...and just as I log online, finally with time to myself, he logs off. *shrugs*

Found out today that apparently we are not teaching classes next term. They aren't in the catalog. Despite the Continuing Education director calling up and asking us if we would PLEASE teach the Photoshop class next term... no classes. *blinks*

So.

No work.

This is the point where I would normally beg y'all to recommend me to anyone looking for website or graphic design... hell, this is the point where I AM begging... but I already owe BF a set of graphics that keep not being produced, and I feel like shit about it, and it makes me more than a little wary of being recommended to friends. *sigh*

I have Deb yelling at me that I need to find work... and I have Deb yelling at me that I shouldn't work for people who can't or won't pay immediately, when I DO find someone I can work for and would enjoy working for.

Look, how am I supposed to get ANY work if she won't let me start somewhere? I need her computer for the finishwork, it has the new version of Photoshop and a decent processor.

But she doesn't approve of them.

It's just a little gripe, I know. Just a little thing.

I have No Job. And Robert gets back from Costa Rica in a week. And if I am jobless and have no money when he gets home... out the door. I might be allowed to stay long enough to finish this term. MAYBE. And that's only if the paychecks from this term come in fast enough to cover bills.

*sighs softly*

Down to the wire again. Last time I begged my folks. They helped out. And it was made very clear that what they did was ALL they were gonna do. *shakes her head*

I can't - not won't, but can't - express what I'm feeling. I don't know why, but my body just isn't letting it out. I'm tense, and silent, and just... here. All this crap under the surface, rage and fear and frustration and anger and nervousness and shame and grief and you get the idea, yes? It's all hiding there. I can't get it out.

They've never wanted to CAT-scan me before. Now they can't seem to get me in fast enough. A year ago, the amount of pain I am in right now would have sent me, screaming and crying, to the hospital. Now I'm fucking GRATEFUL that this is all there is to it, tonight.

Caleb is home. And I'm glad he is here, don't think otherwise for even a minute. I missed him a lot. But I guess I'd been secretly hoping that once he got home, everything would just work out, somehow. It's a shame life isn't quite that easy, isn't it?

I've got a NIN song stuck in my head again. It's been dancing through pretty frequently of late, and now it won't go away. Not gonna sing it. Not gonna hum it. But I'm going to put it on repeat again, because maybe after long enough it'll get to a point where I'm just used to it. Like I'm used to the pain, now.

When I was little I used to pretend that I was one of those girls in the stories... the ones who find some magical book or special shop or secret doorway, and suddenly their world is full of challenges that only they can meet and match, adventures, fantasy and magic, it's alive... and always there was a 'happily ever after' ending.

Sometimes it would take me weeks of complicated fantasizing before I got to that ending. But it was always there.

I'm realizing once again that a happily-ever-after ending for my life isn't all that likely. No fairy godmothers. No rich uncles. No handsome stranger who sweeps me away and takes care of me (and somehow doesn't mind me having my boys on the side). No one.

I mean, look at who I love:

Caleb. JUST finally got a good job, and it barely pays enough to support him, certainly not enough for two of us. He's strong but he's not that strong. He hates seeing me suffer and he can't help seeing it.

Kadin. Barely an adult. No job, no future, nothing set yet. He's still a child, and he doesn't even know for sure what he will do with his life. He needs guidance and care just as much as I do.

Nick. He's an army boy... and he knows that I love other people too. Even if he could take care of me, he doesn't deserve to have that thrust on him when I can't devote the same amount of time and resources to him.

Alex. Yes, I love him... but he has a life of his own and the last thing he needs is a sickly femme hanging around to cramp his style. Someday he'll be wonderfully happy with someone and if I for even a second stood in the way of that, I would hate myself.

Rhett. *sighs softly* He's not working at the moment. He's living in another country. And much as I love him, much as I love the idea of a life with him, I'm honestly still not sure if it would work at all, on a purely emotional level.

Gods... ok. I'm depressing myself further. I hadn't actually thought that was possible.

I've finally gone back to masturbating. It hurts a lot, particularly the hour or three afterward, but it feels better to cum occasionally than not to cum at all. I just end up with agonizing and non-satisfying wet dreams instead of the release and rush of a good orgasm. Besides, Caleb is home and I wouldn't be ME if I didn't want to fuck him senseless. *grins* Better than masturbation any day.

Everyone is upstairs playing Dungeons and Dragons right now. I should be up there - I've got a character who isn't the most productive (at least not when I'm drunk like this) but he's at least amusing to play. Yes. Male. Cope.

But it feels... hm. It feels like how I imagine it would feel if I accidentally dropped into a parallel dimension, one not TOO different... just that little bit off. That sense that no matter how well I seem to fit in, I don't belong.

I know it's just in my head, and I know it shouldn't bother me, but it does. I practically ran down here, and sat on the bed for a few minutes. Not crying - I don't know if I can cry now. My tears seem to have stopped flowing again, which is partially relieving and partially unnerving. *shrugs* But all I could do was sit there and wait until I was back in this world, until I felt right again.

I still don't feel quite right.

I'm trying very hard not to do something to fix that. My fix-it methods are not the most healthy, and I'd be the first to admit that. Problem being, they WORK, at least in the short term. They work so well...

I want to
I want to be someone else
or I'll explode...

Pretty wench, I still want to talk with you. Wanna talk with someone who understands how easily and quickly the darkness seeps in until you can't think, you can't see, you can't even cry, because everything is so horribly wrong that even crying seems painful and bad.

It's like watching the universe dissolve.

I'm still a little bit upset that he went offline when I logged on. I don't think I'm actually being avoided... but that little paranoid part of me keeps assuring me I am. The same part that listens to a certain someone tell me how easily he'd strip away my pride, my soul... and makes me like it. I'd have a use, then. A purpose. Meaning. Something. Anything.

Gods... I'm clinging to straws here.

I'm scared. When Robert gets back, there'll be nothing left, not as far as I can see. *shivers* Every time I think life is getting better, it gets worse. Every time I start to relax, think that maybe I'll be safe, I'll be ok, it goes so terribly bad. This is why I don't 'cheer up'. Because if I do, sure as rain in Portland, things get worse.

And now they are worse.

Is there anyone who knows the whole story now? I don't think so. Always, always, bits of myself are locked away. That 'test'... *shrugs* ...as scott said, the questions were a bit loaded. No one knows them all. No one.

No one knows all of me, not any more.

And I should regret that, it should bother me, it should worry me, but how can I be bothered by it? It's protection. Without that protection, things would hurt so much more... the lies, the twisted truths, the insults, the promises never kept... they would hurt so much more if I wasn't prepared for them, wouldn't they?

Maybe I've been here before
I know this room
I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag
on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
it's a cold and it's a broken
hallelujah...

Music keeps getting tangled in with my thoughts. Sounds that express what I'm feeling better than anything I write ever could. I am no longer even sure why I'm pouring all this out into here, except that it HAS to come out somehow, it has to be here, where I can look at it calmly, think about it, try to plan, try not to panic. Maybe if it's down here in black and white, I can cope with it.

Maybe this won't be too much for me to handle.

Maybe this won't be more than I can take.

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah... *shivers, eyes closed, her arms wrapped around herself in a futile attempt at a hug*

...I don't know what to do.