In A Funk Playing That Funky Violin

Life has been throwing punches at me left and right and I have been quite overwhelmed by life this year. Looking back, I’ve been whining quite a lot, and my dear little group of readers, I apologize. I don’t even feel like myself any more and I feel I’m even losing the ability to crack jokes about it as a result of every single cell in my body being occupied with dealing with life. I apologize ever more profusely because as you  might have guessed, here comes another whiny entry. Please bear with me. I AM trying and trying hard to be positive and to not feel sorry for myself. But some days it gets to be a little too much.

As a matter of fact, I should have been ecstatic today. I should have been walking around with a stupid grin on my face. Because I came home last night to find the letter from INS waiting in the mailbox, with my citizenship interview appointment in December. How long have I been waiting to be a citizen? For about 20 years. For 20 years, I’ve been dutifully paying taxes without representation. Now I’m this close. But do you know what I did upon opening the letter and skimming through its contents? I cried. And my tears were most definitely not the tears of joy or happiness but of frustration.  Oh shit! Not now! ANOTHER thing I have to prepare for! Why does it have to be now? I can’t even think straight. Where did I put all these documents that I need to bring there and when am I going to look for them?

It’s funny how the smallest thing could throw you off. I was exhausted yesterday, so I forgot about it pretty soon by sleeping. But I woke up with a heavy heart, found out Brandy had emptied her bladder on one of the dog beds, spewed plentiful variations of the word fuck about 478,399,643,715 times, feeling as if that letter was staring at me while I busied myself to get ready to go to work.

Just yesterday morning, I found myself happier than usual because I received the New York State STAR rebate check that I didn’t know I was getting and told people that it would cover most of Brooklyn’s hospital stay and joked that I needed another three checks like this to cover Brandy’s and my medical expenses. Come to find out today, I was lucky and saved by the check, since without it, I would have been short when making this month’s mortgage payment.

At work, when I finally opened my mouth to talk to a coworker, my tear gates opened and I couldn’t stop crying. And all I could say was, It’s just too much. Too much at the same time. I’m too overwhelmed. The coworker couldn’t say anything for a while, and when he finally replied, the only thing he could say was, I wish you were a millionaire. I stared at him and replied, Yeah… who doesn’t?

Yes, I know. I’ve been trying hard to see it as what it really is — happy and joyful events, as in I would have been short on my mortgage payment but hey look! This rebate check materialized and I’m good now! And I finally get to be a U. S. Citizen and exercise my rights as such! Yippeeeee! and so on… Yes, I’m trying very hard and will be trying hard. But I need to get this out. And again, I apologize.