My Mom didn't make me move out afterall. But in the last week or so I've been feeling more and more angst with regard to my situation. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be living this life. It's so narrow. Nothing ever changes. There's nothing to look forward to. The only thing to break up the boredom is bi-weekly trips to the library where I check out dozens of BBC miniseries DVD's where everyone is wearing corsets and Judy Dench plays an aristocrat. And then there's work, which I hate. The whole time I'm there I feel incompetent, unpopular, insignificant...and there's still constant talk about my demotion. I do my work, say little, and come home to read and watch movies, and in general, distract myself to no end.

This isn't living, but what else can I do?

I'm not doing very well emotionally. The stress of things just now is more then I can handle. Thankfully my capacity to distract myself is as strong as ever. Thank god for the public library is all I can say...

It was my day off today. Mom decided she wanted to take me to lunch but I really didn't want to go. Last night was my first night working in the stock room and it really didn't go very well. Everyone at work is making me feel worse about myself by asking why I was moved to the inventory department. The only way I can phrase it that preserves a little bit of dignity is that I was too high strung for the stress of the mobile department. The truth of course being that I wasn't learning fast enough and I got stuck working by myself too often with no one to answer my questions and as a result of all of this I had several panic attacks. I feel like a freak, incompetent, worthless...

I couldn't sleep last night until the sun came up. All I really wanted to do was stay in bed all day but my mom kept waking me up and guilt tripping me about how she was making time out of her busy schedule to spend time with me. I couldn't look her in the eyes. I knew I was going to get it once we started talking over lunch. She said she had heard about my demotion and didn't consider it one at all since I was still being paid the same ammount. And also I should view it as a good thing as I no longer have to deal with people. Then of course she went on about how I needed to find a second job and an apartment by the 15th. When I said I was waiting to hear back from social security next month she said there was nothing wrong with me besides the fact that I don't want to work and act like an adult. I felt totally deflated. I couln't even muster the energy to argue or explain where I was comming from. My thinking is that I can barely handle the one job I have now. I feel like shit already for having to beg the government to help me, but it's not like I can get any from my family, at least not on any long term basis...and my mental health issues are worse now then they've ever been.

I had a terrible time warding off an anxiety attack in the car after lunch while my mom ran errands. Of course my mother didn't notice my shaking fists and almost futile deep breathing. Afterwards my mom took me to a local museum. A former american artist's country home and studio. We took a tour of the house and the studio. It calmed my nerves a bit; art always does that. When the world feels dark and ugly and futile, the beauty of art has always been able to reach me in perfect focus through the bell jar. They had an traveling exhibit of orginal Norman Rockwels in the gallery which were amazingly vivid. Old copies of The Saturday Evening Post do no justice to his original works.

I had a crying fit when I got home though. I just couldn't hold it in anymore. But I pulled it together and came downtown to the coffee house and thats kinda where I'm at right now.

EDIT: Here's where I went today - http://www.umw.edu/gari_melchers/

I'm starting to wonder if I'm ever going to be ok.

Today was my day off today. I swear I went to bed early last night(well early for me), but I somehow managed to sleep until 2:30PM. I woke up with a hangover like piercing headache, for no aparent reason except excessive sleep. I spent some time with mom up at the house and had some coffee and then headed out to check out a room for rent I found on craigslist.

I can't tell you how charming the place was. It was on a tree lined street just near the college downtown. All the houses were turn of the century victorian, the kind built about 10 feet from the road, with big front porches and lots of gingerbread trim work. The girls living there were Mary Washington College graduate students and they seemed really nice. The room that would be mine if they decided to rent to me was the old living room, with a built in bookslef and pocket wooden doors that lead to the once dining room now living room. Other than a paint job I could see myself moving straight into this room, going for long walks along the college campus in my free time. Being able to relax and read a book in a space that's totally mine. Looking down on this quiet one way street, with the leaves in their fall spendor, houses with large front porches and gated front yards a warm feeling of peace fell over me. This is how I want my life to be. I want to belong somewhere, so bad. I want to be normal, boring. I want life to be filled with charm and peacefulness.

OK. So I've thought about it and I'm going to post something possitive and uplifting; if only to be a yen to my depressive yang.

