How I feel today, and it's not good:

Days of whining have sort of led me to a sense of deep dissatisfaction.  Guess it was inevitable, and I guess I did it to myself.  I've pretty much decided that I don't want to live in California anymore.  It's too expensive and you get so little in return.  And that's for a family living on a 6-figure income!  So it hardly seems fair.  We still struggle with daily expenses.  I have no friends I consider good ones, for various reasons.  I find people I like, but just don't feel close to.  I could say it's all in my head, but for some reason it sincerely feels like they just don't "click" with me, I guess.  They live too far away, don't have the same interests, don't want to be bothered with someone who has a kid . . .  I've tried to make friends with some of Ethan's classmates' parents, but that hasn't worked out too well.  They all just suddenly withdraw from us, and I don't have a clue why.  I feel horribly lonely.

But then when I think about moving, I simply dread the thought.  It was hard to move out here, away from family and friends.  All of our possessions seem scattered to the winds.  What we have left isn't much.  And the thought of my son having to adjust to life again in a new place, new school, new friends, doesn't seem so fair, either.  But the smog is getting to us, my son has allergies so bad he has to take pills every day and he can barely breathe at night as he sleeps.  That can't be good.  So I have to choose between his mental health and his physical health?  I'm not sure how to BEGIN to do that.  And he has nightmares almost every night as it is.  Don't know if it's related to the instability, or just the surroundings, the school he's in . . .  Could be anything. 

When people talk about southern California with such admiration, I really wonder about it.  I've NEVER wanted to live here, ever.  In fact, it was on our list of places we DID NOT want to move to.  But somehow we ended up here.  Yeah, the weather is nice, but I honestly don't know how people can see past the dirt that's in the air, the graffiti, the litter on the ground, and say this place is pretty.  Very little of the city seems well-maintained or clean, in my opinion.  There are flowers, fruit trees, mountains . . .  But all are almost constantly obscured by smog and soot-like dirt that's almost impossible to clean.  I hesitate to eat the fruit in the backyard.  Doesn't feel like I can ever get it clean enough. 

Wow, now I sound like a person with really bad OCD, don't I?  I would laugh, but I know how it sounds.  Especially since so many people think this place is so great.  I don't get it myself.  This city has a massive superiority complex.  It's a huge turn-off for me.  HUGE turn-off.  People are shallow, and proud of it.  All of the stereotypes seem oddly true.  It's hard to take sometimes; I'm a person who just CRAVES the genuine, the unpretentious. 

I would like my son to grow up somewhere that I don't have to worry about what kind of person he'll grow up to be.  But moving seems so drastic.  Can't have it both ways.  And what about my husband?  He works in television.  Where else can we go that he won't have to work in local TV anymore?  He loves having national accounts and more interesting projects to work on.  He's thriving on it, in fact.  How can we all get what we want?

Flying fur . . .

Not to say that the events of yesterday have not sent my life into a tailspin, today I finally saw it--caught him in the act!  Saw the little monster that turned my lawn furniture from this:

... to THIS:

... and almost OVERNIGHT!!!

It's a stinking little squirrel, so deceptively cute and cuddly, that has done all of this!  Ugh!  He or she put holes in every little walnut I had this past fall, and there weren't many.  So what few there were, munched and trashed by squirrels.  Now my CHAIR!?    Yeah, I know.  The little furry monster probably needs it to make a nest for new furry monsters to enter the world.  Guess they're cute and all.  I had a rabbit for 13 years that really does remind me of them.  Weird.  Cute, but destructive.  I can re-fill the chair, but then what?  Find it deflated and flattened again in another week?  Hmm.  Just don't know.  Maybe I can make the fabric taste like something squirrels hate, like meat or something!  But then the opossum that frequents our yard, or the rat that runs on the power lines, might find it appealing.  

So I'm stuck with this weird chair.  Damn.  Can't sit around the yard eating barbecue in that.  Or relax by the firepit in that.  Or whatever.  Watch my son play.  Sip lemonade.  Etc.  Stuff people do in yards.  At least it was a cheap chair, some special offer from CVS last summer.  But it's not like we get furniture all the time. So I'm miffed.  Just whining and complaining today, but at least not about the same stuff, right?  Ha!

Anyone have tips, let me know.  I don't expect to trap the squirrels or move them, since they eat the loquats that make the patio sticky when they fall to the ground.  I'd rather have the loquats in a squirrels belly than making the patio so sticky and covered with ants it's unusable.  They tree is especially prolific throughout the summer, and already producing ripe fruit as we speak.  The squirrels begin to fight over them around now, and get especially violent through the summer, fighting all over our roof and harassing and chasing our dog whenever he visits the yard alone.  Like I said, cute but destructive.

And still somehow welcome in our yard.  :)

Get me outta here!

I'm so tired of money troubles I could just scream!!  I've always had to struggle, ever since I was a child, but I was always okay somehow.  Everything turned out fine.  When I met my husband, we each had a lot of debt, and were forced into bankruptcy when we found we were so broke we were paying bills with credit cards just to avoid being late.  We had scratched and saved and pinched every penny we could before then, even selling our car and giving up everyday things we considered luxuries.  We had to struggle to get back out of that hole, but it slowly happened.  When hubby got the job in California, it seemed like things were finally going our way.

Then he got laid off, rather suddenly.  With no warning, we were forced to move again, to scale back our lifestyle, only farther than we had before, ever.  That turned into a disaster as well, since the smaller place we moved into was horrible and unsafe for me and my child.  We broke the lease, and moved into the place we live now.  It's less than half the size of the house we owned in our home state, and with no modern conveniences.  At least it's a house, and it is in a safe neighborhood, we said.

