Love, Justine

WOMEN’S CENTER

February 12th, 2018

Day 224

Monday

8am

On my way to Smethport to see my therapist. I got into a fight with my mother yesterday during the visit. I had to ask her if I could come live in the apartment they built for me and the twins when they were born. Of course she said no, and then proceeded to berate me for the rest of the visit on “taking responsibility.”

God.

Like I need to hear it from her. 

That’s all I hear about from anybody these days. She said, “Look at my face, Jessica! I’m exhausted! Your father is exhausted!”

Anyway, we have Christian Radio Driver. He’s so nice.

I have a weird situation at work: there are two guys fighting over me, and I wouldn’t date either of them. One is 23 and the other is 47. They both are kind of awkward and goofy-looking, and I’m nice to them, which is probably why they’ve attached to me. They both asked me out on Saturday, to which I said no to both; and then they proceeded to get into a fight in front of me about each others’ respective ages, one insisting that the other was as old as the hills, and the other saying that the other was an infant.

Then they both seemed like infants to me. 

How dumb.

Two grown men fighting over an unavailable woman. The 47-year old made me a flower out of twist-ties that was surprisingly intricate, and the 23-year old asked to have lunch with me and walk me out at the end of the day. 

Ugh.

I feel like I have to “break up” with both of them, and we’re not even dating!

How stupid.

In other news, my new med, Sulfasalazine, is seeming to be working wonders–my body barely hurts after work except for my feet, and even they don’t hurt as much as they used to. 

Of course Mr. Big wouldn’t let me keep my comfy mattress when he moved my room (again), so I’m pretty sore in the mornings again. I told him that I called him a jerk several times in my journals when he asked me if I was “character assassinating” him, and he called me immature.

I’ll take it.

I do like him a lot more than I did at first–sometimes he gives very good advice, and he’s smart and funny–but he still can be a jerk at times. Like everybody, I suppose. I think I’m developing a slight crush on him, actually. Maybe more than slight…

I hope I don’t turn into Tori–she seems to be hopelessly infatuated with him and asks me and Nickolai all of the time if we think he “likes” her [in a romantic way]. I just tell her that even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it–he would lose his job if he did. 

Speaking of Tori and Nickolai–they’ve invited me to get an apartment with them–which seems like an Act Of God at this point–I really don’t have any other options except living with Ken, and I wouldn’t be able to have my kids there. 

That fight with my mother is weighing heavily on my mind–all of the things she said keep going around and around in my head–she’s such a fucking bitch. She just took the opportunity to say every nasty thing that she’s thought about for the past year that she wasn’t speaking to me in.

Also, I worry a lot about Nikolai and Tori using–they are both heroin addicts. We would have to have an iron-clad agreement about absolutely no drugs. Drugs would be an absolute disaster for all of us–we all have children to think about.
God, I hope this works out.

Hopefully, I would get out in April, and live in our shared apartment until June, and then they would move in. We’ll have to talk about money because they will have to be helping for the months of May and June…I hope it doesn’t get too complicated. 

They both have applications in to Medplast–I hope they can do it. Of course I feel like if I can do it, anybody can.

11am

Therapy went fine. We didn’t do any EMDR because I was so busy bitching about my week…or my mother, rather. She’s what I talked about the most, I guess. She has a way of getting under my skin and just sitting there, festering, like a boil.

I hate that. 

Her words always have this sting to them that can hurt me more than anybody else’s. 

Anyway, I figure that I’ll be making $1184 per month, so if Tori, Nikolai, and I all work full time, we can make $3552/month. If Nikolai doesn’t work, Tori and I will make $2368/month. I figure the average three bedroom is $700/month, so that should be manageable. I need to get a newspaper and look at the listings for apartments. We’re picking up Nickolai at the hospital, so I’ll look there and see if they have a paper. 

February 13th, 2018

Day 225

Tuesday

9am

On my way to Crossroads for group. I missed my individual yesterday because The Big Boss forgot to schedule transportation for me, but I didn’t mind too much. It was nice to have some down time.

While I was transcribing my journal onto a flashdrive, Mr. Big walked in, and I told him that I officially withdrew my application for senior resident because it’s been two months without hearing anything, and he said, “You can’t. You already are senior resident.”

Nice. 

He could’ve told me!

 I’m excited about the opportunity, though. He said we’ll go over today what it entails, so that’s pretty cool.

In other news, I got Lilly a Guardian Ad Litem appointed for her without having to go to court, so that’s more good news.

I’m not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow–there are now two guys that are after me, neither of which I would date. They actually got into an argument over me in front of me, which was embarrassing, like I am a piece of meat to be sold at auction and not an autonomous human being who makes decisions of her own accord. I wonder what they would think if they knew that the decision simply wasn’t up to them, duh!

It’s up to ME!

Idiots.

Idiots abound everywhere.

Treating women like this–Well, I Never.

12pm

Group is over. I talked about how worried I was over this moving in thing with Tori and Nikolai. There’s a lot that could go wrong. I just really, really, really hope it works out. 

Now I have to wait for Tori to get out of individual therapy. They always have the worst music in this waiting room. 

It’s very nice and sunshiney out today. On the walls here it says things like, “Be joyful!” and, “Life doesn’t get easier, we get stronger.”

Life does seem ridiculously hard sometimes. I’m cautiously excited about leaving the Women’s Center, even though I don’t know when I’m leaving yet. 

I hope to God I can leave in April.

More signs: 

“One Day At A Time,” and “Happiness comes from your thoughts.”

Does it?

The one day at a time sign reminds me of Sandra Bullock in the movie “28 Days,” saying, “What is that?! Like taking two, three days at a time is an option?!”

Funny.

Today must be the day that Elvis died or something. The radio keeps playing news clips about his death. 

Oh, bad 70’s music–”Sooner or later, love is gonna win…”

Coming here makes me want to check my Facebook something fierce. Everybody is always on their phones. No phone for me. I guess that’s addicts for you. Gotta be addicted to something. 

I miss my phone so much.

I can’t even get into it now because Ike put a number password on it for some reason and I don’t remember it. 

I sure don’t miss him.

There’s a poor beta fish behind the glass in this waiting room with less than a piece of paper’s worth of space to spin around in. And he’ll probably spend his whole life in that space, poor thing. Why do we cage other creatures all of the time? Why can’t we just let them be? 

I wonder if fish ever commit suicide?

I know there have been cases of dogs and horses doing it. 

Mr. Big showed me a video on his phone of a whale exploding today because Tori and I were talking about spontaneous combustion. 

Gross and bizarre.

I just wish I had a crystal ball to tell me what is going to happen in the future. 

The group therapist says that, statistically, Tori, Nickolai, and I have a low probability of “making it,” which I assume means staying clean. 

I so hope it works out. 

I have to stop obsessing about it. 

And catastrophizing about the situation. 

I’m good at that. 

“Don’t you want somebody to love”–on the radio– why, no, I don’t. What a pain in the ass romantic relationships are. Now I have to “break up” with these guys tomorrow, or at least set them straight. 

Speaking of straight, maybe I’ll tell them that I’m gay! They would probably just be like, “Challenge accepted!” based on their past behavior of pursuing me even though I haven’t expressed the slightest bit of interest in them. 

OMG tomorrow is Valentine’s Day!!!!

Oh NO.

Oh MAN!!

What if they got me things??!

FUCK!

FML.