Don't piss off writers. They can write really good rants.
I like to think of myself as a fairly mature and responsible person. I like to think that I have the ability to choose a life for myself that I want, and not one forced on me by economic limitations. I like to think that I am ready for little uncertainties in the future. I want to be a person, to put it simply, that always has bus fare ready when the bus pulls up.
And I like to think that I more or less have lived that way since I was old enough to live an adult life. I lived on my own for four years, and never came up short for rent and was always able to deal with day to day problems without desperation or panic. I moved to another country because I felt like it, then moved back home again because I chose to. I did reasonably well for myself, in fact.
Did. Past tense. Because for the last year and a half, I've been having some trouble being that person that I want to be. I lost a job that applying for should have been nothing more than a mere technicality. I can't live in about half the rental houses or apartments in the city. I can't get a credit card or a cell phone. I am working at the lowest paying job I have ever held and working the fewest hours since the summer job I had when I was thirteen. I'm living in my mom's house - which I did actually choose for myself, but it is a hollow victory because I am no longer in a position to live anywhere else. Hell, I don't even have my own computer anymore, because I cannot afford to either fix or replace my current one. And I've had to resort to asking my mom and brother for bus fare because I can't even manage to be the kind of person for whom basic mobility is a non-issue any longer.
Here and now, I am my worst self. I am unable to meet even the most basic of goals that I have set for myself. I have been unhappy with myself for some time now, but for the last few days I have been ashamed. I am embarrassed and appalled.
The amount of responsibility in my life far exceeds my ability to deal with it, and I live in the bedroom I slept in in high school. I have a job and a vanishingly small number of hobbies or little indulgences that cost anything, and that is the sum total of my life. I have less of a life than I did as a child, and I still can't manage to stay on top of it.
But it's not the burdens of my own life that so tax me. Somehow, somewhere along the path of my life, I became responsible for four other lives. And when I tried to free myself of that unfair burden, when I tried to separate myself from the situation that so stressed me, that was when everything went the most wrong. Somehow, I now find myself responsible for everything that happened as a direct result of trying to no longer be responsible for other people's responsibilities.
Of the former Shantyites, only one other lives with his parents. I am the only one without a credit card or a cell phone. And I am the one haunted by bills run up and unpaid while I was living in a different country. I was once the most stably employed of the group, and it was their actions that ruined the fragile beginnings of what could almost be considered a career. Somehow, I've gone from the most grown up to the biggest loser, and all because I decided that I didn't want to be responsible for their problems any longer.
I left for nine and a half months. I've now been home for as long as I was away, and in that time I've only finally managed to uncover the full extent of the financial ruin that has been unleashed on me by them. Or at least, I hope I've discovered the full extent - since this latest collection agency issue, there has been some doubt expressed another, possibly larger unpaid bill that may still be lurking in the weeds.
I am sick to death of being the person responsible for the Shanty. If I had known then what I know now, I would have kept up the unending and thankless job of being in charge, and been glad of it. If I had it to do over again, I would have sung praises to all the heavens while toiling under my accursed task, with a wide grin of idiot glee smeared across my face.
At this point, I'd like to thank Jimmy for his swift and much appreciated responsibility in this most recent matter. I only regret that I may find myself needing you to - like me - be responsible for the lack of responsibility of others. And if guilt and repentance alone could pay debts, then Tom would have paid his share and more long ago. Sadly, only money settles debts, and Tom has less that none of that...but at least he has apologized frankly and honestly to me already. Tim gets the "Too Little Too Late" award for his offer of a thousand dollars in February, a sum which is a mere third of what he already owed me before I got this latest bill. I'm sure he feels a bit lousy, but he now lives in Alberta (his trip there financed by his sale of my X-box to a mutual friend) and he now avoids me online, and has for more than a year. But the biggest jerk of the bunch, the one I'm the most pissed off at, well that would have to be Rob. For someone that invited me to rock climbing, movies and other outings fairly often the last few months, he's been oddly silent ever since a sudden $250 price tag on our friendship came up. Perhaps he's just been a little focused on life lately, and not paying attention to LiveJournal or instant messages. Perhaps he's a jerk.
All I'm asking for is for each person to pay a quarter share of this new bill, on that was for gas burned to heat a house that I didn't live at (and of course the nearly two years of interest that built up before a collection agency found me and dumped in unceremoniously in my lap). I've long ago given up hope for any money I've already lost or an apology from certain former roommates - all I want now, all I need is finally be done with this so that I can start moving forward with my life again. I don't have any other countries that I can move to to get away from this nightmare any longer. I need to stand and face it now, and I'd like a few other people to be adult enough to stand with me.
