When did it become so hard for me to make decisions?
Even little stupid ones.
Like how to get rid of a shirt that’s been worn only once, basically brand new, but has a little tear in the back because I caught it on something sharp inside ET during our road trip last year.
It’s such a nice shirt. I bought it while in Utah to wear to my friend’s wedding reception.
One little tear in an otherwise perfect shirt.
I hate to throw it away because it’s so nice. But would anybody take it as a donation?
Little stupid stuff like that. It becomes a stress. It becomes a weight pressing down on me. I don’t know what to do. I’ve had that shirt nearly a year now never having figured out what to do with it. Not wearing it because of the little tear. Not bothering to fix it because it costs more to fix in time and energy than I want to put into it. But how do you just throw it away? Somebody, somewhere would be grateful to have it. Wouldn’t they?
So it just adds to my stress. One more thing on the mountain of things that needs to be figured out and dealt with, and I don’t want to just throw it away because that seems so wasteful.
I hate wasting things. I hate throwing things away that are or could be useful to somebody.
But then giving them away takes time and energy as well, and oftentimes, the people who seek after free things are unreliable, so I waste my time trying to give things away.
That happened again today. 40 minutes of my life wasted trying to give something away for free to someone.
Ugh.
To my friend Roseanne, though I don’t think you read this blog/journal, you’ll be happy to know that when I woke up this morning, one of my sticky traps contained a brown recluse spider.
So that’s one down, at least.
Today was the opposite of yesterday. I was nearly completely devoid of energy. Very little motivation. Just tired. Couldn’t get myself to do almost anything. Not necessarily depressed. Just… worn out.
It was hot. I was tired of the heat. Spoiled man that I am. It is good for me, I think in some ways, to know what it’s like for other people. I choose this as an option. I could choose comfort. It would be easy enough to go rent a house or an apartment or go get a hotel or an Airbnb or whatever. It’d be easy enough to take Liz and Mike or Jim and Steph on their offers to let me stay at their houses. I’m sure my mom would let me stay over at her place as well.
I do this by choice. Other people do it because of necessity. Today, I was tired of the heat, so I stayed in my car much of the day with the AC on.
I started out trying to do things on my to-do list, trying to get a lot done. I got my Act 1 stuff done–pills, hydration, sunscreen, eating, getting dressed… all that stuff.
My jump box stopped working properly last night. It kept the fan going, but it wouldn’t charge my cell phones anymore, and the LED screen wouldn’t light up. So I disassembled it this morning, taking the battery out, because the battery is good, at least. I don’t want to mess with trying to repair the electronics. Too much of a headache. Don’t want to learn how to diagnose it. Don’t want the stress of hoping that I’ve figured it out when I spend $50 plus dollars on parts.
So I took the battery out, and I’ll put it in one of my other jump boxes that doesn’t have a good battery anymore.
That made it a little challenging today because I didn’t have phones that were charged up, and my fancy schmancy Google pixel 7 pro has to have some kind of a special cable in order to charge it full speed, otherwise it can’t even charge quickly enough with a cheap cable to keep up with using it.
Oh the perks of just having cheaper stuff. Don’t have to worry so much when it breaks. Does 95% of the things the expensive phones do. Don’t have to deal with all the stupid crap. Batteries last longer.
My ZTEs have been my favorite phones by far.
Anyway, so I ended up dealing with charging issues all day today, constantly having to have my phone plugged in, having it die on me a few times even though it was plugged in.
I was about ready to break down the piano bench That I’ve been trying to give away and just throw it away, but somebody finally said they wanted it, and said they were coming to get it. At that point, I had already left to go run errands, but I turned around, came back, grabbed the piano bench, and brought it over to the front gate area to wait for them to come. In the process of bringing it over, one of the little pins that holds the part you sit on to the rest of the bench fell out.
That was super frustrating. Super duper duper duper frustrating. And in my mental and emotional state, I lost it. Very angry. Trying to give away something for free, and it seems like I’m penalized for trying to do good things all the time.
No good deed…
The lady that wanted the bench drove all the way out to the gas station, And while I was waiting for her, I drove all the way back to the field where I live, grabbed my big magnet bar, and dragged it across the fields and rode from where I left all the way to the front gate, many hundreds of yards in the hopes of finding that little piece of metal.
Cursing and angry because all I was trying to do was do something good, give something away, and now this free thing is no longer fully functional, and they are already well on their way to come get it…
So angry.
I’m so broken right now.
😞
After everything, I actually managed to find that little pin, and guess what? The lady never showed up. She drove to the gas station where I told her I would give her the instructions to come the rest of the way, which would be another 5 minutes, but she decided she didn’t want to come the rest of the way and wanted me to bring it to her.
Well, guess what. My car is full of stuff, can’t fit the piano bench in there, and you’re getting this darn thing for free. What the crap? You can’t come the additional 5 minutes that you already knew you needed to drive to come get it?
And I just spent 20 minutes looking for that pin?!?!
Of course I didn’t say any of that to her, but I was pissed. She stopped answering my messages, so I didn’t know if she was coming still or not, so I just put the piano bench at our front gate for her to pick up, and I left to go run errands.
40 minutes I spent, turning around from having left to go run errands, waiting for her, trying to find that stupid pin…
And in the end, she was a no-show. When I came back from running errands, the piano bench was still there, she never replied to any more of my messages.
What the crap.
Try and give things away to people for free, and people on Facebook Marketplace are already flakes much of the time, but even more so when it’s free stuff.
I’m growing more and more cynical and pessimistic about people being good people every day that goes by.
😕
Anyway, the errands that I was running… one of the big storage bins, the super big ones that I had I noticed was actually my mom’s. I thought maybe I could give it to somebody on the hill to bring it to her at church, since I don’t go to church anymore… again.
But by the time I got myself set and ready and whatever it was already past time, people had already left to go to church. So I figured I would just drive it to her house and drop it off.
So I dropped that off. I went to the Walmart supercenter in Jane Missouri and bought duct tape, the little storage bins that for some reason they wouldn’t let me order online and didn’t know if they carried any more But figure they probably did and were still in the store (which was actually the reason why I went to the store instead of just ordering everything online), refrigerant for my vehicles in case I need more, some socks, and I forget what else. I bought a bunch of food as well. Oh, I bought some ibuprofen. Didn’t have any, and for as much work as I’m doing and as much as my body is going through, I figure I should probably have some on hand.
Went to the Lowe’s in North Bentonville and bought more bins, giving the people the customer service desk the rest of the Popsicles that I had bought at Walmart.
My eating better lasted an entire day.
Back to not doing very well… Not that I was doing well yesterday. Yesterday I was just motivated to get stuff done. I’m still a mess.
When I got back, I just couldn’t face being out in the heat doing more work., sleepy, just wanting to rest, but trying to sleep in the van wouldn’t have worked because it would have been like 95° inside.
So I just sat in my Civic with the AC on… For probably 3 hours. Moving from place to place to have the car in the shade and to get cell signal. Trying to keep my Pixel phone from powering off because the stupid thing won’t charge properly without the special high-speed charging cable.
Once the sun went down behind the trees, I got out of the car and started doing more useful things. But I’m just… done.
So tired of this life.
Bed a lot earlier than usual. Hopefully the backup jump box will last the night keeping the phone on. Grateful that the van has AC. Nice to turn it on for even a few minutes of refreshing cold air blowing on me.
Lift the World 