that all but the least inquiring mind is going to go, "What?" about.  There's a story that I can't find a single primary source about, and it shows because it refuses to mention names, and it involves sexual liaisons, a prominent, yet strangely anonymous, political figure and a suicide. 

Tonight I finally got to shadow, proof that this job is actually real and does appear to pay money.  So I asked the guide, "How many times have people asked you the name of the politician?"  "Never." He pauses, "Thank Holy Jesus Christ."  He is the longest tenured tour guide, and though I've honestly spent less than ten minutes actually reading the tour (because it's awful), I kept wanting to stop, to interject, and to at least do SOMETHING to make the tour scary or at least interesting.  I mentioned to my brother that I was off to shadow and he said, "Carry cold iron, silver or jade to give to newbs in case they get too scared."  And I thought, "That's good."  

There is nothing on the tour to warrant this, in spite of the number of murders, suicides, and, in one case, unfounded mention of medical experiments.  But it would be very, very easy to take what's there, and create a spooky atmosphere.  And I am both a skeptic (of most ghost stories, the way they're told), and also a terrible coward.  I know EXACTLY how to scare the shit out of someone, and convince them that maybe it didn't even happen... or did it?  Because all you have to do is create an environment, a suggestion, and people will do shit in their own minds to scare the bejeezus out of themselves.  

The scariest house on the tour is actually condemned, built by a former Confederate doctor and later inhabited by a union buster.  Nasty people.  We even have to keep across the street from it because the sidewalk's closed in front of it.  Nasty house.  And the kid says, "Yeah, um, this next house is abandoned, so we're going to stay here."  And I look into the attic and see a purple light.  "Abandoned," I can't help interjecting, "save for the not-at-all-mysterious light in the attic.  That's nothing to worry about."  And suddenly the entire tour group takes a breath.  The kid goes on to talk about the house, and when we get to the end, someone says, "So.... if it's abandoned, why the light?"  The kid pauses.  He has no idea.  And I say, "It's the ghost light.  Construction workers use them so when the power is otherwise shut down to a house, if they need to get in and fetch something quickly, they can.  It also gives the impression to would-be burglars that someone might be in there.  But it's called the ghost light from a similar theatrical tradition of leaving a light on in an empty theatre.  It may just be for the construction workers or the theatre staff, but tradition says that the light is left on so that the ghosts may come and go as they please."  And the entire group is staring at the light in the attic, and the couple who have been as into it as anybody has been tonight goes, "Did the light just flicker?  I think the light flickered."

It didn't, but that's the power of what I can do with just a tiny set up and a lucky question.  

I've been doubting my ability to do anything, lately, but damn it, I am a good tour guide.  And I'm gonna buy a few little Allen wrenches to carry on tours because they're made of iron (steel, but, close enough), hold nicely in your hand to fidget with, and you can truthfully call one a "hex key."  

You Don't Have Nixon to Kick Around Anymore

I want to disappear, just to cease to have to exist in any functional way.  I'm angry about so many things I have absolutely no control over. 

I have $1600 in savings.  This is great.  Except that I'm counting down to a finite deadline.  I have to move between April 1st and May 4th.  Before that happens, I will have to pay my vehicle re-registration.  There is no way to get an estimate from the city, they refuse, but last year that was $583.  I had to pay another $500 in taxes. 

If all of that happens again, 1600 turns into $517. Will I save some more money between now and April 1st?  I have another 6 paychecks; if I can save $200 in every paycheck, that puts me back at $1600, and all of that will pretty much disappear the minute I move.  The taxes may not happen- I didn't move between states and I changed to the highest withholding, but, I have no way of knowing until I get my tax documents.  So I have to use last year's numbers until I know differently. 

Which brings me to the second problem.  My half of the rent is currently $640.  Clearly I'm currently able to save $400 a month.  640+400=1040.  That's what I can afford in rent.  Total.  After renters' insurance, utilities, deposit, fees, everything.  Now, if I get the .50 an hour raise I keep being vaguely hinted about, things get better.  If the second job I haven't actually started yet actually manages to pay me at least $150 a month, things get better.  That means the money from the raise and the second job becomes all my savings after circumstances change.  That would turn into roughly $200 a month after taxes.  Not great, but that's just under $2500 for the year.  It allows for a minor emergency and a cushion. 

Except, right now, I can't count on any of that.  Maybe by April, I can.  Still, $1040 is the magic number.  I am not going into debt because I got dumped.  No. 