And I like to think that I more or less have lived that way since I was old enough to live an adult life. I lived on my own for four years, and never came up short for rent and was always able to deal with day to day problems without desperation or panic. I moved to another country because I felt like it, then moved back home again because I chose to. I did reasonably well for myself, in fact.
Did. Past tense. Because for the last year and a half, I've been having some trouble being that person that I want to be. I lost a job that applying for should have been nothing more than a mere technicality. I can't live in about half the rental houses or apartments in the city. I can't get a credit card or a cell phone. I am working at the lowest paying job I have ever held and working the fewest hours since the summer job I had when I was thirteen. I'm living in my mom's house - which I did actually choose for myself, but it is a hollow victory because I am no longer in a position to live anywhere else. Hell, I don't even have my own computer anymore, because I cannot afford to either fix or replace my current one. And I've had to resort to asking my mom and brother for bus fare because I can't even manage to be the kind of person for whom basic mobility is a non-issue any longer.
Here and now, I am my worst self. I am unable to meet even the most basic of goals that I have set for myself. I have been unhappy with myself for some time now, but for the last few days I have been ashamed. I am embarrassed and appalled.
The amount of responsibility in my life far exceeds my ability to deal with it, and I live in the bedroom I slept in in high school. I have a job and a vanishingly small number of hobbies or little indulgences that cost anything, and that is the sum total of my life. I have less of a life than I did as a child, and I still can't manage to stay on top of it.
But it's not the burdens of my own life that so tax me. Somehow, somewhere along the path of my life, I became responsible for four other lives. And when I tried to free myself of that unfair burden, when I tried to separate myself from the situation that so stressed me, that was when everything went the most wrong. Somehow, I now find myself responsible for everything that happened as a direct result of trying to no longer be responsible for other people's responsibilities.
Of the former Shantyites, only one other lives with his parents. I am the only one without a credit card or a cell phone. And I am the one haunted by bills run up and unpaid while I was living in a different country. I was once the most stably employed of the group, and it was their actions that ruined the fragile beginnings of what could almost be considered a career. Somehow, I've gone from the most grown up to the biggest loser, and all because I decided that I didn't want to be responsible for their problems any longer.
I left for nine and a half months. I've now been home for as long as I was away, and in that time I've only finally managed to uncover the full extent of the financial ruin that has been unleashed on me by them. Or at least, I hope I've discovered the full extent - since this latest collection agency issue, there has been some doubt expressed another, possibly larger unpaid bill that may still be lurking in the weeds.
I am sick to death of being the person responsible for the Shanty. If I had known then what I know now, I would have kept up the unending and thankless job of being in charge, and been glad of it. If I had it to do over again, I would have sung praises to all the heavens while toiling under my accursed task, with a wide grin of idiot glee smeared across my face.
At this point, I'd like to thank Jimmy for his swift and much appreciated responsibility in this most recent matter. I only regret that I may find myself needing you to - like me - be responsible for the lack of responsibility of others. And if guilt and repentance alone could pay debts, then Tom would have paid his share and more long ago. Sadly, only money settles debts, and Tom has less that none of that...but at least he has apologized frankly and honestly to me already. Tim gets the "Too Little Too Late" award for his offer of a thousand dollars in February, a sum which is a mere third of what he already owed me before I got this latest bill. I'm sure he feels a bit lousy, but he now lives in Alberta (his trip there financed by his sale of my X-box to a mutual friend) and he now avoids me online, and has for more than a year. But the biggest jerk of the bunch, the one I'm the most pissed off at, well that would have to be Rob. For someone that invited me to rock climbing, movies and other outings fairly often the last few months, he's been oddly silent ever since a sudden $250 price tag on our friendship came up. Perhaps he's just been a little focused on life lately, and not paying attention to LiveJournal or instant messages. Perhaps he's a jerk.
All I'm asking for is for each person to pay a quarter share of this new bill, on that was for gas burned to heat a house that I didn't live at (and of course the nearly two years of interest that built up before a collection agency found me and dumped in unceremoniously in my lap). I've long ago given up hope for any money I've already lost or an apology from certain former roommates - all I want now, all I need is finally be done with this so that I can start moving forward with my life again. I don't have any other countries that I can move to to get away from this nightmare any longer. I need to stand and face it now, and I'd like a few other people to be adult enough to stand with me.