i am poor. i struggle every day to feed my kids, get them clothes, do what needs to be done. i am not asking for sympathy—this is just how it is, how it's been for years.

but....

you want to make suggestions to "help" us and it costs money? i'll tell you we can't do that. we need equipment for it? we don't have the money to buy it, so can't do it. thank you for the suggestion, but if it involves something financial from me, yea, it's going to be an automatic 'no, we can't do that'.

there's a lot of things we don't have, things i guess others do have and think we should have. sorry to disappoint. and even if those things would help us in the future, if i can't pay my bills or can barely buy food, those things will not be purchased. other things come first in this house.

the only reason i have my laptop is because we thought i was going to be working as an editor. if i had known it was going to go south like it did, i wouldn't have bought the laptop. i would have gotten us a real vacuum cleaner and taken care of some of the other things that need to be taken care of.

next tax return? assuming we get enough, we'll finally be taking care of my teeth and refilling a hole that a filling fell out of years ago.

why is saxy in a miserable job he hates and underpays? because we can't afford the carpentry equipment or the insurance he needs to carry. and if we could, there's no guarantee he'd have work.

i have a degree in english, sunk myself in debt to get it, and it won't do me a damned bit of good. i tried for three years to make sue of it, made myself sick of what i was doing trying to get a job.

and this kind of shit has been going on for YEARS. longer than this journal (which was started in 2000).

no one wants to be in this position, much less in it for years. no one wants to be scraping out their existence. i had dreams for my future, i still do. will i ever reach them? only god knows. but after years of this, i think it would be fucking understandable why i don't see a rosy future. and no one wants to be like that either.

poverty changes you in ways you don't ask for. years of poverty is almost more damaging than abuse. no one wants to be here. no one thinks it will change them. no one wants it to change them. but it does.

i am pissed. i am frustrated. and i am beyond upset. people frustrated with me because i shoot down their suggestions, suggestions i can't fucking afford. i appreciate the thought, i really do, but i am so not in the place people seem to think i am or seem to think i should be. and blaming me for that? just plain wrong.

most days i do okay on my attitude. but when i am blamed for taking in the reality of my situation and not being more "positive", well, fuck that. glad others can do it. but i'm not going to sit here and consider whether or not i can do something when i know i can't.

i am doing the best i can. it's all i can do. that the best i can do is in a place where no one else would want to be, well that's not my fault because i've tried harder than any of you will ever know to get out of this mess.

and i seriously doubt anyone could be positive about that.

next time you want to tell me my attitude is the problem? fucking think about it from my perspective. no one wants to be in a constant struggle for survival like we are. and. yes, i can see the good things we have, but that doesn't make it any easier the next time we're short cash for food or a utility bill. i'm dealing the best i can.

i need to take oldest in and calm down. for now, it's probably best i'm left alone by everyone.