Write a letter explaining your life to someone right now (7 Days 7 Posts)

This is day FIVE of a blog series called 7 Days 7 Posts by daysixtyfive

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To Whom It May Concern: {Nah, too formal.}

Hello! {that’s better}

My name is Quixie. That’s not my real name, but it’s the name I prefer to use in the webiverse. I’m a white female in my late 30s who lives in the southeast U.S. I’m married – soon to be separated – and I have two middle-school-aged children: an 11-year-old son, and a teenage daughter.

I was a student, for a few months this year. I was in school to be an Occupational Therapy Assistant (basically my dream job) but dropped out due to family concerns ($ and my daughter’s mental illness).

Currently, I’m in quite a bit of a bind. My husband is on disability pay and isn’t currently working. The rollover into long-term disability hasn’t been smooth and we are finding ourselves in what is starting to become a desperate situation financially. I didn’t anticipate this, but I don’t anticipate much, as life-planning is not one of my strengths.

I have been forced by necessity to contact my old employer from a year ago to see if they’ll hire me back while I find other work. I got a call from them and it looks like they might have been interested in starting me on Monday, but maybe not because I haven’t heard from them again.

In the meantime, I do have another job interview next week, at a hospital. The hours would not be ideal for family life (2nd shift and weekends with Monday/Tuesday off), but the pay is better and benefits superb. I need something like that to get me towards the independence I’m looking for. If they don’t hire me I have a meeting next week anyway at vocational rehabilitation, which will give me access to a greater job pool.

We had to borrow some money. It is very embarrassing to admit you don’t have your shit together and keep asking for help, especially at my age. I have to remind myself one of the main reasons for this is that I have a mood disorder (bipolar disorder) that wasn’t properly diagnosed or treated until about 4 years ago. My life has been adventurous and not necessarily in a good way.

Not to be a downer, but I do struggle a lot. Mostly I’m struggling with the long-term consequences of choices I made as a result of my mental illness. I’m actually functional now, but really just barely if I’m honest. I’m usually unemployed and haven’t been able to save any money or have much of a social life. And my kids, while they are great kids, are struggling as well.

I’m always going to struggle as this illness will be with me my whole life, but this phase of my life I’m just learning how to be a functional human being. It’s a lot of work, it really is.

In my spare time, I like to blog. I’ve always liked to write, from a young age I’d go through a journal about once a month. These days I spend nearly every day blogging, reading blogs, and commenting. It’s a hobby I really enjoy and when I’m not blogging for a while that usually means I’m deeply depressed.

I spend a lot of time watching YouTube. Way more than I really need to be. I like watching Mr Atheist, Stephen Colbert, David Packman, ContraPoints, Telltale, DarkMatter2525,The Thinking Atheist (Seth Andrews) and anything related to culture or the human condition. Which I guess, is most things. I watch a lot, is what I’m trying to say.

I also like to binge-watch shows. Currently, I’m watching Grace and Frankie, about two women in their 70s whose husbands leave them for each other (the two men finally admitted to their wives they are gay after 40 years of marriage). It’s a comedy-drama and the main characters and their antics help me realize it’s never too late to start afresh.

I listen to a lot of music on Spotify.  I love music. If my kids wouldn’t constantly tell me to stop I’d be singing all the time. And dancing. Based on my listening history the genre I like most is indie pop or indie rock, such as this:

Or this:

But recently I’ve gotten more into rock/progressive metal like this:

Now that you’ve gotten to know me a bit and learned about my life I’d like to hear more about yours.

Take care,

Quixie

P.S. Here’s a (nearly) real pic of me