Red Pencil Diaries

I'm smiling right now. I'm forcing it onto my face, hoping it will make me feel normal instead of the way I've felt for half the day. Yep... still the downright pathetic version of myself that I have been the past few weeks.

I managed to ruin a giant load of laundry today. Somehow a crayon got mixed in and melted onto everything in the whole load. I used to brag about how many items of clothing I could fit into my new washer. Now, I'm sad that I fit that many things in, just to ruin them. We're experimenting with WD40 and mineral spirits to get the crayon out. I'm kicking myself for not having found the crayon before it all went into the dryer. We simply can't afford to lose that many pieces of clothing.

I read an article today about how people tend to get depressed and resentful once they are forced to cut back. It's true. I hate the feeling. I want to get back to being the mostly happy family. I feel stupid now for complaining back a few months ago over the stupid shit. If I'd known how bad it would get, I'd have been so much happier with what I had.

Dave had accepted a one-month contract job. He was going to have to spend most of each week in Evansville, but the pay was too good to pass up. Well, he went today, and the one-month thing turned into a two-day gig. And the pay won't be that good.

I had an interview last week. It was for a warehouse job. I haven't heard back about a second interview. The guy interviewing me seemed reluctant, or hesitant to keep my resume in the running because I had no previous warehouse experience and why, why did someone with a degree want this job? I was honest and told him that my family needed me to go back to work to pay the bills. He explained that even if I got the job, he'd have to start me at the low-end of the pay range. I was never told what the pay range was, but the recruiter said I would be on the high-end... and what she quoted to me almost made me not want to go to the interview. But a job is a job. It would be slightly better than minimum wage. So that's a plus. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Plus, it had benefits. So it ain't all bad. Right?

I'm sure many of you have long ago tired of my rants and complaints about the economy. In the first months, we could kid ourselves into thinking that we'd both have jobs soon and it was just a small glitch, a blip on the road back to financial recovery. But lately, it's really begun to settle in. Being the ones without work, with a mortgage, two kids, and a home equity loan looming over your heads... it's not fun. There is not much time for joy.

We thought taking a "family" day trip might help. We had a nice day in Indy on Saturday at the Children's Museum. We forgot our worries for a few hours. The kids had so much fun. We laughed and played and walked until our legs were exhausted. But then we came back home to all the same troubles.

We're in month five of joblessness. It's now that I have begun to wake up every day in fear. Unemployment may be extended, but it barely covers our mortgage payment. The severance pay has run out. My freelance writing pays a little, but they send paychecks out about 45 days after I give them an invoice, so it takes awhile to receive get the money. Plus, they don't take out taxes, so I should be keeping aside nearly half of each check to pay my taxes with, but we need the money so badly right now, that I can't.

Every day, we argue. We don't mean to be so crabby. We don't mean to sound so down. We want to be happy again. People who have jobs just don't get it. Why can't one of us just take a job? No one will hire us. I even tried to get on at Walmart. Interview after interview leaves me with no job offers. I've applied for nearly 75 jobs since December. No offers. Dave has applied for probably double that many.

And now we talk about the house. Will we sell it? We may have to extend our search and look in larger cities. Our house will never sell. We'll lose too much money. And sometime soon, the word bankruptcy will come into play. It's not a matter of if, but when.

I want to make it all go away. I want to get back to boring normal. I just don't know how or when. When will things get better? Does anyone know for sure?