I hate this place. I hated it when I was younger even though I knew if I called crying mom would find a way to bail me out. I did a lot of "borrowing" from her just like my older sisters - borrowing in quotes because it often never got paid back. I never liked how that felt and somehow managed to break the cycle. First paying her back for dollars I borrowed and then stopped asking to borrow at all. It feels weird being back here, borrowing and not really knowing I can pay her back; eating ramen noodles and hot dogs because it's cheap. I hate it here, probably more than I did then.
As a college student that's just how life worked, knowing that once you graduated and got that wonderful job you'd been working for for so long that you wouldn't be eating ramen noodles and whatever leftover munchies your roommate brought home from her job in the school cafeteria. Sacrifice now for a better life later. Except that now it is later and here I am, shockingly close to being unemployed, stretching $200 a month in food stamps to last the whole month and eating ramen and hot dogs, and whatever food my friends graciously send home saying they weren't going to eat it anyway. This fucking sucks.
I've been questioning it alot lately too. How I ended up here, again, so far from where I imagined I'd be by this point. Really if I think back I had no idea who I would be at 44 but assumed I'd have figured out the secret to a successful life long before now so that now would be easy, or at least easier. I gave up the corporate rate race 8 years ago and became self-employed with a house cleaning business I have thuroughly enjoyed. This most recent colapse happened when at the prodding on my Spirit I decided to move back to Tennessee; this meant moving the business which up to this point has never been that hard to do.
Business however slow it's been over the last several years has never been this bad. And I have no idea what is causing people not to call. I've gotten lots of speculation about it though; the economy, the heat, the government voting on a debt ceiling, people aren't going on vacations this summer and staying home instead, etc. I can see bits and pieces but nothing really makes any sense. The question that keeps coming up that I have been refusing to look at is this; as I keep hoping, having faith in that place in me that moved me to move in the first place, you're not really going to ask me to do something like that and then leave me with no way to support myself are you? no way to make this new life function? How do I stay awake and engaged and not drown in my own guilt for letting this happen again? How do I not be angry at my own Spirit for leading me here and then seemingly dropping me off to fend for myself? How do I not give up on myself?
Spiritually I've grown and expanded a thousand fold the last two months and for that I can not accurately express how grateful I am. Even as unhinged as I am right now I know I wouldn't be handling this situation as well as I am if it weren't for that. But there's always issues to work on. I realized last night after sitting with all this that my ugly issue of "I don't deserve it" was rearing it's head and I didn't even recognize it as it slinked its way in and started suffocating me. "I don't deserve it" has so many faces I stopped attempting to catalog them. It's sneaky too showing itself as an assistant, as what I think would most help me at any given moment, working it's way into my confidence and then once I relax it squeezes like a python until I will do absolutely anything just to be able to breathe again. And it wins getting me to make choices based on fear instead of love.
"I don't deserve it" requires me to sacrifice my happiness and self-love. And you can replace "it" with anything. For this example, I don't deserve to live the life of my dreams, so in order to inhabit this life I moved here to have I have to sacrifice my personal happiness to make it work. I don't deserve to have this life I was lead to The truth is my Spirit doesn't operate that way. She doesn't invite me to dream about things I cannot have. She doesn't tease me into making detrimental decisions out of boredom or cruelty.
And I have to have the faith that this is all leading me somewhere, to a place of strength in myself that I am unfortunately unaware of right now. Yet the other side to the story is I've made commitments to pay rent and utilities and feed my dog and cat and maintain my vehicle, none of which I can trade housecleaning for. I want to be that person who is responsible and meets their commitments head on. Right now I am absolutely sure I am failing.
