Tired of the Chaos

I am overwhelmed. I am bone tired. I am kind of sad. I am struggling.

There is a lot coming at me at once and there has been for a while. Constantly being in the line of fire while having no one for support, no one to lean on and no one to share the load, everything gets really, really heavy. And right now I feel kind of like I am suffocating under the weight of a giant boulder.

Earlier this year, my ex and I had our 16 year old son evaluated for ADHD because, as smart and capable as he is, he was facing some challenges. I have always known he is different. He sees things differently. He responds differently. He learns differently. We knew that was probably the diagnosis, but we had said for years that we didn’t want our kids medicated. We always felt kids were over-medicated and we didn’t want to be “those” parents. Everything came to a head earlier in the school year and to give our son a fighting chance, we (me, my ex, my son and our doctor) decided medication was probably the best option.

We had him evaluated and made sure the school got a copy of the paperwork so they would have his diagnosis on file. My son was attending the high school he started in as part of the open enrollment program, since we had moved out of the boundaries. His grades were not good so the principal decided to drop him from the program right before his junior year. Right about that time, all hell broke loose and pandemic erupted in the U.S. The kids were under a lot more stress, dealing with a lot of uncertainty, forced into online school under less than ideal conditions and that is when the principal decided to remove a vulnerable kid with a newly diagnosed learning disability from the school and programs he loved and where all his friends were enrolled. Compassionate of him, right? Well we fought to keep him there. Our pleas were ignored by the principal so as a last ditch effort, I emailed the school district and Nathan emailed his debate teacher and his teacher went to bat for him. All those efforts paid off and my son gets to stay at his school of choice and the administration will be sharing the resources they so freely give to others. We have also come to realize that he may also be on the autism spectrum (he has lots of signs/symptoms of Asperger’s). So we will be having him evaluated for that as well.

I have two kids in high school, each of them will be attending different schools in different cities. Maybe. It all depends on the direction this damn virus goes. They are starting out remotely and will probably end up in the actual school, but as to when that will be, it is anybody’s guess. So much uncertainty. I have to work (I am lucky to work from home) so I will have to figure out how to keep the kids on task and make sure they get their work done, while trying to avoid the battles over getting a teenager to do anything. Or I will have to find a way to make sure each child gets to their respective school on the days that I have them. A lot depends on what shift I am working and what days I have off and that changes every couple of months and I have very little control over that. I am not sure how we will do that without me losing my youngest son living with me 50% of the time. Not having my kids here on their dad’s days is hard enough, but I don’t know how I will deal with him not being here during MY time if it comes to that.

My living situation has been quite stressful. I live in an apartment managed by a company/individual who does not really seem invested in making sure the living environment is comfortable. I love my apartment. I love the layout. I love the personality. I like the area that it is in. Those are not the issue. I live in a fourplex. I occupy the top floor. I have one neighbor that occupies half of the groundfloor and part of the basement, one neighbor that is half of the groundfloor and one that is half of the basement. The two car garage attached to the building is part of my apartment as I am the only one that has access to it. Long story short–I can’t park in the garage. They couldn’t program the opener for the door I asked them to and instead they programmed the side where they let my neighbor park. According to the manager, the only thing it has ever been used for is storage so that’s it. I can’t park in the garage I pay for. The hot water and water pressure situation in the kitchen has never been great, but last year it got to the point where I was getting a little more than a trickle and we would only get water that was slightly warmer than room temperature and we were having to boil water to do dishes and actually get them clean. I reported this to the manager and he told me to check the hot water valve in the kitchen. The second time I contacted him about it, he said they would check it during the biannual inspection that has never taken place in the year and a half we have lived here. In June there was a pipe leaking in my kitchen that was raining into one apartment and dripping into another. It caused a lot of damage as it had been leaking for quite a while. Galvanized pipes wear out and this one looked like Swiss cheese. I can’t help but wonder–if he had actually had someone check out my issue when I told him about it, perhaps damage could have been avoided. Also last year my refrigerator went out. I lost over $200 worth of food, most of which I had just spent the last of my money on. I had a friend that had a refrigerator he was willing to give me (a really nice one), but the manager told me no, that he would replace it. The replacement came 6 days later and it is much smaller than the original one. I appealed to the manager via email about perhaps giving me a break on rent since I needed to feed my kids and now couldn’t because of their broken equipment. He never answered me. My neighbors in the ground floor apartment are young and seem to have no concept of just how loud they are. Yelling, screaming and cheering until 3 am over a video game that is so loud it booms in my apartment. Music so loud it vibrates my floor and desk (while I am trying to work) and requires that I turn up the volume on my TV so I can hear it. When I was working graveyard shift, I would get off work at 4 a.m. and by 5 a.m. they would already be up and singing at the top of their lungs or listening to loud music. And the manager says that I should call the cops because he can only “suggest” that they turn it down. At the end of my lease I will be scrambling to find something affordable to rent or purchase and that will not be an easy task.

