On and On Again

So. My life won't be changing any time in the next year.  
 Of the 3 schools I applied to:

PhD 1 said No.
PhD 2 said Yes, but it was too late for funding. There's no way I can go to graduate school in London without funding.  The reason there was no money left for me?  They said something went terribly wrong on their end and they don't know why they didn't review my application until April. 

MSW: Big FAT No that I just got today.  After paying their criminal $125 application fee, which, if you ask me, that amount of money ought to guarantee acceptance. I was also subjected to a 2 hour group interview that was TORTURE. Sitting in a circle with a social worker and a bunch of college senior girls, all competing to have the best answers to the same questions.  Such questions as: What would you do if you had a formerly homeless client who cooked you your favorite meal. I said I would eat it, that it was too rude not to.  All the simpering mealy mouthed girls said they would be as nice as they could but turn it down.  Yeah, good luck with that. 

I don't know what to do. I can't go on living my crap life this way.  Yesterday was a great day because I got to buy groceries, like I actually spent $80 on food that I want to eat. It's been 12 months since I was able to do that.  But the semester ends soon and I'll be back to eating church storehouse food.  Last month I had to duct tape my front bumper back on to my car.  Which officially moves me down one socio-economic level.  I had to stop volunteering at the zoo because the toll costs $8 and it takes too much gas to get there.   AND, I have to go to a hearing to have the unemployment I collected last year revoked.  Unless I get a lawyer for that. I already have two lawyers for my other crap. How am I supposed to hire another one? 

 Yes, things could be worse. Much worse. I am very blessed to have my physical health, to have my apartment and my friends and my family that has been helping me out a lot this year.  And extremely lucky to have a car that still runs. 

But. REALLY?  When will this end?  It's not like I'm not trying. I've already given up on ever getting married and I've definitely let go of the fantasy of having children.  It doesn't seem like it's too much to ask that I have enough of a successful career that I can support myself and my basic needs. That's all I want. I don't want to have to keep praying every month that my rent check won't bounce. And that my landlord has a soft heart towards me so I don't get evicted.  Clearly, I am doing something very wrong. I just wish I knew how to fix things.

Damn.

Songs of the Moment

 Parts and Labor: Nowhere's Nigh.
Favorite song from last year.  A band out of the Brooklyn scene. The trend is to play synthesizer a la 80s New Wave with punk guitar and rhythms. Also, very reminiscent of 90s Shoegazer music.  It's the perfect combo and makes me very happy.  Hooray for the death of Emo music!!! 

Warning: The songs below are not happy. They make me happy right now, but if you are in a cheerful mood, you might not want to play them. 

Crystal Castles: Not in Love.  
Can you tell who Featured the singer is? It's the inimitable Robert Smith from The Cure, of course!  It sounds like the perfect Cure tribute song, almost as though Robert Smith wrote it himself.



Low: Point of Disgust. 
This song actually came with my Windows Media Player, it's fairly old. I played it by accident a few nights ago. It felt  like my life put into song.  I played it on repeat for 3 hours.  It inspired me to write a scene in my novel.  Which worked so well at setting the tone that I've decided to always put on a song or songs with the mood I'm trying to evoke in whatever scene I'm writing.  

I've been busy lately. Teaching two classes, dealing with more legal and financial crisis, ebaying everything in my apartment that might sell and writing the novel. I wrote the synopsis last week, 9 pages. It includes a detailed outline of all 25 chapters, a character study of the heroine, and a description of the world  (It's a dystopic fantasy.)  I did that so I can start working on selling the book. From what I've read, it takes so long that you should start shopping it before you're finished with the book.

Happy Birthday to Me!

The big 3-5 today! Yipee. Funny thing is turning 34 was more of a crisis. It messed me up for a month. I guess I got it out of the way.

This is the year I am changing my life. I can not keep living this way.  I have to stop the unstable seasonal employment without benefits. And I can't live with my unfinished doctoral work hanging like a millstone on my neck. I have to let it go. I can't finish for reasons I do not understand. So, I either start over in a new doctoral program or move on.

I had a rough night. I woke at 4:30 a.m. because I have a lot of worries at the moment.  Then I had a hard time falling asleep.  When I did I had a semi-conscious nightmare. I remember all of it:

I was living in the Brooklyn brownstone again with the same roommates I had before. Only now they hated me because I lived in the best room of the house with my own bathroom. My mother was visiting. Which angered the roommates. My mom got mad at me and yelled then threw my dishes on the floor breaking them. Then my best friend that I have been estranged from for the last 2 years, came to visit and there was no room for her. The roommates were not thrilled and they started using my bathroom which became repulsive. We had to use the bathtub as a toilet, it was backed up and had floating feces in the water. And there were  extra cats everywhere, so they were making me get rid of my cats, but I wouldn't. The other cats were fighting with my kitties, I had to keep rescuing them. And the little one got stuck in a huge piles of her own vomit. The landlords were a lesbian couple that were threatening to kick me out because of the cats and my mother. 

 I remember all of that because I kept waking up at the worst parts then falling back to sleep into the same dream. I'm worried about a lot of things which explains the dream.  But I have dear friends coming up from Philadelphia to spend the day with me. They're surprising me with special plans for the day. We are guaranteed to have a good time.

Closure 2

My closure is progressing. I have passed the crisis point I reached last week. [I also needed to deal with my feelings because one of the gentlemen pursuing me returns from the west coast this month. He already asked me to go out with him when he gets back. He is a good prospect (not Mormon), if he loses the ponytail.]

I wrote a closure letter to xbf last week, it's mostly an apology. I worked on it in the middle of the night, but did not finish. Then I started mourning the loss of that relationship. I didn't complete that process the first time around because A)I was too emotionally unstable to deal with it last spring and B)I did not believe it was over, over. So. Now I know.

On Wednesday, things changed. I simply woke up feeling differently. I attribute that to prayer and divine intervention. The weight of my sorrow and distress was completely gone. I just knew, all of a sudden, that everything would be okay. I no longer have to worry about him, or us. I have nothing more I need to do. I do not need to talk to him or see him. I feel comforted, and know that I did not ruin my life by pushing him away, nor with any of the mistakes I made. That part of my heart feels peace.

Oddly, it's not a moving on type of feeling. It is a resolution, so I can get on with my life. I am not waiting for anything from him anymore. But it feels like whatever is supposed to be between us will be. Somehow, I feel undeniably that our story is not over. Whatever that means. Maybe in a few years we can be friends for real. That would be awesome. He is a beautiful person.

Part of me gets fidgety at the thought, that there will be more to come. Rationally, I know it's dangerous and unhealthy. Like I'm still holding on to something I shouldn't. And I hate the term 'supposed to' implying our lives are guided by an unavoidable destiny. I don't like the idea of destiny. I think it's a crutch and a way to avoid responsibility for one's life. However, not believing in destiny makes life a lot more scary.

Can you really believe in an omniscient benevolent God and not believe He guides our lives to some ultimate conclusion for our own good? That belief is built into the Western concept of God. It's almost necessary in order to reconcile oneself to the evil God allows in the world. Ah, but this is a complicated and millenia-old question.

The point is, I'm okay now. I no longer feel tortured by the way things ended, or the waiting. This is one of the gifts of faith.