April 19

They didn't give you an interview. There was no feedback. She had said she would "fix up" an interview. She didn't bother telling me. I had to pester her with emails even to find out I didn't get anywhere.

About once every two months there's a job I can apply for. Mostly I never hear a thing.

At the end of this month I will finally run out of money. I'm not winning at poker, so next month I will have no money. I don't know how I will pay the rent. I have a decent limit on my credit card, so I can eat for a while, but I can't pay it back.

I am stuck in a town with no work for me. I begged Mrs Zen to move back home, so I could have a life. She refused. Fuck off if you don't like it, she said. Eventually, I disliked it enough to fuck off. It took a lot. I was willing to be hurt a lot before I finally gave in. Now she has a life she loves: a job she likes, a home she pays no rent on, a boyfriend whom she feels superior to, a week off every two so she can go out and have fun, a cruise with her mate. All she had to do to get it was destroy my family, wreck my hopes for my life and act in a way that if she knew any shame, she'd be ashamed of herself for the rest of her days. But she doesn't. No one does here. I am marooned in a town full of people who do not have any honour, any sense of shame, any love for anyone but themselves.

The worst thing is to be hopeless. You would not believe it, I used to be a cheerful soul, hopeful of the future. Not any more. Now I have to grit my teeth in the morning because I know I will hate the day.

My girlfriend tells me she worries for my mental state. You're depressed, she says, and she hints that all I need is drugs. I do not need fucking drugs! I need my life not to be shit. I'm not even close to depressed. I'm just banging my head against the wall. It's different. Believe me, I know. I've been pointlessly depressed and I know what that's like. Now I'm down for a reason.

It does me good to know she loves me. I mean, really, people do love me. God knows why. I imagine they see someone who doesn't really exist. I feel like a mirage as it is. I barely exist. I do nothing, go nowhere, think nothing, have nothing to say.

***

I want to say that I stopped thinking I was worthwhile about a year ago. I feel like I have not been able to recover from something that happened, someone telling me I was not worth anything. Would I have been okay if I had got a job, had my kids with me, made a life? I do not even know. All I know is that when people queue up to hurt you, you find yourself tucked into a ball, unable to reach out, unable to live.

What is the point? She nor anyone else cares a less. I am a tiny infringement on the lives I butt into, except those of my children, who I let down constantly, and will, I fear, let down altogether when finally I have no money.

posted by Dr Zen @ 10:15 pm