Sick of It

I need to whine. Actually, scratch that. I'm not a whiner. I need to bitch.

I am not in love with my life right now. Right this minute. This "after" life that was handed to me in grenade form, exploding in my hands seconds upon it's rude entrance. Who the hell asked for this life - this life where I no longer have a husband? Where we don't get to have our family? Where I have to figure out everything alone, after years and years of figuring out everything alone? It's not fair. I already DID this shit - I spent my 20's and half my 30's doing this shit, before I found my person. Why did it take so long to find him, only for him to be taken away just 4 years into our marriage? Why couldn't he live well past the "financially crawling and struggling" part of our life together? Why do I have to claw my way through each day now, working 2 and 3 different jobs just to maintain? At what point does the universe and life stop screwing with me, and move the hell on to somebody else? I am annoyed by life.

I just got finished directing a show. It was a theatre variety show, an annual Fundraiser for CancerCare. I did this as a second job for the past few months, in addition to my other job as an Adjunct Professor teaching theatre and comedy. The rehearsal schedule and the process was stressful and exhausting, and I felt out of my element as a first-time director for this organization. In the middle of that, I flew to Tampa for a week and presented my Comedy Workshop at Camp Widow. It was amazing. It always is. The very experience of being there is incredible, and it is something that heals me a little bit more each time I go back. But when I got off the plane after landing back in New York, all of my stress and worry and exhaustion returned, and I collapsed and fainted on my living room floor. I was alone in my apartment, getting ready for another rehearsal, and I fainted. That night, just a couple weeks ago, I ended up in the E.R., having cat scans and E.K.G.'s and things done on me, and making sure I was okay. Turned out to be a combination of heatstroke, dehydration, and vertigo. Since those 5 or so hours in the E.R. and since my show closed last weekend, I have felt so beyond exhausted, that there isn't even a word for it. It's like I can't get back to "normal." My legs feel like they won't move, my feet hurt all the time, and I'm endlessly tired. I feel like I need a 2-week nap just to recover from overworking, except I cannot afford a nap in this new life of  mine, because I'm the only one paying my bills, and I'm hanging on by a thread.

Now, today, on one of my first real days off in weeks, I look around and there is very little food in the apartment. I check my bank account, and it is in the red - because in my extreme craziness, I totally forgot about a particular bill that would be automatically deducted from my account, and instead took out that money to - ya know - SURVIVE. Now Im receiving the bill from my awesome E.R. visit, which is in the $3,000 range, and which I cannot pay. Because guess what? In my new life, I have no health insurance. Why? Because when you're married to someone who is a paramedic and has GREAT health insurance, you are covered under their great health insurance, which becomes your health insurance. When they die suddenly and with no warning, that insurance is then taken away and you are basically told to figure it out. Well, I've tried. I logged onto the site AND called, and it seems that even with "Affordable Health Care", it is still not affordable for me. I always fall into that income bracket where I am too poor to survive and pay my bills, but not quite poor enough to qualify for any sort of help. I am so tired of struggling. I am 42 years old and I feel like Im suddenly back in my college days, when I was constantly broke and had no money ever. It shouldn't be this way. I feel like I'm doing everything I can to make this life work, but things just keep pushing against me. The extra jobs Im picking up are just so low-pay, that they dont make much of a difference for me, and meanwhile Im busting my ass just to not starve. And yet somehow, Im still fat. There is no food in my house right now, but I'm fat. How does that even make sense??? 

I wanted so badly to be able to release my book this July 13, which will be the 3-year anniversary of Don's death. I will be in San Diego, at Camp Widow again, ON that day, doing my presentation once again, and I thought it would be perfect to sell the book there and let the world see it on that day. But I cannot make that goal, because I have been soooo busy, I havent had time to write the damn book. I need to finish it, and I need a normal schedule where Im not working 2 or 3 jobs at once, so I can just write. But that will never happen, because in this life without my husband, I get to be broke and I get to keep making sacrifice upon sacrifice to stay afloat. My new release date is November 6th, which would have been his 50th birthday. To make that happen though, I need to self-publish, and I need to do a fund-raising campaign to raise the money to self-publish. And holy crap, do I hate asking for money. Ever since Don died, I feel like all I do is need things. Im a very independant person, and all this needy crap is driving me insane.

In the past two and a half years, I have moved TWICE, had two different roommates, sold Don's car, then sold the used car my brother got me, picked up endless jobs and gigs to help myself survive, and countless other things of sacrifice. How much longer do I have to sacrifice? I lost my husband. My future. My present. Our dreams. Isn't that enough? I am so tired of being tired, and I am so disgusted with the idea that I am always feeling less than because of the constant and nagging lack of finances in my life.

I hate this shit.