Little Mico

Little Mico, Little Mico
Why so weepy?
Little Mico is sleepy.

Little Mico, Little Mico
Your pillow is a sock.
You cannot sleep on a rock.
I think not. I think not.

I'm a little sushi roll.
I will sleep in this hole.

Little Mico, Little Mico
A bear is not a blanket.
Your napping place is unfit.
I think not. I think not.

Me Again, Still in Oklahoma

It's months later, and I am still here, still here in Oklahoma.

This time I can say, that one thing has improved.  I now have a career of my own. I was working part time at a bank, while applying to web dev jobs.

I didn't exactly land a web dev job, but I got close.  I'm now an Event Marketing Manager. Yea. Fancy title right? Also fancy paycheck.  It's pretty much a perfect fit job.  I plan, marketing, time, and execute race and endurance events. My clients pay me to create create websites for their events, an online registration process, and produce live online race timing results in person.  I get to be techy, an event planner, a marketer, outside, and a little bit of traveling too. I've been with this new company for over a month now, and I feel like this may be the place for me here in Oklahoma. I miss park work, and being outside all the time. But, let's be realistic, without a college degree, that career path wasn't happening. Now my skills are being narrowed in a certain industry niche, so in the long run, I'll be able to demand a higher price tag, not that what I'm making right now isn't nice.

Also, let me be real about my new salary. This is the most money I've ever been paid in my life.  I do not know what to do with myself or how I should act.  We have struggled for so long with being poor, that like what the hell do I do with this money?  At first, there's things we have to buy and spend money on, just because now we're playing catch up. Like finally seeing a dentist to fix my tooth, or finally getting new clothes.  I bought a pack of underwear guiltfree this week. Like, WHAT THE HELL? So for the first few months, all this money we're now making will go to catch up, like pay off old debts, and new clothes, shoes without holes in them, a bed that's not on the floor, SOME MUTHAFUCKING POTS AND PANS, curtains - things that we have just gone without.
But in six months? At this point, we're kinda afraid to spend our salary.  I keep wanting to hoard it in savings. What if it goes away? What if my new awesome company decides that hate me suddenly. Just kidding, we don't want you.

So now, I've gained some of my self worth back with making money, I'm still depressed as hell. Miss home, and wonder what the am I doing in my marriage.

Here's the problem. I don't have an outside perspective or anyone to talk to about my marriage. I'm not allowed to. Any martial problems have to be discussed with my husband, and never with anyone else. I've always felt that was wrong, and a few times I have talked to others, I get yelled at and told our problems are not their business. I often wonder why we've lasted this long. I also wonder if I'm being mentally abused.  But, without anyone to talk to about it, I think I'm just being dramatic and making shit up.  Lately, I feel really uncomfortable with who I am married to.  It's things that are red flags. Things I read about other women have went through and call their exes abusers.  But, mine doesn't view what he is doing as wrong. he feels that he is normal and that I am the crazy one.  like right now, I feel that that everything I've written so far needs to be deleted and my questions hid from the world.  I know that if hubs read this, I'd be in for a good verbal shake down.  He's never been physically abusive, and I think this is where it's all messed up in my head.  Lately, he's been very insistent that I get "healthy".  I feel that every food choice I make is wrong. Because I'm not eating healthy. I'm chunky. I don't want to get up at 6am and do yoga.  He's lost 100lbs. I'm proud of him. But it's become unbearable.  I'm not physically good enough for him.  His favorite phrase is "I'm attracted to femininity".  I'm not a feminine woman. Never never have been. I'm not going to where dresses and tights and dress up for his fantasies.  We already only have sex once a month, and it's on his terms. It's my fault we don't have more sex because I "don't take care of myself" and I'm not feminine.

Even though both of us now make similar amounts of money. We both work full time, it's still my job to keep the house. He thinks that he does dishes once a week and that he cooks his meals He doesn't have to do anything else. We both work full time, yet after dinner and until bed time, he's watching youtube, and I'm cleaning. I do the laundry. I vacuum. I have just as much free time as he does, yet he can't be bothered to help more than the one day that I work and he doesn't? That's not really am I abused issues. That's more of a learning to live together thing, though.

I can't decide if I'm crazy or not.

I did a thing. A 1,000 mile thing.

