Dispatch from Despairland

Photo by Speak.

The garish red numbers light up the shiny new blue and white sign at the gas station as I drive by — the Marathon where that girl was murdered and stuffed in a dumpster a few years ago, back when the sign was old. $3.89 and 9/10 (we often forget about the 9/10).

My hair is in a haphazard bun and I feel like a survivor as I drive my 4-year old to daycare. For once, this morning, there was no massive screaming meltdown over brushing his teeth. Not because he suddenly started becoming more agreeable, but because this morning I simply didn’t do it. I figure a cavity down the road (to the tune of $200 at the dentist office because of shitty insurance) might be worth the rare peace of mind.

The 4-year old is still in daycare because for a while, I was still delusional enough to believe I would find another remote job as a copy editor — the field I was working in before I was unceremoniously dumped at the curb along with 900 other people so that the CEO could get his $11 million raise. So my husband set up the tax-free childcare account and the tuition gets pulled out of his checks automatically. But I still have no job. And my kid drives me fucking nuts. So every day, he still goes, while the 9-year old (the AuDHD one, and ironically the easier one) stays home for the summer. Yes, I know, a luxury many do not have. Technically it’s one we don’t have either, anymore, as life has gotten more and more expensive.

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The other night, near to 1:00 AM as is my new pattern, I typed into notepad in my phone: “I am a trapped woman, painting the bars of my cage so they feel more comfortable. But no matter what I do, the bars are still there.”

By my own account, the main features in my life right now were my choices. The farm, the kids. What I hadn’t counted on was all the circumstances that changed recently: the job loss, the shitty economy, my older son’s issues at his elementary school that have caused us to consider homeschooling, the 4-year old becoming so unbelievably difficult most of the time that I sometimes wonder if having kids was a mistake. For the past several months, I’ve tried to attend to this set of circumstances with my usual can-do plucky attitude, turning the losses into a new venture on the farm, trying to build stability on top of shaky, lava-strewn ground, trying to convince myself that I can find a way out of this absolute tangle. Taking the limited options I have and trying to turn them into a semblance of freedom or at the very least, discernable purpose.

For a while the masquerade held up, but something changed recently and now I don’t think I’ve ever felt so trapped. I’ve realized that I don’t have the resources or support to keep growing the farm, so I’m stuck keeping it small and extremely part-time in terms of income. I can’t seem to find another job because of how my field was obliterated by AI, and even if I could, I can’t go out and make money if I have to homeschool my son. I don’t actually want to homeschool my son, but feel forced to by circumstance. And above all, I feel stuck by ennui like I’m wading through mud. I can’t see past my current situation enough to imagine anything that truly excites me for the future.

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I keep waiting with my breath suspended, thinking maybe a solution will pop up. Some answer delivered unexpectedly on the breeze. Instead, the stagnant, stuffy summer air offers the same crumbling anchors I clung to before: maybe my writing will somehow take off. Maybe my husband will get a job offer in another state so I can put my son in a better public school. Maybe, maybe, maybe. My life is a tightly wound ball of yarn loosely surrounded by the distant hope of plucking it free.

I’ve been in seemingly hopeless situations before: stuck, trapped, not seeing a way forward. I’ve always managed to pull myself out with whatever passion and fire burns — or used to burn — within me. Always finding a new dream to anchor myself to, to pull myself up by the rope of inspiration. This time feels different — like a cumulative exhaustion from years of having to do that repeatedly has worn me down.

When I was younger, I truly believed a can-do attitude could solve everything. Now I’ve seen how the logistics of life can come and steamroll you, regardless.

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I have no answers; only survival. Only the things that keep my feet on the ground and moving every day: the routines that keep myself and everyone around me alive. Feeding and cooking and cleaning and driving and medicating and bathing and filling water buckets and filling water bottles and grocery shopping and egg gathering and endless decision-making. For the foreseeable future, this is it. I see no mountain rising ahead of me full of promise; just a flat horizon full of the same grasses for miles. And I am trying to be grateful for it; for the things I do have. But I’m also trying to figure out how, in the process of chasing a dream, I managed to fall into the trap door of what feels like a prison.

Throughout writing this piece, I’ve debated whether I should even share it and wondered how many people will unsubscribe because it’s too negative and not inspirational like some of my other posts. It goes against the image of a happy chicken farmer who is connected to her purpose, which is what I’ve tried to be, and sometimes am, and what a lot of people believe I am, but which is not my reality a good portion of the time, at least lately. But I’m going ahead and sharing it because it’s part of my journey, not because it’s part of a brand. And there’s almost nothing that I put my faith in anymore except for my ability to communicate how I feel through writing. It’s one of the few things from deep within me that hasn’t been shredded slowly away by outside circumstances — my last bastion of sanity and sovereignty. I’m hoping that means it’s still worth something in the world, too.