Jacquelyn's Space

So my stepson, who is 22 soon to be 23, lives with us. This has been alright…I have told him he always has a place with us. What could we do? –After his mom kicked him out once he graduated high school, before he was going into the Navy (which unfortunately did not work out). He does help out by driving his dad sometimes (my husband doesn’t drive due to eyesight issues). We now make him pay a nominal rent, more so to give him some bill paying responsibility because for him controlling finances and making payments has been a huge issue.

So, he has a room at our place…the room that used to be our office. Granted it is a small room so keeping it tidy might be a challenge. Unfortunately we had to move my stepson into the smallest bedroom in our house to accommodate my 3 nephews that live with us most of the year.

We don’t ask for much. I am not a clean freak…I don’t have the energy. But we do try to keep our house sort of picked up, at least trash and dishes…

But my stepson! His room is almost like a garbage dump or a very trashy hoarder’s house. We have asked him numerous times, please keep the trash picked up, keep the dishes picked up, at least, so the place doesn’t stink and we don’t get critters. Nothing gets through to him. My husband is really pissed. The smell emanating from my stepson’s room really gets to him. It can be bad at times (this is coupled with the fact that my stepson doesn’t shower as often as he should…or do laundry/wear clean clothes). I know we set a better example for him than this. We can’t say we ‘raised’ him because he lived at his mom’s the majority of the time. But we did set a better example than infrequent showering, wearing dirty, stinky clothing, and living in a trash heap.

Ugh! Yesterday my husband told him that if he didn’t clean his room he was going to post pictures of it on Facebook, to maybe shame him into cleaning. I thought my stepson was picking up his room; I thought I saw him carry out a trash bag. I don’t know because when I went in there today, to shut the window so I could turn on the air…the room looks like this:

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GROSS! Trash! It is the trash that gets to me the most. At least throw that mess out, into the trash so the moldering stinkyness can go with the garbage truck. His girlfriend, a self-proclaimed clean freak sleeps in there! I don’t know how she can. It boggles the mind. If my husband’s house had looked like that when I met I would ran far away (and I definitely wouldn’t be going downtown if you know what I mean). And I am not a clean freak…

Mind you, he had the whole day off work yesterday and didn’t seem to work an inordinate amount the week prior (seemed to be home lots). I doubt shaming will work…I really don’t feel too good about the whole shaming aspect anyway. If I had the energy I would just clean that room myself and charge my stepson an exorbitant FEE. But that would only be a temporary solution.

So I get on Facebook as I do most mornings. I actually see what’s happening in the world that way. I am an introvert at heart.

Of course I have been caught up in all this election stuff. At first Trump’s run for president was amusing–his loud mouth antics, uninformed opinions–yes, all very amusing. Until he was nominated as a candidate. I suppose I didn’t think he’d make it. I am not a Republican but I thought the GOP could come up with a better candidate than Donald Trump. Now the shit is just scary.

I clicked on this article:

A lie enabled by the American corporate news media: “Decent” people do not support Donald Trump

“Bigotry and vulgarity are central to Trumps’s appeal to millions of voters — that’s a fact”

In the article there is a link to this:

Unfiltered Voices From Donald Trump’s Crowds

A video of Trump supporters voicing their “support” for Trump and his “policies”. It is disturbing to say the least. It made me cry that so many feel the way they do, so many hate the way they do.

Now I am no angel– I have hated people, but never as a group. I know to hate is wrong but I have to admit I hate (have hated) based on individual action…what I know and have observed about a particular individual. As a realist I know, that you can’t love or even like everyone. But to hate a group (based on race, religion, cultural identity) of people because YOU are ignorant, jealous, insecure and afraid? Just terrible. And SICK.

All I can do is SMH and say this shit is scary at this point. How do we counter this way of thinking? What can we say to these people, many of which, are at best, stubbornly misguided, and at worst, mentally ill? There is no reasoning with them.

Towards the end of the video one man says he thinks Trump will turn America back to the America he grew up in. SHUDDER.

This is not the America I grew up in. At least I thought it wasn’t. This all just makes me more introverted, or even reclusive. I just want to stay home and away from people like these Trump supporters. There are just so many that think like this, too many of them coming out of the woodwork exposing their terrible beliefs.

Not the good funk. The bad funk. As in I’ve been in a funk lately. A lot lately, like almost all the time. Well…I have been trying to get my house organized but I’ve been working slowly so I don’t get too stressed out. I was working more too til the summer hit and I thought I’d be taking care of my nephews. Alas, my brother or my parents have kept the boys most of the time. So I feel inessential though I really shouldn’t. My self worth should not be wrapped up in taking care of children. It is an old trick a woman’s mind plays on her whenever she is a caretaker. I have been taken in, falling for it as so many have before me.

But! I am trying to break out of that funk. My master closet is half way cleaned out, my bedroom a bit more organized. Only the rest of the house to do, haha. Oh yeah, the linen closet is halfway done too. These are my accomplishments. Blah!

I should have been looking for a better job. That comes next, maybe. I am afraid. I have a few friends, teachers mostly, that cannot find good employment. It scares me because I don’t even have a teaching certificate. Not that I want to be a teacher, but if I don’t have any certifications or think that I have few marketable skills (at least the ones that will get me something better than food service) what will I find? What am I qualified to do? I don’t know. Defeated before I really begin. Plus there are my nephews to think about. Taking care of them has been holding me back because I don’t have enough energy to do it all. Take care of them, my husband (and this house), and take on a full time job. I am going to try though. I just need to break out of this funk, and get my house fairly well organized so I don’t have to worry about that. Plus I can only hope that my brother is going to take his boys full time soon…

I hope. It is fairly possible. I think…

But! I am going to move on anyway. I feel like the boys are older now and I may be able to work full time and look after them too…I worked more hours at McDonald’s this past year and everything was alright. Sure, I didn’t have energy for much else besides work and the boys but I am going to keep trying.

But, I’d like to go back to school as well. Today I am proud of myself because I reapplied for admission to the graduate program I started but never finished. I have some incompletes (3 classes) I hope to be able to finish and then I just have 2 classes after that in order to have my degree. It is a MA in English…I could be an adjunct professor/instructor with that (if I can get the work). It is not really what I want to do but it may help me on my way to my other goals. Truthfully, I have been unsure if I want to even finish that degree but I think I do–I started it, might as well finish.

AND I am thinking about applying for the Accelerated Nursing Program (I emailed an advisor for an appointment today to see what I’d have to do to prepare)–a 2 year program in which I could earn my B.S.N and those all important certifications (or skills) to find much better employment. Of course, again, this is not what I really want to do but it will help me along to my other goals. It would just be a different route…and they always say the journey is the destination or reward. I like journeys, the more circuitous and scenic the better. Or at least they are more interesting.

My goals, they are pretty much the same but changing in little ways, perhaps growing. I don’t know…I feel pressed for time now though. I feel I am running scared. I feel I have wasted to much of my life taking care of everyone else and not taking care of me. But then again…the essence of my goal is to help people. I just wanted to do it outside of my own family, on a larger scale I guess. Perhaps that is my ego…well, that and I would like to earn (some) more money, ha. Unfortunately, money is an important part of meeting my goals.

AND unfortunately, being in funk makes me more prone to binging–binge eating and binge shopping. So that is where I am at lately. A huge circuitous funk….I hope to curl out of and begin a huge, circuitous journey, to both old and new places.