i woke up this morning and the emotional skies had cleared. no clue why they started or why they stopped, and i am not quite to my old self but at least i am no longer crying at the drop of a hat. and when we all came down to breakfast, my youngest gave me permission to cut my hair. a nice amusing start to the day helped, but then, of course, everything was back to normal. still i woke with a clearer head and with my emotions much less volatile. couldn't have asked for much more at the moment.

i so rarely get like that now days and it has been YEARS since i was that bad. still, it could have been worse. as a teenager i was suicidal. at least it didn't go there. i hate it when i get like that. first, i know i already have survived a lot: abuse, separation and single parenthood, dating and single parenthood.. second, while i will not say i am up there with my digital goddess, moyra, i still can say i do good work. i put my heart and soul into it, i am totally anal retentive about it. third, i am raising my kids. it's not easy, but i AM doing it, and probably better than some parents WITH money are. and finally (well, maybe not FINALLY, but one of my major reasons), it can ALWAYS be worse. someone is always worse off than i am. and while i don't take pleasure in that, it helps me keep my head on straight a lot of the time.

i suppose i should have expected a real doozy to come along eventually. it has been a long time since i've had a truly severe depression. i am one of those people who reacts first and tends to think it over later. let me react, work through it, explode over it, whatever i need to do, then i am fine. so it's not like i let these build up. i tend to react immediately and let all those emotions out, whether angry, excited, or sad. frustration is probably the only thing i don't release right away, mostly because there just doesn't seem much you CAN do with it.

maybe that's what led to this little break down. it IS frustrating to have to dig yourself deeper because you don't have the actual cash to buy your kids clothes. it IS frustrating to see the stack of bills only get larger and to get disconnect notices even though you are doing your best to pay everything. and it can be very depressing to be my age with nothing really material to show for it. it is frustrating and depressing to turn down in-house jobs because you have no vehicle to get there and absolutely MUST be home for one of your children at times that make holding a normal job next to impossible. (please understand, i LOVE all my kids. it is not their fault, it is the circumstances that are so aggravating, not the child.) but for someone else somewhere it is worse than this. there is someone living out of a car, another person giving up their child because they can no longer care for him or her, and still someone else without a roof over their head and only a bowl of rice for the entire day. things like this usually make it so i can manage to get through my frustrations.

the timing of another incident just could not have been worse. for whatever reason, a group of leaders "fired" the founder of the group they lead and moved it off the server it was on under a new domain name (same group name however). however, the founder never gave them permission to use the name for a group she and 5 others founded almost 2 years ago. yet the second group claims she has no right to the name of the group. i have friends on both sides of the fence calling others on both sides liars. i resigned. i just could not emotionally handle the bs at the moment. and i will not support hostile takeovers by those who have no right. go and start your own group why don't you? but don't steal someone else's ideas and dreams just because you think you can fire her. ridiculous. and fyi, for all those who think that the NEW group has the right to the name, remember this: copyright protections basically say that if you put something up in a public forum, it is YOUR copyright. none of the current leadership built this group up 2 years ago. none of them have a right to the group/name they claim to have a right to.

however, i wish to keep my friends. i don't always AGREE with my friends, but i feel we all have a right to our opinions. so for the moment i will remain resigned from and uninvolved in either group. i do not care any more who did what to whom and who felt who had the right and all the other power bs going on with supposedly ADULT leadership. such childish power plays have me not wanting to be in either one, and obviously i have much more important concerns to think about.

i woke up with a clearer head this morning. answers came to me. one, i shall remain out of the fray in the above group. no time for it, no desire to be in it. and two, it is time for me to go back to school. time to get a degree in web design. maybe that will give me a bit of an edge over a lot of the hundreds of other freelancers trying to make it in this business as well. i just need to get my load on a forbearance so i no longer appear to be delinquent (and NO MORE SCHOOL LOANS, grants only), and decide on an online, accredited university to apply to. once i get myself going again, i know i can do it. may be a bit harder with my swiss cheese memory, but i can do it. and still meet my obligations of being home with my kids. that's all i want right now.