The rumors and social media are true. I moved my ass halfway across the country this year! I went from living in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains, to living a a city with 1.4 million people right smack dab in the middle of the country, with not a damn mountain in sight.

So at last check in, I was working an off season job at the mall and my husband was once again unemployed.

Well, for some reason or other, he finally, after years and years, got his head out of his ass and decided he was tired of living life we were. He went out, got a good paying job that he was good at. He took that job, while also applying and interviewing with for his dream job. So he busted ass for 3 months, saved every penny. And I went back to school and learned more about computer coding. He landed his dream job, and my husband moved across the country on his own, with no furniture, no car and no me.  We lived 1,000 miles apart for two months. I finished up the first half my certificate program, dropped out, and I also had to sign over my thriving nonprofit I created last year, and I turned down my dream job of park director for my previous year's park, and I moved in with him in May.

So now, we're 1,000 miles away from my family, all my networking contacts, all my friends, my business. Everything. I hate it. I love that my husband has finally landed his dream job. I'm thrilled he's finally making good money. I love that we have our own place again, even if we are lacking some furniture, and are in desperate need of pots and pans. I love that I finally have some distance from my family's drama. What I hate is that I'm so isolated from everyone and everything I love, besides him.  I hate that I'm missing important events in my sibling's lives. I miss the birth of my baby brother's daughter. My grandmother is still deathly sick.  I am the one that's not a part of these things anymore.

I'm depressed as hell. I used to think that all our problems and my depression would be solved if we were no longer poor and were no longer living in the spare bedroom of my in-laws' house. Apparently, I'm never satisfied. We may be lacking essential furniture, but now we're making decent money, and are saving and are bettering our lives. My husband has health insurance and a retirement. Our bills are paid on time and in full. We're actively saving. So money didn't solve my mental health issues.

Those have morphed into a different type of depression. I now have the depression where I'll hide in my closet and cry after my husband's asleep. When he's not home and I am, I just sit on the couch and cry.  I don't call my family as much as I should. Hell, I'm balling just typing about how much this sucks.  I'm lonely. I'm homesick.

I often wonder if I'm one of those brainwashed mentally abused wives, and I'm too stupid to realize it.

Let's Recap 2018

2018 has been a good year to me mental health wise.

It started off a bit rocky, with a horribly long commute to what turned out to be a a horrible job that was severely underpaid. The first 3 months of this year sucked. I was in a supervisory role and worked under the most bitter angry person I've ever had the pleasure to be employed by. My final straw was me having a complete meltdown and anxiety attack over how this person was going to react to a fuckup while following their direct instructions, ignoring my own expertise with the subject. Dammit, I was right and they were wrong and the results were awful, like I knew they would be, but I still would get the blame for their awfulness. This person kept a journal of all the things I did wrong and they disliked about me. They straight up accused me of "fraternizing" with one of my teenage coworkers. Yeah, I had enough of that bullshit and left that job without notice as soon as I had another job lined up.

Turned out to be the best decision I made all year long.

I have spent the last 9 months working at yet another different park. And it was great. I enjoyed going to work, even working overtime. I enjoyed my coworkers and my boss. It truly has been one of the best places I've worked at. While they could not keep me past the end of the season, I left with a bid for a permanent position on file for when they start hiring in January. And an invitation to return to work in March in the same position if the bid doesn't work out.

I'm currently working a holiday job to make ends meet, but that's okay, it's just temporary. Plus, it's in a bookstore. So I think I'll be alright.

So job wise, all's been good mental health wise after I left a toxic environment.

Relationship wise, it's been kind of iffy. I am crazy in love with my husband, but I have been fighting doubts about our future for a few months. I'm not sure if I'm imagining things, making up problems where none exist, generally unhappy, if it's just stress, or if our relationship really does have my imagined problems. I don't have anyone to talk to about my worries, and no one I know even has a clue what a healthy relationship is. I fear bringing up my worries to my husband for fear of hurting his feelings and hurting his own insecure self image. But, at the same time, I kinda feel that I need to be (in)validated as well. I also fear that he won't truly listen and will be defensive. I mean, I do want to talk to him about things, and I know I should so they don't fester, and I don't want him to feel like I'm attacking him. He's a super smart dude, so even using "I statements" or "it makes me feel like x when you do y" statements isn't going to cut it. The psycho bullshit will be called out and the conversation escalated. I don't want to give the wrong impression to the internet, we do have a good solid marriage and 95% of the time, it is rainbows and unicorns. Except like lately, when I'm in a down cycle of my bipolar, he's unemployed, and holiday stress is getting ready to kick in.

