cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If I haven't been around [What I would write as an open letter to everyone I know if I was the sort of person who would publicly discuss this sort of thing. Which I'm not] I know that I haven't been around much. Some of you probably forgot that I even exist. Maybe others think I'm stuck-up or aloof or neglectful. That concert, that play, that dinner that you invited me to on Facebook? Perhaps your wedding? That's right, I never came to any of it and you probably just think that I'm an asshole. The truth is that I'd like to do things like that. Go to concerts, eat at a restaurant, see a play. Talk to other human beings. I'd really like that a lot. But I can't. I'm trapped, physically and metaphorically. I live 17 miles from town, way out in the countryside, in part because I can't afford to live closer. My car is smashed up, out of gas, and I have no car insurance anymore. I have maybe enough gas to get into town but then I'd be stuck there with no way home. I have no transportation. I go weeks on end without leaving the few acres surrounding the house that I rent. I have no health insurance. That bone in my foot that I broke last summer never really healed right and I can't run for very long now. Sometimes I have to live for a couple of weeks straight on as little as $20 for gas and groceries. That's for me and my two children and two dogs. I have no child care. My 8 year old goes to school but my son just turned 5 and isn't in school yet. I have no money to put him in preschool and no way of getting him there and back anyway. Since I have to constantly care for and supervise my kids, I can't work much at all during the day. I have to wait until around midnight or so to start writing and I work until around 3 am. Usually I don't get more than 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night. My savings are long gone. My son almost never gets to play with other kids aside from his sister. I've been living off of nothing more than wild meat that I killed and butchered and bread that I baked for the last 10 days or so. I live a very precarious, marginal life. Isolated as I was by my poverty, it got worse after my wife left. Most of you -- my friends and family -- stopped talking to me. Did you take sides? Did you disapprove of my finding someone else? Or were you just worried that the divorce cooties might be contagious? I've starved and suffered and lost almost everything in plain view of everyone I know and very, very rarely have any of you stopped to help or even to say 'hi.' So I'm sorry I couldn't come to your fund-raiser. I'm sorry I missed your reading. I'm sorry I couldn't come for drinks that night. Right now I'm drowning. 10:23 a.m. - 2012-02-21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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