The Box

At first I thought I was just depressed for obvious situational reasons – you know, being unemployed in one of the worst job markets in the country, facing possible fertility issues, living in a shoe box that is constantly cluttered, slightly dirty and old-smelling no matter how often I clean it and light candles, dealing with the fact that we live on the astronomically expensive west coast where our budget will only allow us to buy some small, old house in the ghetto, and other various random things that make me want to stomp my feet and have a toddler-like fit about how unfair life is.

When I feel like this, I end up not blogging because my head is just a jumble of so many things that I can’t sort out and when I sit down to write I don’t know where to start. But not blogging is a mistake because this is how I sort things out.

I can tell that I’m having some sort of existential crisis because I’m unhappy about every single thing in my life, apart from my wonderful marriage. But the worst part is that I feel powerless to do anything about it. No matter how hard I try to do the right thing, it’s just not working.

Since I still haven’t edited and reposted my old blogs (I know!) or cleaned up the labels on my newer posts, I thought I would do that this morning. Organizing things makes me feel like I have some sort of control, and even better, there is a finished product at the end so I can feel like I’ve accomplished something.

I started by rereading my recent posts. I noticed that I’ve been tending to use certain phrases a lot. “I have to”, “I’m being forced to” were common themes. Clearly indicating that I feel like my life is out of my control and I’m not free to make the choices I want to make.

I’m obviously still really pissed that I got laid off. It has completely derailed what was a very good plan for us. A part-time, not terribly stressful, job in my field, surrounded by friends, that I intended to keep until giving birth to a future, but easily conceived, child. While we socked away the money I was making in savings so we could afford to buy the previously mentioned astronomically expensive house. Since the plan is for me to be a stay at home mom, that was going to be the last job I ever had.

Now everything just seems so hard. The unemployment office keeps matching me to crappy, entry level, stressful, low pay, full time jobs that I don’t want but have to apply for or they’ll take my benefits away. But even though I don’t even want these jobs, I still get my feelings hurt when I don’t get called for an interview. Logically I realize this is just the way things are now, and not a reflection on me or my professional abilities, but emotionally it’s tough to take, especially when piled on top of everything else going on in my life right now.

I was looking in one of our tiny closets this morning and found The Box. The box itself, the actual cardboard container, has been replaced many times, but the contents stay the same. This is The Box that I have never unpacked. Not once in my life. It contains various mementos, family pictures, old letters, and more recently our marriage certificate and wedding pictures. It’s never been unpacked because I always knew that wherever it was that I was living was temporary, so there wasn’t any point.

My parents divorced when I was a toddler, and for various reasons, both set of parents moved around a lot. There was never a “family home” – and the homes of my grandparents didn’t really qualify either. By the end of 7th grade, I was attending my fifth school.

I’m not a big fan of blaming one’s parents for one’s current circumstances because after a certain point we become responsible for our own choices, no matter what happened or didn’t happen to us in the past. For a long time I didn’t make very good choices. I wasn’t exaggerating in my last post when I said that I’d never lived in the same house or apartment for more than 3 years. Since I left the house for college at 17, that means at least half of my nomadic life is on me, choices I’ve made that I’m responsible for.

I envy people who can easily answer the question, “Where are you from?” When I get asked that question, I usually pause and stammer, “Well, I grew up in West Virginia, but I lived in Pennsylvania for a while…” then I quickly find a way to change the subject, because it’s a long story and not what the person wanted to hear when they asked me.

Now that we’re planning on starting our own family, I’m thinking more and more about the kind of home and lifestyle I want to provide for our children. I want them to grow up in a comfortable house in a safe neighborhood. I want them to go to school and make friends that they don’t have to move away from. I want them to have memories of holidays and good times in a family home. I want them to come home from school to a mom that is there to make them a snack, hear about their day, and help them with their homework. I want them to have the things my parents weren’t able to give me. I want them to grow up surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

I don’t know how to make that happen. It seems impossible. For one thing, we have family here and family in Pittsburgh. Someone’s going to lose, no matter what choice we make. Do we move somewhere “in the middle” and run the risk of rarely seeing any family at all? It’s so expensive to live here that despite the fact that my husband has a very good job, it’s financially impossible for me to be a stay at home mom in this area. Which seems to be a moot point now anyway since I can’t find a damn job.

I’m not used to feeling so helpless and I’m not used to disliking so intensely every choice that’s available to me. I’m used to hard work and good decisions paying off and I can’t understand why that’s not happening now.

I just want to be able to unpack The Box.