2022-11-11 — Bad Tylenol

Happy 11/11.

Haven’t written for a while.

I started an entry day before yesterday. I worked on it again yesterday, but obviously, I never finished it, so I’m just gonna basically start over.

I’m not doing well, so maybe it’s good I haven’t written. I’ve been the closest to a full nervous breakdown that I think I ever have been. So many downer posts… who wants more?

To recap… I don’t know what happened, but day before yesterday I think it was, I woke feeling almost desperately lonely. Just boom, right out of bed, lonely, searching for a way to… connect… but unable to.

My heart longs for my person, that person I can be one with, share life with, share everything with.

There’s a gaping hole.

It’s very hard… but I guess it’s fine. I don’t need someone. I just want someone. My heart yearns for that connection. That oneness.

(sigh)

So much pain. So many memories that are no longer sweet because of what’s happened since. They just… bring pain.

I also woke up pretty anxious that day as well. There’s a powerful undercurrent of stress that’s just… pretty much a constant right now. I’ve got to figure out how to not stress anymore about my businesses. Life without the business stress is challenging enough. I’m just… drowning in stress, and it’s affecting my health pretty significantly at this point: I’m not thinking well. I’m not feeling well. My body is a mess. My brain is a mess.

I’m a stress mess. 🙃

What’s going on that’s likely stress related? Stomach-acid issues so bad I can’t sleep right and wake up feeling nasty… hair seems to be falling out… had a really weird heart beat issue the other day that was so out of the ordinary that I just stopped and “listened” to it do it’s thing. It was brief but… not normal. I’m tired. I don’t want to go on my trip. I don’t want to wake up in the mornings.

My mom said she thinks I’m starting to have signs of clinical depression (not wanting to go on my vacation being one of the signs).

I’ve been nervous about my vacation ever since planning it. I had a feeling that maybe I shouldn’t do it, and honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do in Australia for 6 weeks. The longest trip I’ve ever been on was five weeks, and this will be basically 9, and that five-week trip was many countries.

But I’m afraid to leave everything here as it is. That’s one of the big things.

I’ll turn 41 on my trip. I’m not… the young backpacker I was in my 20s. I’m tired and just…

I’m tired.

Looking for an out while being afraid of taking an out.

But I don’t want to be that person. I want to be the kind of person who, even if he has no desire for life for himself, even if he sees no purpose whatsoever, still wants to use his life to help other people have a better life. That’s who I want to be.

I think that’s who I am, but life is just so hard for me right now, and it’s been this way for so many years now with only temporary reprieves that made life even worse after the reprieve because the hopes were the reprieve. Once the hope was dashed, I sank even lower. Far better to have not even had the hopes in the first place, no?

Started having super sharp shooting pains in my lower left abdomen and pain that points to epididymitis, which… I’m pretty sure I’ve had before and isn’t a big deal. It’s just one more thing.

Mild ankle sprain, or whatever it was, seems to be healing up decently, so that’s nice.

The stress is the biggest thing right now. It’s the stress of money mostly–having debts and obligations without income. I haven’t felt that stress since… college? I don’t remember. I remember feeling the weight of debt while in college, and I hated it, absolutely hated it. I decided I didn’t want to be in debt to any person for any reason–ever.

And I haven’t been. I only buy something if I have the money to pay for it all right now. I pretty much never buy anything for myself except vacations, which hopefully are memories and beautiful experiences. All my other purchases are generally investments.

But now I have a very large financial obligation that is ongoing in the business overhead for this tree business and Stevie’s salary. And not being here for two months is scary–very scary. I’m used to being in charge, of having things go as I choose them to go. I’ve always been successful in business because I have an ability to quickly build relationships of trust with people and connect with them, and I bust my butt, working hard to succeed. And… I’ve always been successful.

I’ve never had to depend on someone else for my success.

That’s… been part of why things have been so stressful for years–doing everything myself, not having someone to lean on whom I trust. And the older I get, as arrogant as it might be, the less I trust people to do a good job. The “experts” don’t know their own areas of expertise. Time and time again, I have to point out (which is awkward) or clean up after their mistakes… (the guy who came to fix the propane leak at our propane tank. I didn’t fix it because I was afraid of doing something wrong, but when he thought he was done, I pointed out the leak he thought he’d fixed and was going to leave as though fixed wasn’t fixed at all but was still leaking. Which led me to do my own furnace repair when our valve went out instead of hiring another “expert.” The generator guy coming out twice, diagnosing badly the first time, and then telling us the second time he came out that it was a major ordeal to replace the starter on it, that he had to take the whole case off to get to the starter, and it was going to be wildly expensive. No… it was a few bolts, and I did it myself. having people depend on me and also the stress of having large financial obligations. Gosh. I don’t like owing anyone anything. I remember being in debt in college, and it was awful–awful. I decided I never ever wanted to be in debt again, and I never have been.

Having these financial obligations without money coming in to take care of them is… not fun at all. It might not be debt in the traditional sense, but it sure feels like it to me.

Anyway, I’ve got to find a way to let go of stress. It’s… slowly killing me, I think.

So much going on in this brain of mine. I can’t seem to escape it. So much weight pressing down…

In other news…

• I learned that I don’t need to charge sales tax for tree service stuff (unless I’m selling firewood and woodchips, but not for the actual tree removal, tree trimming, stump grinding, etc.) 🥳 That’s nice because we get to keep more of the money on our quotes. People think of tree work as really expensive, and I guess it is, but gosh, we’re not even close to operating in the black right now. It might feel expensive, but overhead is huge. So it’s nice to know that I can keep a little more of those quotes, even if it’s not a ton. Every little bit helps right now.
• I got a new trailer connector ordered for the Genie (the connector was broken, and I realized that only three of the seven wires were even connected inside the broken connector–which is probably why the trailer lights weren’t working correctly. 🙃). I wired up the new connector yesterday but haven’t connected anything yet
• With Terry’s help, the Hugg & Hall parts department gentleman, I was able to find a digital version of my Genie lift and get part numbers for the pins I need to lock the rods in place to keep the Genie… in one piece. 😬 After the near catastrophic failures on Sunday and all the work that went into trying to fix the Genie without spending massive dollars, it’s nice to find parts that I can order. So… they’re ordered and should be in early next week, I think. We’ll see.
• We got another small job from the lady we did the crab apple job for the other day. Doesn’t come even close to what the overhead for the week is, but it’s something, and right now, something is good.
• I got my work van cleaned out, so I’ll be ready to work the day I come back. It still needs the suspension fixed, but… I’ll get that when I get back. I’m just trying to get some things at least somewhat together before I leave.

I guess that’s all for now. I’m really struggling, barely functional.

But I’m still kicking, even if only weakly.

Oh, if you haven’t already heard (it’s been a few years now but only now gathering steam), looks like Tylenol might well have been one of the big contributors to the increase in autism spectrum disorder). There’s a class-action lawsuit, and it looks like it might well have been a massive deal.

Lift the World

~ stephen