I am really feeling it all across my life, big and small, lately.
The job hunt is making me want to tear my hair out. I want to find decent work soon but going through the motions of hunting, again, is already getting to me. And I need to widen my hunt's area because...
....I can't spend too much more time living here. Work feels like it's drying up here. There's nothing here to do I can find interesting even when I had it, it's cold and lifeless far too long for most of the year, and to have to drive everywhere just to get to anywhere in the slightest is killing me. I've at least been in walkable areas before both in areas I liked and disliked and I'm learning I vastly prefer those to places where I have to use a car for every single spot. But also because I think if I want to make something of and live life for myself again I need to push out from family, prohibitively expensive as it will be. I quite like my (maternal) aunt and uncle and respect them heavily, but they are (justly) focusing on my idiot cousin moving back in with her kids because she kept clinging to a dumbass guy. And living with them is in this very region I speak of and their promise to help me learn to figure life out is understandably put on hold, since they wanted to due to the below issue in my life.
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I am also maddened by my visit to my paternal aunt to reconcile with her and learning 100% that everything my maternal aunt bitched on about my parents is not only corroborated, but new shitty little details my paternal aunt revealed actually line up with some guesswork I had of them. I've always despised my father for being a physically abusive twat, but realizing my mom happily kept us bumfuck isolated so she could keep me and my brother as her eternal comfort toys or baby dolls to play with even though we're goddamn people and clearly suffered socially for it is maddening, as is once again being reminded that she happily egged my dad on - deserved or not - because I was the "heavy" who would split up the inevitable physical fight even if I could nominally finally get smacked around myself. And my aunts alike admit they know I'm a social dumbass because it was just me and my family growing up in the boonies, and that mom was more than happy to cry to me on how divorce is tooooootally happening this time I'm so sorry Cody, only to never actually do...
...it reminds me how she texted me the weekend before her stroke she wanted me to have power of attorney, and when my maternal aunt and I pulled up a notary to do it behind dad's back with a ton of stressful planning and cost to do so she fucking rejected signing the papers, then later on in front of dad asked not to worry on that yet for anyone, and. Going through all that stress and pain to do my best to keep her safe and happy for what she says she wants, and to ensure her claim we'd get something since dad would totally leave us nothing, only to then later on have dad call me up to look over HIS will he's made post-stroke where he's leaving everything to my brother and I... I'm disgusted by her too, okay? I'm disgusted by both of them. So much of my life wrapped up trying to do right by mom and to be a decent person overall in the family, to have to realize I'm just a fucking doll to mom yet also her convenient way to piss off my dad, dealing with my dad being an abusive ass who only backed off when he realized I was stronger AND in righteous fury over him, and. Fuck man. I'm maddened thinking on it.
I think on my solo days post-navy when I adopted my wonderful cat and I vowed to do everything for her. Even for sake of her stability going back home to give her a good one, since the one good thing my family does is loving pets unconditionally but it was at the cost of my own life again. And it's funny because when she came to me at death's door when I'm considering goddamn killing myself, I had to think on who I was as a person and I need to remember I DID change, for the better, and stopped trying to "think of others" but for MYSELF and who mattered to ME and suddenly for sake of making sure I could provide for her... I was having a job for the time since getting out of the navy, made a social network of neighbors and acquaintances around the city, actually exploring it and finding things to do and haunts I liked, and...going back home, even if it was for her sake when my job went bust, went back into the role of that family toy and peacekeeper and. Ugh.
The only time in my life I ever lived for myself without being beholden to anything was those couple years, maybe even in today's shit economy I need to throw caution to the wind. And I hate sounding like that because for all their extreme flaws mom and dad do genuinely love me in a way I know most parents don't and I'm lucky in that regard, but having to be the comforting one or peacekeeper and all that has wasted so much of my life, and I think deep down even with the stroke and their old age they know I have every right to live life and have to deal with me willing to say it out loud. Part of my issue was knowing in younger times they would both flip the hell out when I couldn't keep the calm facade up and both sides of the family had disgust for them having me be the adult in the room to their immaturity in that sense, but with everything changed I can't waste my life anymore being the mature one to them.
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In turn from all that I can barely handle the social and especially internet's culture right now. I can't handle all the political sperging. I can't handle all the gender wars crap, it feels like it's lashing out at me every which way on the Farms. Even trying to just find media I enjoy or the latest episode of (X) is bringing forth endless misery bitching or culture wars crap and I can't handle it. But going back to the beginning part of my spergout, trying to find stuff in this area to distract myself with is hard, very hard, and it's too miserably cold and bitter to do much of anything outside when being cooped up is the worst for me. It's like, hell. Maybe it's time to go find somewhere livable for me and see what happens. I just hate the voice in the back of my head reminding me mom could croak at any time at this rate and I don't want to not be there when it happens, or that I'll be far away from my cat and family pets and visiting will become a luxury. It's like feeling like I'm in a shitty timeline and KNOWING there's a much better one out there, the one that SHOULD'VE been, and I hate how life turned out. I hate being almost totally devoid of people outside family and relatives. I hate feeling unstable and unconfident in holding work even when I THINK I'm finally making it. Just. Christ. I just want to feel relaxed right now if nothing else. I think I'm going to put in some extra time at the shelter since helping cats always make me feel like myself.
I just hope to God I can turn my life around before it's too late.