But now we're back in the same boat again, it seems.  Just as the bankruptcy is about to disappear from our credit records, just as we seem to have weathered the storm, that horrible place unsafe for me and my child has now served us with papers--they are suing us for breaking our lease! 

Now what?  I know I don't know if they will win their case or not, but the stress is horrible.  And just as we are struggling with medical bills after hubby's employer changed the health insurance they offered this year.  The future looks so dismal right now I can't take it.  I just can't.  Why have things turned so wrong, so badly?  Did we make a mistake somewhere?  At the moment, in hindsight, I wish we hadn't moved to California.  I hate this place.  It takes so much more work to get ahead here, and life is much harder than before.  It takes such great effort just to meet people and make friends, and just groceries are almost unmanageable.  I hate how much insurance costs here, how much housing costs, and how the standards of living are so much lower than back home.  I hate that just to be able to pay our bills that we are bound to see in the near future, we're going to have to move again to an even smaller place, if we can find one.  I can't stand trying to take care of my son here, trying to keep him safe and going to a decent public school (see, no luxuries there, either), and it's almost impossible.  The smallest setback here becomes a huge one.  I miss having my family around.  I miss nice people.  I miss things being affordable.

I guess things could still be worse, but I'm tired of saying that, too.  I swear, I am fed up with this city and everything around it. 

Looking forward . . .

I am actually finding myself looking forward to blogging again.  I think for a while I had become jaded.  Maybe I had enough people to talk to, maybe it was hard putting feelings on the web and finding that it really didn't mean anything to anyone, or change anything.  But now I find myself in a different place, mentally.  I could really use a space to talk things out, since I have found so few people I really connect with on a psychological level here in Los Angeles.  Too many shallow people, and people who are self-centered and demanding.  I can't take it sometimes.  It's like I'm talking to the wind, and my voice is either unheard or whisked away.  No one cares about anyone else but themselves here, and I know there are exceptions, but those are too hard to find sometimes.  I feel lonely in a crowded room.  

I have quite a few friends here, don't get me wrong.  I love every one of them.  But none are what I would call "close friends" or "lifelong friends".  Maybe some of those feelings I have stem from being so far from my home state, and from my entire family.  I have a husband and son, and a dog.  Those guys are close to me.  But hey, they are guys.  I could use some "girl time" now and then, know what I mean?  Still looking for friends.  And this blog can at least keep me from just putting my guys through an emotional avalanche now and again.  I know I can overwhelm them with my feelings, and there isn't much they can do to fix it.  It's a lot of pressure to lay on them, when I know the real problem is me.  I need to do the work to build relationships with people here, and do so with the right kind of people.  

I made the mistake right after we moved here of building friendships with a couple of people most of the world would see as mentally unstable.  I think I thought at the time that I could relate to them, and that I understand people like that, people with mental problems.  But what I failed to see is that they don't see the world like I do, and they don't see friends like I do, and they could easily tear me down whenever life got too difficult for them.  I was an easy target, right there with low self-esteem, ready to apologize for things I didn't even do just to have a friend here.  They could vent frustrations all over me, and I would wipe it off and move on.  But they tore me down, ripped me apart, and took advantage of my forgiveness.  Honestly, it's not good to have people around you who make things worse rather than better.  I have my own problems as it is, and depression, self-esteem issues, and anxiety are tough to deal with on their own, without adding unstable people to the mix.  It's hard for me sometimes, simply because I have a strong desire to make things better, and to help people, and to be needed.  It's nice when someone sees you as kind, helpful, loving, and all the things you want.  But someone with a true personality disorder comes along, they can change that opinion in an instant without regard for all you've done for them, what can you do?  I tell myself it's not my fault, that they have problems that they must address themselves, etc.  But it still hurts, I have to say.  I don't like knowing there are people out there who think the worst of me, especially when I didn't do or say what they think I said.  It was inevitable though, the more I learn about personality disorders.  Not the kind of person I need to be friends with, with my issues being what they are.  I'm just not strong enough.

So this blank space will be here for me to talk to.  Thanks, blank space, for letting me type here.  I appreciate it.  I'll do my best to visit here, and to do what I said at the start, and that's to LOOK FORWARD.  I don't know what life will bring, but I know I'm always striving to be a better person, better mom, better wife.  That's all I can do.  I can enjoy moments with my family, see my son healthy and happy, and know I've done a good job where it counts. 

Thanks for reading.  :)

BB

Hi!

This is a new blog, and I thought I'd introduce myself a bit. I used to have another blog or two, but neither seem to fit my life anymore. Time to start anew, you know? And hopefully get it right this time. My old blog was based on my being bipolar, which I've since learned that I am NOT. So much for that. Thank goodness, honestly. I never really identified with that diagnosis, and someone I respect had convinced me of that, and no doctor ever confirmed it. So I am confident now that I have plain ol' run of the mill depression, with some anxiety. I can deal with that. Rather boring, truthfully, so I won't blog about it here unless something dramatic comes up. It's just not a part of my identity anymore, so I refuse to have another mental illness blog. Too many out there.

So the new identity? Why "disobedient"? Well, frankly because I don't know what it will be, and also because I'm a bad blogger. So I'm BB, the Bad Blogger here. I'm not very consistent, not always interesting, and I admit I'll be frequently boring. Hey, there, I said it. So don't be surprised. I admit it up front. There will probably be posts about what's going on in my life, what I'm hopefully up to, if I'm not too busy with everyday life, and some tidbits about hobbies, my family, and gosh, whatever other people blog about.

Do people read blogs anymore? Does anyone care this is out here on the 'net? What does this blog have to offer that no other blog does? Well, I don't know. But it's here.

Thanks for reading, if you made it this far, and hope to see you again.

BB