All the other stuff…

There is so much going on right now. At work I’ve got one coworker whose husband is slowly dying of stage four lymphoma and another who was diagnosed with some form of mouth cancer this spring. She isn’t doing anything about it because it’s pointless and she’s too old. She’s four years older than me. I got to work at 6:30am on Tuesday and one of my friends had a nervous breakdown and was sobbing on my shoulder by 6:35am before she went running, crying out the door. Then I got to hear my manager and the owner of the store trying to decide whether to fire her; she’s worked there for eleven years.

Emma’s currently living with Mark at his house. He lives with his parents, who are extreme hoarders. Emma’s sent me pictures and their house could fit right in on one of those TV shows. The two of them are starting to have problems in their relationship, which isn’t unexpected. Emma’s been raised in an atheist family while Mark comes from a fundamentalist Christian family. But Emma’s only working part time and can’t afford to move out… and doesn’t want to move here. I don’t blame her; we live in a two bedroom apartment so Emma would be stuck sleeping on the couch. Plus she works right near where I do, which means an hour bus ride each way. They still love each other and I hope they can work things out.

And there’s Jeremy’s school. The pronouns have been pretty much sorted out and they’re making an effort to use them. It’s all the other issues now. I’m fielding regular calls at work about issues that could have been handled by talking with and listening to Jeremy. Then Jeremy came home last week and announced that zir work placement was cancelled before it even started because they’ve decided zie needs two EAs for supervision instead of one. But zie can shred paper in the classroom instead. This is supposed to be relevant work experience to get students ready for a job and to provide experience they can add to a resume. I’m not sure what job they’re expecting Jeremy to find with classroom paper shredding. On the flip side Jeremy’s doing things like refusing to attend gym because watching football is boring (which it is but no one’s ever died of boredom) and arguing over learning spelling words because zie won’t ever need to know them. They’re basic words. At this point I’m ready to stick the whole lot of them on a deserted island then come back in a week to pick up the survivors.

Emma and Jeremy’s father is talking about moving back to the area. He’s a pathological liar and constant manipulator who’s currently stalking his most recent ex-girlfriend. Jeremy has almost nothing to do with him but Emma talks to him regularly. The last time Jeremy saw zir father, he dropped Jeremy off too late for the last bus to our building then left zir in an unfamiliar section of town. He pointed vaguely west and said “there’s another bus over there you can catch to go home” before walking away. Jeremy called me in a panic because zie had no idea where zie was or even what bus zir Dad was talking about. Google Maps is amazing and I was able to lead Jeremy to the nearest bus stop and get zir back home. Zir Dad blew off the latest visit then lied and told Emma he’d had a long conversation with Jeremy, who knew exactly why he hadn’t show up. And every year he gets worse.

Amy still hasn’t messaged me back regarding the letter I sent to her about Jeremy being transgender. But she’s the one who argued on my Facebook page last spring about the definition of transgender, not only with me but also with Lenny, telling Lenny that zie was wrong and misinformed… that Amy knew better than zir because she’d learned about trans issues in school.

Karen disowned Emma this summer and has totally written her out of their lives, which means Emma has no contact with her two little cousins anymore. Meanwhile Karen’s hoping this won’t affect our relationship. My Mom’s cheerful and wanting to help. She’s eagerly looking forward to us coming over for Thanksgiving (which is next weekend in Canada) and drove Jeremy and I to and from the dentist on Thursday. Then she met up with Emma that afternoon and complained bitterly for their whole car ride home. Jeremy just needs to suck it up and deal. No one likes needles and “he’s” just being a baby. If I’d done a better job of raising “him”, “he” would have been fine and able to handle it. “His” younger cousin gets needles all the time. I have no idea if Karen’s been invited to the same Thanksgiving dinner or if she’s going to have our parents over for a separate one. If she’s there, I have no idea how she’s going to treat Emma and I have no idea how she’s going to react to me using Jeremy’s pronouns considering she doesn’t want her kids to know zie’s trans because it’s “too confusing”.

I worry constantly that I’ve said the wrong thing or done the wrong thing and that everyone’s going to hate me. Then when I try to make things better (even though no one’s expressed any concern) I worry that I’ve made things even worse. I wake up before the sun, exhausted but with my heart pounding, unable to fall back to sleep. I’m scared when I stand at the bus stop because it would be so easy just to fall in front of a truck or bus… but I don’t want to die. Then I get worried about getting dizzy and falling anyway. At least I haven’t had a panic attack recently; just anxiety attacks where it’s hard to breathe and everyone seems way too close except I wish someone would just hug me.

My doctor’s started me on Effexor XR and a friend of mine assured me it stops the “I could just fall in front of a bus” thoughts. Except she was on a higher dose than me and I’m worried it won’t be high enough to stop those thoughts. And I’ve been queasy for the past two days. I don’t know if it’s a side effect of the medication or if I’m coming down with something. Either way I want it to stop.

And I’m crying and don’t know why I’m even posting this. Except I’m so tired of feeling alone.