Heart of Darkness

For the few readers that I may have left I apologize for such a long absence.  I’ve been in a very dark mood lately and I just did not feel like blogging, nor have  I felt like reading other blogs.  Today I feel like blogging but the darkness still hangs over me.   So, please excuse the ranting, moaning, and depressing thoughts that I am about to spew forth into your world.  I just need to get all this off my chest.  I have a feeling this will take a few posts to get out unless I want this one post to become a novella of darkness.

I’m feeling like the weight of the earth is pressing on me and I can’t get out from under it.  I’m mad, depressed, and quite frankly feeling horrible about myself and my life.  In reality things aren’t as bad as I’ve been feeling but you know how it is when you just feel like nothing is right and nothing you do is ever going to be right.  I don’t feel like a good enough mother, wife, daughter, granddaughter, sister, aunt, friend, blogger, housewife, cook, citizen, or person.  I’m feeling restless, angry, guilty, sad, frustrated, embarrassed, etc.  I’m angry with myself, my child, my husband, my family, our government, my husband’s job.  So, with all that negativity where in the hell do I start to explain just why I feel this way?

How about I start with our government and society.  It’s the one that will be least offensive to most of the people with whom I actually have a real life, face-to-face relationship.  It’s also the one I feel least directly responsible for and thus the least emotionally connected to.  I’m crazy mad about all this debt our country is racking up bailing out businesses and people who were stupid and dishonest.  I resent this sense of entitlement that so many people seem to have.  I’m also getting sick of Obama and the Democrats and their ideas that people making a certain amount of money should be made to feel guilty or like they don’t already do enough to help the rest of the country.

I am mad that  anyone has the idea of not allowing people making $200,000 a year or more to write off their mortgage interest.  I said this in a previous post and I’ll say it again.  People making $200,000 and $250,000 a year are not ridiculously wealthy.  They are doing much better off than most but they are not rolling in so much money that they can afford not to deduct their mortgage interest.  I’m also pissed by the fact that the new stimulus bill states that any married couple filing jointly making $250,000 or more will no longer receive a health insurance subsidy from their former employer if unemployed.  Let me state this clearly, if your income is above $250,000, any Cobra insurance subsidy paid to ex-employer is added to individual’s tax bill. (this information was written verbatim from the March 16, 2009 edition of Forbes magazine)   So, let’s put this in perspective, if someone making $250,000 a year becomes unemployed then not only is he/she jobless and no longer making $250,000 but if he/she needs Cobra insurance through their ex-employer they are going to get billed for that.   Nice, huh?  So the people who worked hard for that $250,000 and paid massive amounts into the tax system while they worked are now not worthy of getting health insurance assistance when they need it.  We will however, give those welfare mothers who aren’t paying into the system health insurance and whatever other assistance they need.  We’ll also pay for years of methadone treatments for heroin addicts even if they have no job or health insurance and have never been and still haven’t become productive members of society.  (I know this happens because sadly I’m related to one of these people.)  Sorry, to me that is fucked up.

We’ll continue to pick on those that others feel are too wealthy but never do anything about ballplayers who turn down $45 million contracts because it wasn’t a big enough payout for them.  Really, does any one entertainer need a $45 million contract?  Please don’t give me the excuse that athletes have short careers.  Let me put this into perspective – a person making $75,000 a year who works for 50 years will only make $3,750,000 over his working lifetime.  So tell me again why one individual needs a $45 million contract for entertaining us?  And this individual has the nerve to turn it down because it’s not enough.  Excuse, come down here with the little people so we can slap the shit out of you.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of reasons why I’m mad about what is happening in Washington and in our society in general.  I’d rather not go into more because I hate to talk politics on my blog and because I may start to say things that I shouldn’t say in a public forum.  I try very hard to think the best of all people but at the moment I’m having trouble feeling sorry or thinking the best about some people and I’d like to just leave it alone.  I’d also like to believe that most of us are honest, hardworking, decent people who want the best for everyone and who try their best in all things.

Now onto my husband’s job.  Like many companies Big’s company had layoffs.  I understand that.  It’s frightening and frustrating but it’s also life.  So, I’m not mad about the layoffs per se.  I’m mad about the way they drug it out.  For months my husband, and hence the rest of the house, has been stressed about whether or not he would have a job.  For weeks Big would come home and say this was the week it was happening and we’d know one way or the other.  Then the week would go by and nothing would happen.  When the week of layoffs finally did happen they drug it out for three days.  It sucked.  It also sucked that someone like my husband who has always been a top performer even had to worry about whether or not he had a job.  Good news is he does have a job.  Bad news is no merit increases and even though he did most of the work to sell a multi-million dollar contract he got almost no compensation for it due to a change in payouts.  Good news is he still will make more than most people.  Bad news is he will make way less than last year (no worries about us being amongst the $250,000 group next tax season).

So, I’m gonna stop this portion of my Heart of Darkness series.  I figure that is enough negative venom for one post.  I’ll continue the series in the days to come because I haven’t really gotten to the real reason why my heart is feeling so dark.  I’ll also try to break the negative posts up by putting in some positive moments in between the negative posts.  I’ll also try to get back to reading some of my favorite bloggers and participating in some of the neat things that they have going on.

My apologies once again for ending my silence with such a depressing post.