Many places around here ask for flat utilities fees anywhere between $50 and $75 with tenants paying their own electric.  Some places ask for a $400-$600 deposit, others want a deposit equal to rent.  One of the larger companies asks (rent*2)+150+no included utilities.  When they don't really offer anything less than $840 a month, that's $1930 to move in.  Sure, it's only 940 a month after that, but if you break up the deposit by 12 (which is what you should do to actually figure out whether it's within budget or not), that's $1030, near the high end of my budget.  Those $840 a month apartments are pretty shit, too.  You're invariably in a basement studio, sometimes with a clearly a basement ceiling, with basement windows and the building's conduit running through your place. 

I'm indignant about this because, hey, somebody who says they want to be my friend and help me, they just can't be in a relationship with me, except that when I had an opportunity to move into a place in March for a flat $1040, no need to pay fees, or deposit because it's in the same building I'm in now, but you might have to pay the full rent for two months.  I mean, I think that counts as being my friend and helping me.  Especially considering that I *definitely* paid my half of the rent for May and June of 2018 and didn't move to Denver until the end of June 2018.  I'm not asking for anything I didn't already give.  But that's intolerable, because... I don't know, I barely see the guy, I have no idea what he's spending his money on, concerts, alcohol and going out with his friends, I guess.  I don't have expenses like that, so to be told, "I can't do that because I didn't budget for it!" And I definitely didn't need the lecture about how I need to compromise on some of my needs.  Well, my dude, I moved to Denver because of a desperate phone call I got on my lunch hour explaining that you couldn't possibly stay in New York, and you couldn't possibly move to Denver on your own but this apartment was perfect but you had to make a decision right now and please come with me. 

And I did.  That's on me.  Sure.  And this is why I'm never again getting involved with another human being.  Because I'm just a source of money for irresponsible people, and I'm too big a sap to say no, because I am willing to support people in all other ways, too, and the money's just an extension... except that I keep getting taken advantage of.  I would be, and this isn't a shred of an exaggeration, $22000 richer if I didn't keep being complacent about money.  And the irony here is that I work in the arts, so clearly money isn't actually that important to me, I'm just tired of giving and giving and giving until, "Hey, I'm gonna demonstrate exactly how much I don't like YOU, but please keep helping me financially."  I'm cool with a 300 sqft studio apartment from the 40s... as long as it has a real kitchen and is above ground.  Like, that and off-street parking are my three needs.  I don't want a hot plate and a mini fridge and I don't want to have to parallel park three blocks from my house.  That's it.  Everything else IS compromise, fucknut.  And I don't want to compromise on those three things because, HEY, I got handed this deal because you want to be out until all hours of the night drinking with your friends and I don't want to come. 

It's almost as though my mother isn't paying the mortgage on a house I bought with my ex-husband so that my brother can continue to live income free because that mortgage is less than the cost of rent in my hometown.  It's almost as though my mother was the single income for our family in spite of my father having the college degree.  It's like I *learned* this behaviour. 

So I feel like shit right now.  Because I'm on my own.  Every time you come home at 1am or don't come home, and I know you have to be up at 5:30, I don't sleep.  So I'm not sleeping.  I'm told I have no reason to worry or ask questions like, "When are you coming home?"  Just because I'd like to not worry about you.  But I also can't LEAVE here.  So I wind up walking around Denver in the middle of the fucking night because I don't even want to be in an empty apartment almost entirely full of your stuff.  I don't want to be lectured to about how I need to compromise, and I need to get a different job, and I need to demand a raise, and all this bullshit that I can't do.  I have a limited ability to put up with the job that I currently HAVE, and it's NICE.  That's on me, sure, but I am tired of everyone else getting exactly what they want and I have to compromise. 

Take my rent money for an apartment I didn't even SEE before agreeing to move; tell me I'm being unreasonable every time I raise questions about whether drinking as often as you do is healthy; get angry about the way I eat, even though we aren't eating together anymore; leave your dishes in the sink and be angry that I didn't fill the dishwasher; leave your crap all over the floor and refuse to clean it up but be mad when I don't clean the bathroom; ex-boyfriend (you have never cleaned the bathroom in this apartment ONCE, not even when it's been your puke). Break my car having sex with hookers in it; don't give me any access to the joint bank account for fear I'll find out what you're spending the money on, ex-husband.  Both of you, feel free to cheat on me.  I'll trust you.  Because what am I worth?  I can't get a job that pays me a living wage.  I can't get a job with benefits.  I'm actively a terrible person for the ways I eat, dress, socialise or don't. 

I exist solely to be useful to other people until they don't need me, and I'm barely even useful to me. 

I just want to disappear.