I sat up reading all night, like I normally do, as it helps me cope. Usually I'd just say fuck it, and go to sleep as the sun was comming up, as nothing much happens during the day that I need to be awake for. But I decided to try to stay up, be productive and maybe try to correct my sleep pattern. I walked up to mom's house from the guest house, the leaves on the vines in the vinyard were starting to brown(my parents own a winery if you didn't know) and all the leaves were starting to turn their vibrant autumn reds and yellows and everything in between. It was nice, overcast, but not too cold, just like fall weather. I brought my laundry in and chatted with my mom for a bit, had coffee. I was going to Best Buy and asked if she needed any electronics that I could use my discount on and she said she could use a 4 gig flash drive. I hadn't really bought anything for myself, just the essentials, in so long, but I had my eye on a swiss army laptop bag as my old bag was a free give away from my sister-in-laws bank that was literally falling apart. I got both for 33 dollars; retail would have been 81. One of my coworkers he saw me through the windows of the coffee house last night as he was on his way to the town's market square. I mentioned I oftened wondered while people seem to congrate there as really it's just a concrete flattop between a bunch of buildings with a few benches. He shrugged and said, "I dunno, but people have been gathering there for hundreds of years." I said yeah, "but a hundred years ago they were buying produce and slaves and stuff...what's the attraction now?" He laughed, and just shrugged. Then I went and had my hair cut and they actually didn't mess it up too bad. After that I got my car washed and now it looks jet black rather than charcoal grey.

So now I'm hanging out drinking coffee again. I've got some new movies to watch later tonight. When I get home I'll feel like I've accomplished something and have freshly laundered sheets. So that's an OK day...right?

PS: I watched this last night...good times!

I ran into one of my old professors from Virginia Tech last night at the coffee shop. She was my art teacher back in 2001 during a magical summer session. I had just turned 21 and was toying with the idea of becomming a graphic designer. I had art classes all day from 9AM straight through to 3PM. It was also the summer I turned 21 so of course I was drinking every night in the bars, getting sloshed, being loud, laughing and smoking with all my friends. It was fabulous. I woke up everyday with a slight hangover. I worked part time at the coffee shop and my bills were cheep. I felt like I knew who I was just then. I had a ton of friends, or at least aquaintences to hang out with. I was expressing myself creatively. It was warm and sunny and I spent the whole time in flip flops, walking through the almost diserted college town. I had fun. I miss, maybe not those days, but that self-assured content feeling.

My art professor told me last night that she had a show in town and that she still taught in the struggling art department. When she was my instructer she was in her late 20's and now she looked almost middle aged. She asked what brought me to live in Fredericksburg. I could only stammer out that I just sort of ended up here without elaborating any further. I felt bad like I was hiding a secrete, and I was; that I got discharged from the Navy for being crazy, that'd I'd spent most of last winter in a pysch ward, that I'd been homeless for a while, sleeping in my car, that my family begrudgingly took me in and soon wants me to move out after only a few months even though I can't afford it, that I work part time at a job that I'm not suited for, that I have no friends, no one to talk to, that basically my life is shit. I was hiding all that. It was as if she sensed I was holding back and making a point to be vague. I could see it in her eyes. I back peddled and said something flippant about how life sort of has always lead me in different directions, and I just go with the flow. I said the obligatory "nice to see you again" and left. The coffee shop was closing anyways.

Maybe I just read too much into everything. Or I inflict all my numerous nuerosis on every situation. I should have just been able to say hi to an old professor I met by chance and have it be one of lifes little surprises, niehter good nor bad. It should have been just a pleasant situation.

I know my live journal reads like "The Bell Jar." It must be painful to read. I'm sure others read this and think, "whatever faggot, just get on with your life and don't be so full of doom and gloom." The problem is, I want just that. I want to be normal and have a normal old boring life; an apartment, a cat, some house plants, a decent job with a full benefits package, friends to go out with or call on the phone, a new car every 5 years or so...there's so much I want right now that I can't have. But part of me is thinking, if you still want all these things, then theres still hope. It may not happen, but at least you know what you want, and your not being unrealistic because the majority of people seem to somehow have these things.

Oh well. My new goal is to have something possitive to write about next post. I'll work on it.

I got to work early the other day and jsut sat in the car smoking and chugging coffee until I couldn't delay my going in anymore. I checked myself in the vanity mirror and was horrified by how many grey hairs I found on my temples. I mean didn't I just pluck these last week. As much as people tell me how I look so much younger then my years I can't help but feel like my life has hit an oil slick and is careening out of control into middle age.



I need to do something. Thrity of on the horizon. Then what? Count down the years to 40, 50 even? I'm worried I'll blink and then be that old and realize I haven't done one single thing of note in this life.

I'm not even sure what to write about. My life feels so dull at present. Things happen to me, but really life is jsut a series of busy nothings, depression and self loathing, and most everything seems futile. When I'm not at work I just spend my time reading, compulsively, any book I pick at random of the shelf, to distract me from the very real problems I'm facing.

