I can’t be any good to anyone.  I’m no good to my kids.  I’m no good to anyone!  I am just useless!

We were sitting there, watching Obsessed on A&E, mostly because they lured me in with the lady who scrubbed her anus after each bowel movement .. with a toothbrush .. to the point that she had three blood transfusions.

Alas, this week, it was only a man who thought he could be contaminated by evil and a woman who had an exercise addiction.

Truth is, we’re kind of bored with that level of OCD around here.  And as we watched the woman have a mental breakdown after being allowed “only” half an hour on the treadmill (“I would LOVE to have that obsession,” I confessed), my husband shook his head as her limbs shook wildly, beyond her control, her body struggling to release the anxiety in any way it could.

“I call bullshit,” he said.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, um, I had this SAME BREAKDOWN just 24 hours earlier.

That while he slept, I crept into the living room and looked around our house, wondering what we’d end up selling to make ends meet.  That I started hating myself for letting my life insurance lapse because .. it’d just be so much easier on my family if ..

I’m fine, I’m fine.  It was a dark night.  Sunday nights are the hardest; not having a set schedule to work with the next day.  And I really do think that if I keep pushing and working and selling that we’ll be back to normal by the end of August.  Please God.  Maybe.  But now?  The in-between?  Is terrifying in a way that I can’t really articulate, and the fear-based anxiety often carries me off into this dark tide where I struggle to just tread water.

I find myself re-examining my behavior with anyone who was ever left in this position.  Was I insensitive about the layoff?  Did I brush it off by saying that “things happen for a reason”?  Because, yes, they do, but you know how much it SUCKS to hear it?  Like, a metric fuckton, in case you were wondering.  Did I call them to brag about how much money I’d recently spent or the huge chunk of change we’d blown in something stupid, while they were rationing off their jewelry to keep the lights on?  Was I that person?

I probably was.  And it wouldn’t surprise me if they hated me for it.

Samantha Jo wrote a beautiful post last week about ‘Getting By‘, and I know where she’s coming from.  Until someone has gone hand-to-mouth, until they’ve had to sell heirlooms, until they’ve turned off cable and A/C, it’s hard to know.  It’s hard to sympathize.  And sure, we all get stronger from it.

But my God, until then, let me just tread water.  Let me just keep my head above water.