I am a social person and when all the lockdowns and stay at home orders began, it was only supposed to be for a couple of weeks, so no big deal, right? Two weeks turned into a month and then two months. And so on. No going anywhere unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything except major grocery stores closed indefinitely. Wear a mask. Stay 6 feet apart. Don’t get together with friends or family. Don’t go to church. Don’t touch anyone. No hugging friends. It has been a miserable 6 months, not just for me, but for my kids as well. One is very social and being without his friends has been very hard on him. My introverted son struggles too. He doesn’t have a huge circle of friends, but he needs time with the circle he’s got.I am constantly worrying about them and, with my history with depression, looking for signs of it in them. Worrying about getting sick. Worrying about my parents getting sick. Being quarantined when my youngest got sick (not uncommon for him) and having to wait for a negative test to come back. And then I see my friends at odds with each other over masks. One side screams that you want to kill grandma if you don’t want to wear a mask. The other side screams that you are a sheeple if you are fearful and wear one, and that you are trampling on their freedom. It is nothing but a shouting match and no one is listening.

I never thought I was super sensitive, but all the unrest in this country is taking a huge toll on me. It is absolutely heartbreaking to see people angry and fighting, to watch cities be burned to the ground and all the violence that seems to be happening at all the protests and demonstrations. Some days it looks like the U.S. is a war torn country far from the place I grew up. I don’t like confrontation. I don’t like discord. Right now there is such division and meanness even between friends and people are so angry. I just hurts my heart.

Celiac disease is the bane of my existence. I hate it. It is inconvenient. It is painful. It complicates being social. When I get stressed, it activates the symptoms, even if I don’t eat anything I am not supposed to. Stress does that to my Hashimoto’s symptoms as well. So along with dealing with all the other things in my life, I am dealing with being sick and in pain most of the time as well. I wish my family took it into consideration when making plans but often, it is not even a blip on their radar. It seems that not including me in family stuff is much easier than working with it or even considering it and that has become so frustrating for me. I hate being left out of things, but I get that I am kind of a pain to deal with.

And then there is my job. I love my job. I love what I do. I love helping people and I am great at customer service. I love the company I work for. Even as much as I love my job, it is way more stressful than I ever thought it could be under normal circumstances, but add the pandemic, and some days or weeks it is off the charts. All this upheaval and fear is making people not want to travel and as a result the airlines have been hit super hard. There has been monumental loss and with that a lot of restructuring. As of a couple weeks ago, I am officially on a furlough list. That does not mean I will get furloughed, but there is the possibility that in a little over a month, I may be unemployed, at least temporarily. The airline I work for is a strong company and it has a lot of very loyal customers who are absolutely itching to travel, so if I do get furloughed, I don’t think it will be for long. And right now, my employers are doing everything they can to avoid furloughs. Even if furlough is a remote possibility, it is still a possibility, and that is quite heavy since my income is the only income. I still have to worry about how I will pay the rent and feed two teenage boys with voracious appetites and pay all my bills if I don’t have a job.

I am overwhelmed.

I have a lot coming at me at the moment and most days I handle life and stress just fine. But this year is different. It is on overload. It is not without its blessings too, though. I have had a lot of time with my kids which has been nice. In a few months, I may have more than I want. Ha ha. We have done road trips and gone fishing and done UberEats and Instacart together and we have had some great conversations. It is definitely not all bad, but honestly I just need a break. I would love to fly somewhere, preferably somewhere with a beach, but everywhere I want to go is pretty much shut down so using my flight benefits isn’t even a possibility right now. I will have to make due where I am and today, I am going boating with one of my besties and I can’t wait. I need time with her and I need to be near/in the water. Today I get to escape all that stresses me. Just those few hours will have me feeling like a new person. At least for a little while. And I have some awesome friends who are a constant source of joy so time with them is a must.