Sunday, at work, my manager pulled me aside to say he didn't think I was a good fit for the mobile department. He said that I showed up on time and pretty much had the basics down, but I get too anxious and don't handle stress well when things don't go as they should...duh. Anyhow he said they didn't want to let me go but it'd probably be a better idea if they moved me to the inventory and stock room team. I didn't have the energy to put up a fight so I just replied, "OK sure...whatever you think is best." I didn't get demoted, I don't think, since I'm not losing any pay or what not, but it didn't really make me feel any better about myself either. At least this way I don't have to deal with people(customers) anymore. I can just do my work, go home and call it good.

I have to move out of my parents place by Nov 15th. Apart from not really being financially able to make a go of it. I'm not sure I can deal with being booted out by another branch of my family before I'm really able to handle life on my own. Almost 10 years ago, when I was first diagnosed with clinical depression, I was clearly advised by my doctors to go home, retrench, and get some support from my family. Even then I knew better. I told the doctor, "I don't have that kind of family. They don't want me at home. They want me to be ok, but they don't really want me around either." The doctor said, "well then you won't have a very much of a chance to get better. You can't take care of yourself this way." He was right. If I hadn't have inheritted a sizable sum from my Grandfather after he passed, I wouldn't have been able to keep afloat while I tried one doomed course of action after another trying to find a way of life that'd work.

I'm not very optimistic that things will come round alright for me. Of course I could be wrong, but life so far has taught me not to expect too much. I wish I had some more cheery thoughts to post, but at the moment, I don't...

I remember, a few months before I joined the Navy, I stumbled across the opportunity to interview Augusten Bourroughs for the local zine in Blacksburg. It was one of the few productive things I did during the time that my life was going to down a slippery slope to disaster. He said something to the effect that, to be a good writer you have to go to that place where it's uncomfortable, and write about it; get it all out.

I really wish I could at this moment, but I'm far too immersed in my problems to take a step back and examine them with any perspective. Maybe when things get better, six months, or a year from now, I can write about all my feelings and the crap I'm going through, like a mental exercise your therapist asks you to do for your next session. It's just now it's all to real, too consuming...if I stop now to try to figure it I'm afraid I'll never move forward. Quite simply, I'm going through hell, and my only choice is to keep going...

But I guess what I'm getting is, my journal is nowhere how I'd want it to be. I keep skirting around all the major stuff in my life and as a result, I'm afraid the output is all rather jumbled, awkward, and almost unreadable. I guess what I'm asking is for people to bear with me, at least for a while...

Things are not going so well on the home front. I'm nervous about moving out but I have an ultimatum to be somewhere else Nov. 15th. Meanwhile, my parents are sort of placing a campain of forced discomfort on me. Last night it was 45 degrees F in my room, and I'm not allowed to have a space heater or use the woodstove(which I did while my parents where out of town, which they discovered when they came home earlier then expected). It seems that even at the age of almost 30 my parents still don't have any faith in my ability no to burn down their guest house. Really though, would they manufacture space heaters if they all ultimately resulted in a 3 alarm fire? I suppose this is meant to make the trasition more easy to accept on my part. But still, I really don't have any faith in my ability to take care of myself. Why is is that all my family wants from me is to go away?

I spoke to my sister-in-law tonight as she was shopping and her reaction was, "Wait...you were cold, so much so that you were thinking of checking into a motel? So you made a fire in a wood stove meant for the purpose of heating the place, and now they're mad at you? God you're family is crazy!" She did mention that if I got the job in Fairfax, you know the full time one with health benefits, I could stay with her for a while till things got a bit more stable.

Anyhow I've been dealing with my stress/depression by reading compulsively, about a book each night. Nothing serious like "Wurthering Heights" or "The Remains of the Day", but simple humourous stuff by Augusten Bourroughs and david Sedaris. It's something to do, but really, I miss the creature comforts of life that most people manage to have without ever really appreciating; television, heat, credit cards, a stable home life, friends to go out and do stuff with, etc. Life wasn't perfect when I lived in Blacksburg, true, but at least I had all those things.

Life should have it's little comforts, amusements, bits of meaning...but ah fuck it, for now I guess it's just coffee, and electric blankets, cigarettes...and maybe I'll reread "The Remains of the Day." Maybe a quietly devistating book will be cathartic.

