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.
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