Let's talk about Bi-Erasure

I recently learned, today in fact, that there is a term for some of the frustrations I have with my life.

That term is bierasure.

So if you dont know what that is, here's Google's answer: "Bisexual erasure or bisexual invisibility is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or reexplain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources. In its most extreme form, bisexual erasure can include the denial that bisexuality exists."

But boil that down to what it means to my life, it means erasing part of who I am as a person, just for the sake of convenience and society pressure.

I am a bi woman married to a straight man. Yes, I can enjoy all the privledges that straight white couples do. Yes, I enjoy my husband and we could theoretically reproduce. I am in no way ashamed of being married to my husband. I could theoretically live the rest my life having sex with the same male person.

BUT. These things do not negate who I am. If you've read my blog going all the way back to 2002/2003, you know I spent most of my teenage years dating a girl and a good portion of that time coming to terms with being a lesbian or possibly trans. I spent almost two years living as Jai. Teenage years are hard. And then when that relationship failed, I began dating this guy, and I had a bigger freak out about dating this guy in terms of who I am and my sexuality than I did when I started dating my ex-girlfriend. Finding who you are is tough.  It was tough in the 2000s when the LGBT movement was first gaining ground and public awareness. And it's tough now as a 30s adult.
I feel like I worked hard at becoming who I am, accepting who I am, and having gone through the process of coming out as a teenager (who was lucky with loving parents), I don't think I should have to hide who I am.
My experiences and preferences should not be belittled because now I am married to a man.  Yet, most everyone in the know even my ex-girlfriend considers it a phase or "it didn't count cause we were teenage girls".
I hate to break it to ya, but I still tickle the little man in the boat to girls. My eyes still follow those hot runner chicks at the park. I still, even as a married woman, develop crushes on other females. Just because I am in a monogamous relationship, does not negate who I find sexually attractive. It does, however, mean I will not step outside my marriage to fulfill those attractions.

Just a Little Help

Here's where I am in life right now.

Job accepted at a bigger park. 1.5 hour communte, like 60 miles away. $10 an hour. I did the math, and at this point, after all the deductions, I'll be bringing home (to pay bills with) $30 more week than what I currently do on unemployment.  Job Before, no benefits, no deductions, seasonal only. Bring home pay around $340 a week. Now, bring home pay about $250 a week. insurance, retirement, full time. year round.  Beggars can't be chosers, and some work is better than no work. Fine, I'll do it. Get 1st paycheck in a month.

Hubs is now in the process of getting his teaching license. Has job offer substituting. $90 licensing fees. Will be called at 5am for assignments to any school within our county. Can't start working until those are paid.

fine.

Now,  big problem. 1 car. Car that is not up to such a long commute everyday for me due to age, and the snow where I'll be working. Big mountains to cross. Tiny car. And it's my 30th birthday, which means my drivers license is expired.

Ugh.

Financial situation. Storage is about to be auctioned off. (that's where I keep all our stuff since we live with his parents ) Cell Phones are disconnected. My school bill is a month past due. His bills are 2 months past due. Car tire bill is 3 months past. Total moneys needed to bring all current. $900.

Need second car.
Need to keep these jobs.
Need to not lose everything we own.
Need not to be kicked out (which I get the feeling we are close to being)

If we can make it through the next few months, we will be on a path to better things, like stability.

Getting through will probably be one of the biggest hurdles we've ever faced. Cause there's hope at the end. When we became homeless before, we had no hope. Now we can see the path. and all these hurdles seem so much higher to jump.

How do people make it with no outside help? It's fucking hard.

I'm looking at using the bus to get to work so hubs can use the car for his job. I'm looking at a 3 hour commute in the mornings and no return trip. (busses stop at 7, and I'll be getting off work at 7:30-8)

Dealing with Death

Dealing with death or impending death of a loved one while also dealing with your own mind can be it's own special kind of torment.