I seem to be falling into the groove of my job a bit more. They've obviouly got enough confidence in me to open and close the department by myself now. I still can't shake the feeling of incompetence when highl technical or unusual questions come up. Not being an especially technical or materialistic person it's hard for me to feel like this job is worthwile for me. But really I feel like I need this job. If I didn't have a job just now, who would I be? It anchors me I think. My boss has softened towards me a bit now that he's seen that I'm mostly competent and just the other day threw this bone my way: there's a full time job available, though not at my location and not in my department. It's in Fairfax(too far to commute to from my current location with a sportcar having a V8 engine) and in a different department(digital imagery and computing). Full time would be enough to provide me with a place to live and to pay most of my expenses, and it'd come with health insurance so I could actually see real doctors and do things like update my 4 year old contact lens prescription. I spoke to my sister-in-law about staying at my brothers house for a couple of months until I can find a decent living situation on my own should I get this job. She said if I could get her a new washer and dryer and fridge with my employee discount she'd be completely game.

Things are still impossibly difficult. But at least for the moment I feel like I can move foreward or past the less possitive aspects of my life.

I've been reading a good deal more. I just finished an old text of mine from my college days when I took gay and lesbian lit; The Faber Book of Gay Short Fiction. There really are no uplifting or happy stories when it comes to gay life. Everything involves loss, loneliness, yearning for love. I don't like it. But I suppose that's life for you.

Men are kinda ridiculous. The moment anything gets the least bit complicated in life they bail. I really envy straight couples, they have so much more to keep them together: mortgages, pregnancies, child rearing. Being a gay man it's like you're always leading the single life, even when you're with someone. It's just too easy to cut your losses and run.

Life never turns out the way you expect. For some people it comes close. But I think I've almost reconciled myself to life being very different then what I was lead to expect as I was young and growing up in the prosperity of the 1990's. I've learned not to expect too much, not too care too much(things still bother me but I've learned not to place undue significance on them). We don't ask for life really, it's thrust upon us; a bit of love, a bit of lust, a bit of hope and then there you have it - its all over with. I'm not really trying to be a pessimist, I'm not, but rather, I guess, a realist? I'm not suggesting that life doesn't have its happy moments, it does, otherwise nobody would bother.

As for me, I'm trying to remain hopeful while at the same time trying to delude myself that everything will be sorted out in time. I really want to find a balance, and to be honest about who and what I am.

I know I've rambled. But it just feels so good to write everything out that's been on my mind lately. I haven't had the chance or motivation to do so, at least not lately.

There's a voice in my head that is starting to insist that I do what I need to do to get out of this situation. It tells me that this never happened; it'll amaze you how much this never happened.

If I can follow through...let's hope.

So my parents are giving me a hard time about my new job with Best Buy because I'm not getting enough hours. Somehow this is all my fault even though I've asked for more hours only to get the little speach about how it's not up to my manager but more to do with the needs of the company and for right now the company only needs you for 10-15 hours a week. Its all the economy of course. They'd rather have a bunch of part timers then pay two or three people on full time because of course then they'd have to offer them things like health insurance, 401k, etc. But hey, I shouldn't be complaining, I get an employee discount, right?

The only thing good going for me at the moment is that there's a guy thats interested in me; Mike. He's shown up in my life like a Prozak raindrop from a thundercloud of depression. It's weird to have someone interested in me. Someone that wants to settle down and go gracefully into middle age with someone else in a 2 bedroom loft. He doesn't live here of course, because nothing in life is that easy. Rather he's from outside Philadelphia and works for a major retail chain doing merchanising and store flow. Virginia and Maryland are part of his territory, and next week he's here to rework another store. Keep your fingers crossed for me. He doesn't mind that my personal life is a mess. Is confused as to why my family treats me like I do. When I come to him with a concern he immediately comes out with a solution and makes me feel like it just may be possible to implement. And he sweet to me. These are all things I'm starved for. Someone to be nice to me, someone to take an interest in me, and someone that makes me feel like I derserve good things from life.

I haven't written much of anything about much of anything lately. I suppose it's owing to my current state of being. I keep being told by my family that my feelings, my depressed moods aren't being welcomed or enjoyed by anyone; that essentially nobody wants to hear it. To a certain extent I understand. There's a time and place to hold in your emotions. At work I think I tend to fake it pretty well. I act outgoing and friendly as a salesman should. But when I get home at the end of the day, I really do have no one to reveal my true self to. I really should get all my feelings out, even if no one cares. It's not good to hold things in...I mean, have you ever tried to hold in a sneeze? Look how your body contorts.

I just can't shake the feeling, though, that what I am holding in, feeling, thinking, is just so bad that there's no outlet for it.

