Life Is Not Fair

"Life is not fair. Get used to it." - Bill Gates

My overwhemling emotion these days seems to be anger... Pure, unadulterated anger, with undertones of intense sadness. I'm angry about SO many things right now and I'm hoping that getting them out of my head will be somehow cathartic...

I'm angry that the only stuff I see in my social media feeds lately is the pure insanity spiral of crumbling democracy, rising fascism, racism, discrimination, intolerance, xenophobia,  corruption, environmental ruin, selfish, rich, powerful people trying to claim dominion over the rest of us, while the idiotic, religious fringe folks throw their "thoughts & prayers" at everything... And yet the planet is somehow managing not to spin off its axis, because this bullshit has been going on with humanity since the dawn of our eistence...

I'm angry that my body has been taken over by the alien force known as "perimenopause", which has thrown my brain & mentsrual cycle into episodes of murderous rage, insomnia, hunger, hot flashes, unwanted hairs, middle-age spread, exhaustion, thinning hair and at times, surges of a goddess-like power... Nobody ever told me that I would have to endure this, not my mother, nor any older woman I know... It's apparently a HUGE female secret that you have to do extensive research on, by yourself, late at night, because nobody will talk about it... Unless you start complaining and then you get to hear another woman's litany of symptoms, which is in no way helpful or useful... So much for "sisterhood"!

I'm angry that I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. I've never had what I'd describe as a "career"... just a series of jobs that I learned things at & made some good connections through. I've never made a particularly great salary, nor have I ever had a good boss, who was a mentor & wanted to see me succeed. I have an Art degree that basically qualifies me to be a barista at Starbuck's, although I do occasionally get to use my "mad skills" to create PowerPoint presentations, invitations, flyers or a beautifully decoupaged vase. I currently have a job that I really like in the community / social services field, working with some fabulous, dedicated people, who seem to recognize my humor, empathetic nature & appreciate my talents... Except the pay is not that great. Oh, and did I mention that my husband was recently relieved of his job, after nearly 6 years of busting his ass for a completely manufactured, bullshit reason?!... So now he gets to do the job hunt thing, while we both try not to go insane worrying about how we're going to pay our bills and not lose our house. I know something better will eventually come along for him, as it did for me, but the waiting is truly the hardest part.

I'm angry that my alcoholic, undiagnosed ADD / borderline & narcissistic personality disorder ex-husband has yet to man-up and be a responsible parent / human being & actually keep a job, so that he can provide child-support for his daughter. It's quite clearly spelled out in our divorce agreement, yet I had to spend 7 months of time & money back in 2016 fighting him in court over it. And the judge DID find him in contempt of court & ruled that he owes a shit-ton of unpaid child-support, which he agreed to pay monthly, right before he fucked off back to his home town in Scotland. I've not gotten a fraction of the money he owes, which keeps accruing, month after month and I will probably never see it... so my daughter's step-father & I bust our asses to make sure our child has what she needs like food, clothing, a roof over her head, school supplies, etc., etc., etc.... And yes, after 9 years of this I resent the f@ck out him every damn day!

I'm angry most of all right now that a friend of mine lost his wife yesterday to a very insidious cancer called glioblastoma. The diagnosis of this type of cancer is always fatal, because it's aggressive and there is NO cure as of yet. All they can do it treat it with surgery & chemo & hope for the best. I've followed my friend and his family's cancer journey for the last year and they have handled it with the utmost grace and courage... I am in awe of them, because I don't think I could handle one tenth of what they've been though. My friend's wife was only a few years older than me & the cancer reduced her from a vibrant, beautiful woman to being bedridden, puffy and non-verbal, in a hospital bed. In her final days, she was in a hospice facility that took amazing care of her, based on what the family had posted about it... They had tremendous love and support in their cancer journey, which makes me so grateful, but my friend is now a widow and his daughter is motherless... it's so damn unfair!

ALL of this was doing my head in early this morning, so I went out into the darkness of my backyard at 3:30 AM, sobbing with rage and sadness... I looked up into the sky, and asked, "WHY?!", as if the cold stars of space, millions of light years away would somehow hold any kind of answer for me... And as I happened to turn my head slightly, to get a better view of the half-moon that was hanging there, mocking me, I saw a streak of light and a flash... If I had blinked I would've missed it, but there it was, some bit of rock or space junk that was hurtling towards the earth and burned up in the atmosphere, just as I was looking up into the heavens... I have no idea what it means, I just know that I was there to see it, when I needed to see something, anything that would remind me that there is indeed a spark of magic or divinity somewhere in the universe, because life is not fair.