A different me

It's strange to come back here, age 40, having had more than a year's respite.  I shall have to look through everything with stomach-churning clarity and grasp just how sick I was.

More coming soon.  Well, once I've dealt with everything.

'Happy' birthday

Right now it feels as though the best thing I can do about my birthday is try to forget the date.

Like christmas and Thanksgiving, it would appear that such anniversaries force reflection. And I cannot help but feel morose-going-on-despondent if I foolishly stop distracting myself for a moment and, like a lemming on autopilot, look around my life.

I see only that which is missing.

The cuddle in bed in the morning from a partner whose love even I am sure of. The haphazard birthday card made from half-potato and poster paint or glued-on pasta shells from a young son or daughter. A family home. The things that - in my eyes - might make me feel like an accomplished man instead of a flippant child trapped inside a, now, 39 year-old pale, haggard, malnourished shell.

Somewhere along the line my life went very wrong, and I am so far away from where I want to be that I can't even see it on the horizon anymore. The elastic that joins me to it has not so much snapped as withered and perished with age, and feels all but gone.

Pride cometh before a kick in the crown jewels

An e-mail I sent to my ex-wife a moment ago. It's self-explanatory.

+++

Well, don't know about you but I'm still struggling to deal with the triple whammy of constructive dismissal, being stitched up at Interbrand, and being turfed out on the street.

Thanks to the more severe of my symptoms I still have great difficulty going out in public, in particular for groceries. I live on take-out, and am heavily in debt because I can't afford take-out. I need to convert my credit card debt into a line of credit.

But I cannot, because as of yesterday my bank will not believe that I do not already have a line of credit with a rival bank.

This is because you STILL have not removed my name from the TD joint accounts and/or line of credit.

I know it's difficult for you to focus on anything other than your job but will you PLEASE get your shit together and organise your finances. You've put me through enough already.

I hope I do not have to visit you face to face to remind you, in as public, loud, and embarrising a fashion to you as I can possibly muster.

My bank will be checking my credit status again during next week. I expect my fictional TD line of credit to be gone by then.

Excellent news

Just a quickie to say that I'm ecstatic to report that work has finally relented and reduced my hours. I reported for work this morning only to be told I wasn't expected until 1pm.

EXCELLENT!!!

Two of my days of the week are now half-days so it looks as if from the end of this week it may finally be worthwhile (a) building a weekly schedule, (b) building a proper recovery plan, and (c) organising my finances again.

I may just have to go out in public to an establishment selling alcoholic beverages, and celebrate. Wow. I haven't celebrated anything in a very, very log time...

Take THAT to the bank

Well, that was an experience.

I couldn't bear the thought of the CIBC financial advisor assuming I'm a reckless waster of money so I prepared an executive summary of everything that's happened to me, or more accurately has been done to me, since 2005 that has led inexorably to my current financial position.

I think she must have believed me because I've never met her before, but she cried when I got as far as the summer of 2008 when my ex-wife proverbially threw me out on the street in the middle of a financial and mental crisis.

Now I have to wait to see whether I can replace credit card debt with a line of credit/loan. Apparently my credit rating is still exceptional, which I am astonished to hear, but I now need to scramble to do two years' of tax returns because the bank needs those forms. I've been overtaxed halfway up my sphincter in every job I've taken since arriving in Canada, to the extent that when I eventually do my annual tax returns I usually receive back between $1,000 and $4,000.

Let's hope it happens again.

After the meeting at the bank and having to again relive the five-year horror story of betrayal and persecution (also known as 'my life') I felt relieved but drained, sorrowful, and tearful. I purposefully walked Eastwards along Queen Street to Parliament Street. It's one of the roughest areas of Toronto. For every spoilt rich brat and wanky jeweller's on Bloor Street West, there is an equivalent homeless person and Dollarama store on Queen Street East. On Bloor West the people are usually tanned, overdressed, and dripping in gold and diamonds. On Queen East they are usually barely clad, smoking, drunk, and rocking.

The purpose of this walk was to remind myself that whilst I feel like I am at rock-bottom in life, in love, and in mental health, I do actually still have further to fall. Even if I never committed suicide, I could still be homeless. Things could be worse. If a day came when I couldn't afford to buy my medication then I would be hospitalised within 72 hours. I wonder what my ex-wife would think if one day she found me panhandling around Queen Street & Jarvis Street where our (now her) apartment is.

I shouldn't speculate though, it'll make my mood worse.

Time, again, to look to the kittens for affection methinks.