Of course I'll get it into my head to try to find a job as a flight attendant just at the time when no airlines are actually hiring...

I crave escape, and there's nothign more satisfying then taking off in an airplane...anywhere, so long as you're leaving...

What if this IS as good as it gets?

I heard somebody say the other day the longer you live the more you know who you are. I'm not sure I agree with this. Here I am barrelling towards middle age and I still haven't even got a clue who I am and where I fit in the world. Rather upon reflection it feels to me the longer I've lived the more sense I got of who I am not. For whatever thats worth I like it.

At work all the teenagers were talking to me. I got asked how old I was. The general consensus was 23. That made me feel good.

Is my self esteem always going to be this low? Will I always be broke, feel like I'm worthless and a failure, and let people criticise me constantly without even bothering to defend myself?

Or is it just possible that I may get my inner bitch back? I hope so...

Work was pretty much a wash today. Well maybe not a complete disaster, but the more I work with people the more I get the feeling I shouldn't work with people. A few of the new hires, and some of the established employees who I suppose are curious about me, will come over a couple times a shift and talk to me, ask me how it's going, how I'm settling in and the like. It was one such instance today that caused me a world of grief. One of the employees that works in appliances came over to shoot the shit and ask me how I liked my new job. It wasn't busy and I figured I should practice my hopelessly rusty social skills and started talking about how it was going well but there was so much to learn, that I must admit I wasn't really tech savy or especially interested in mobile phones...myself rarely using my prepaid basic model. I suppose I got to talking and mentioned something like, "I guess I'd be better suited working at Borders or something since I studied literature in college and am an avid reader." Then I went off about how when I was a teen in high school the internet was there but not really a mainstream part of life and very few people had cell phones. I went on to say that if I were in high school today I'd probably have the crap cyberbullied out of me on facebook and then I'd be on dateline doing in interview with my identity concealed talking about how technology allowed my classmates to be even crueler towards me.

My supervisor of course overheard this and smiled and even added to the conversation a little about how high school was for her and such. Well of course once my manager showed up he pulled me aside a little later to talk. He asked if I was happy with my job saying he'd heard I'd rather be working at Borders selling books. If I wasn't he'd try to find me a job in another department, but that I needed to make up my mind as it costs a lot of money to train someone like me, and that part of the job was to be enthusiastic about new technology and helping customers make the best informed choices.

Of course I immediately had to do some back-paddling fast. Saying that all I meant was that I had a lot to learn as I don't have a lot of experience; that if I were selling books rather then cell phones I wouldn't have to ask so many questions or have so much to remember right away. I reminded him that I spent two years solving technical issues ot Dish Network and I wasn't huge into television or technology then either, but I still thrived and exceeded expectations. I kinda ended it with saying that I was just feeling a little frustrated because I wanted to do well, but there was so much to learn straight away with my formal training not even due till the start of October. This seemed to satisfy him and he endevored to placate me by further explaining the technology my classifying it into three basic types. Explaining the reps from the major cell companies would be in weekly to explain service plans and types, etc. And that the formal training in October would help me gain confidence in my soft skills related to sales.

It all seemed to be resolved but the conversation just seemed so unnecesary. I mean how many people actually do something they're interested in? And just because I'm not a cell phone type of person doesn't mean I can't sell the shit out of the product. I've shown up on time, dressed in my best business casual(in lue of my uniform being finally delivered), enganged with customers, made sales, and learned quite a bit considering its only been my 4th day. Just because I admitted I'd rather be reading a book then sending a text message I feel like I got pooped on. And I'll I was doing was trying to get to know one of my coworkers, and my conversation got spied on and reported back to my superior. It's hard for me to go out and deal with the public especially with my low self-esteem, and various mental illnesses, and I was just starting to feel good about myself and then this just had to happen. I guess this is one of those jobs where I'm going to have to be careful about what I say and deal with "office politics", which is stupid considering it's an $8.50 an hour part time job with no benefits.

Later in the day I got the task of putting away the new order of phones that had come in the locked cages. After I was done I headed to the back with the empty plastic bin and ran into the really sweet, butch baby lesbian that, I'd met and liked, and works in the stock room. She was so sweet and asked me how I was holding up, to which I replied "O.K. I guess." I also mentioned it must be nice for her working alone, and out of the public eye. She was like, "yeah it's nice...I could work out there on the floor, but then why would I want to if I could do this instead." Why indeed.

At least when I go home it all stops. And I can read my library books and watch old movies and the new episode of Mad Men I just downloaded. And I'm at least trying to be optimistic and believe that even if I can't see it just now that there must be a light at the end of the tunnel.