Monday 22 October 2007

Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated

Sorry, folks. My broadband has been giving me hell, and I've also been busy with the slightly strange issue of, well, trying very hard not to fall in love with someone, and failing, but we'll come to that some other time.

So, just for Migraneur, who was kind enough to check in on me today, *waves*, here's a slight update.

Agora-wise, things have been very bad, and I haven't really felt like writing much. Getting out of the flat has been an issue, but despite that, I managed a trip home to Devon a couple of weeks ago. It was taxing, but necessary. During my trip, my father tipped me off that it looks as if my mother is in the first stages of age-related memory loss and now I'm aware of it I wonder how on earth I didn't spot it sooner. I'm trying very hard not to use the proper term for her condition, as she hasn't been officially diagnosed, and until she is, I refuse to believe it. I came home and cried for three days straight, and then got on with my life.

And for a moment, I really thought I had it all sorted.

Last week, I received an email from the 'Talent Manager' at a place I worked for a year and loved - somewhere, for once, that I was happy in a work situation. Would I like two days a week freelance work? I thought about it for a whole nano-second before emailing her back: "Yes, please!!" I started last week, and it's brilliant. So happy to be back. Ridiculously happy, in fact. The money's not great - actually, I'm not even sure what the rate is, because I'm doing it purely for the love of being back there - but it was enough to see me through.

I also had my flatmate here, covering part of the rent, making up the money I wasn't able to earn. I thought I'd reached a good compromise; some work I was able to handle, a couple of days a week to rest up afterwards so as not to overstress myself, a bit of a routine to start getting into again, somewhere I could get to for a few paltry quid in a cab if the morning was really bad in an agoraphobic kind of way - and I could still, just about, pay my bills.

Everything was slotting back into place.

That is, until my flatmate came home tonight and dropped a bombshell; she's moving out at the end of this week, and didn't even see fit to give me any notice.

Yes, I'm fucking fuming, because everyone deserves more respect than that. But that's not the point.

So, what is the point? What does this mean in the short-to-medium term for this agoraphobic gal just trying to scrape a living? Well, it means in order to keep my head above water, I'll have to go back to working full time, wherever I can get a job. This means that I'll have to leave the part-time job that I've just started. In the place I've been trying like fuck to get back into for four months - the place that makes me happy, the place that makes it worth getting out of bed to go and earn a crust.

To say I'm gutted is an understatement. And pissed, and angry, and let down, and wondering why I bothered.

Still, lesson learned - never do business with friends, and never rely on anyone but yourself.

This is a worry. Financially, I'm screwed. My housing benefit has been stopped because I'm working part time, and I'm not really up to working full time at the moment, certainly not somewhere unfamiliar, and certainly not somewhere that I'll have to commute half way across London to get to by 9am when I can't even drag myself into the land of the living until gone then most mornings. To try and do so would undoubtedly see me turning into the sort of person who has to push and push and push, shaking and crying, to get herself out of the door. Which of course, I am.

I can pay this month's rent and that's it. I also know I'll have a short spot of freelance work coming in from elsewhere in the same organisation, sometime before mid-November, but how much I'll be paid for it and when is anyone's guess.

After that I'm on a wing and a prayer.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh! I'm sorry to hear about your downturn. I wish I could think of something useful to say. The best I can say is, Have faith in yourself. You've gotten this far; that proves you can do it!

seahorse said...

There's a grid I use when things overwhelm. Take one sheet of A4 paper. Put each problem in a sentence in a box. Link boxes if they are related (yes, okay it's sounding a bit like a family tree, but persevere). Number each box. Underneath your grid, or on a separate sheet write a list of solutions relating to each numbered box. The solution may just be 'shelve this for now, it can wait' but I bet some of them will yield possible answers. It's very visual, it condenses your life into where you are at now and why you feel so beset with problems, then breaks each problem down.

You may know already that I've been on a similar road with my Gran in recent months. I understand how hard it is to use the word before diagnosis. But if it helps, we were given an Admiral Nurse for our family months before anything was made official by my Gran's brain scan. Admiral Nurses are fantastic, like Macmillan Nurses are to families dealing with cancer. We were put in touch with our AN through my Grandma's social worker. But if you google them and give them a call they will advise the best route, should you wish to have one on board. All I can say is that a good one will give you valuable telephone support. Mine is far more use to me currently than my CPN, given that the grief I feel about my Gran is kind of up there at the top at present. Hope this helps. Oh, and I think falling in love is a good idea. It releases the same chemicals as chocolate.

Anonymous said...

this may be of no help whatsoever at this point, but you will get through. hopefully soon there will be a change in circumstance, or...something.

best of luck with everything, though.