The Happiness Port Project

I took the weekend "off." Saturday was Shabbat, and besides laundry and scrapbooking, I rested.

I'm living in a crappy home situation. My mom is an alcoholic and a narcissist. She often threatens to kick me out, never makes good on her promise, but now dad is preparing to retire, it's getting worse. Dad is nine years older than mom, he's getting too old to be a sheriff (65), but after he retires he wants to get another job. Mom is still worried. I'm worried too - I hate the city in which I live and want to move, but I am broke, in debt, and work two jobs that don't pay me for having a college degree. I don't drive and the jobs for non-drivers are menial jobs (my full-time job is just that - I appeal insurance companies - a job for losers with only a GED). Health care and finance are big in the Philadelphia Area, but the few writing jobs all require a driver's license. I can't legally drive due to some health issues. I would like to go to Canada or somewhere in Europe, I am needed more so in Europe, but money and health issues. I'm worried now too.

I regret listening to mom about college. I'm afraid of her and used to just follow along with what she wanted. I didn't want to go to college, but that is what mom wanted and I commuted. At least I'm only $9k in debt with the useless English degree. It wasn't always doom and gloom; I suspect the trauma I went through a month before I graduated coloured my perceptions. Therapy helped a little, but I am so behind. After I graduated college, I tried to move to Michigan. Didn't work out; my goal the whole time was to get out of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in general. I have been focusing on that more so than a career. That made me unattractive to employers and I had to take what I have now. The crime has shaped my library job, the part-time one I had since high school, and my behaviour has changed. I'm not the same person I was before it happened.

I was reading over an old scrapbook/yearbook I made in 11th grade and I had people sign it. It pains me to read old yearbooks because people said I am so kind, I should never change. Also said that I'm smart and have a successful future ahead. I get angry and cry because I am not longer that kind, I have changed and changed for the worst. I'm not smart - I graduated with an English degree that has no skills and C-PTSD makes it hard for me to be successful. Success for me isn't a career, it's about moving and working jobs I enjoy. Right now I don't have that and I'm just not sure when it'll happen. Chronic health issues don't help either. Someone once said to me, "it's hard to know yourself after a crime." I suppose she's right, and I suppose this coupled with the chronic health issues are a lot to cope with.