Sorry, friends. My Internet has been down for a bit: I will update when I can find a place with free WiFi and can bring my notebook with me to fill everyone in.

All things go right, I should be working by mid-week! 

Potentials

Well, I have an interview today and another on Friday for some potential temp jobs.

Still waiting to hear back on any others.

I am putting in at least 5 job applications daily now. 

I am trying to stay as positive as I can and hope that something will come of all of this. 

Fingers crossed for me, friends.

Thank you to everyone who is donating, sharing my need, and trying to help me network or connect with a job.

Unknown Emergency

Well, I am quite fucked. 

I have $1200.00 in rent (overdue) and all city and state services cannot help me. The local church and Salvation Army services cannot help me.

I have $132.00 of utilities overdue for this month, and having electricity to keep my fridge running and the AC set to 86F because it is still in the 110sF is also kind of needed.

I have no idea how much longer my Internet will stay on as that is overdue too.

I have been looking for work. Anything. 

I have $2.75 to my name right now. I can't even afford a single ride bus ticket.

I am hoping to hear back on some interviews this week, but I am getting quite depressed about it.

Because Wash is dead and I have no children there seems to be no desire on the State or Federal levels to help me. My family has done all they can/are willing to do.

I have put off seeing the doctor for medication and asthma check up because I cannot afford the $5 co-pay they have set for me.

I have sold things, and I don't have much of anything of value left to sell.

I never got Wash's $200 some odd dollar "death benefits" from Social Security that next of kin is supposed to get. When my grandmother died it took about 6 months for my mum to get the money. It's been 12 months for me.

I have no place to go. No where to take my cats. I am not strong enough emotionally yet to leave this house. Soon, but not *now*.

I don't qualify for unemployment but the State wants to see copies of Wash's death and copies of his medical files anyway to back up that I "chose" to leave my paying work in 2010. Which, I did, but since the State then had tried more than once to cancel his health insurance if I kept working-and making around $400/month at the time (not enough to cover living, and chemo, and food) it was not really a "choice". It was become poverty stricken and get medical help for him, or let him die from cancer right then.

I really don't know what to do.

I don't know who to ask for help anymore. 

There was no life insurance to take care of me. There were no benefits to help me get through my desire to die after he was gone. Those feelings are certainly surfacing again.

At this time, I am feeling pretty hopeless.

I will be filing for bankruptcy soon, but even that will not help me now.

Aside from my cats, I have lost everything. 

Despair is a pretty accurate word.

So often now I just wonder if it would not have been better if I had been allowed to die with him. 

I wish.

Visual Memories

Oh, Sweetie- Spoilers

River: Funny thing is, this means you've always known how I was going to die. All the time we've been together you knew I was coming here. The last time I saw you—the real you, the future you, I mean—you turned up on my doorstep with a new haircut and a suit. You took me to Derillium. To see the Singing Towers. Oh, what a night that was. The towers sang, and you cried. You wouldn't tell me why but I suppose you knew it was time. My time. Time to come to the Library. You even gave me your screwdriver. That should have been a clue. There's nothing you can do.

The Doctor: Let me do this!

River: If you die here it'll mean I've never met you.

The Doctor: Time can be rewritten!

River: Not those times, not one line. Don't you dare! It's okay. It's okay. It's not over for you. You'll see me again. You've got all of that to come. You and me. Time and space. You watch us run!

The Doctor: River you know my name. You whispered my name in my ear. There's only one way I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could.

River: Hush now. Spoilers.




I am watching Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead and thinking of just how ironic that story line truly is to me.
Those were the first episodes of the new Who reboot I ever saw. Shortly before we got engaged. Wash begged me to try the show, knowing I loved the classic Doctor from before.
I fell for Donna and her frustrations at dieting in a virtual world.
I fell for River as a strong and not helpless female character.
I fell for The Doctor, for his dedication and tenacity. 

I had already fallen for my love, my Wash, my TimeLord. 

I miss you, Sweetie. 

Complications

I have a lot to say but it is taking me some time to really process everything and get my thoughts into a reasonable verbal sense.

I am tired of being reduced to just "someone who is depressed".

Yes, I have Depression. I have had it for a bit over a decade now. Yes, my biological Depression certainly plays a part in how I live, how I process things, how I feel.

But losing a spouse is much much more than that. This is not something that finding the "right" type of medication, or exercise, or getting a roommate can change.

This is me dealing with losing everything I loved. Dealing with the loss of my best friend, my husband, my future children, my future homes, dealing with the death of how I should have been spending my life.
This is coping with not wanting to wake up each day, because I do so in a empty bed that used to be warmed by another person. A specific person.

Do I believe that I can find another friend? Of course, eventually.
But it is not the same as my best friend; the person I could talk to without ever saying a word. The person who taught me as much as I taught him. Who shared my hobbies, my loves, my dislikes.

His presence is still all around. It is something I cannot escape. I cannot run from this, or hide. Sleep gives me no real reprieve, as I see him there too.

I wish it was easier to help people understand this pain I am going through, the depths and the unceasing of it, but at the same time I wish this pain on no one. No one.

How to put into words the emotions of feeling left behind? Of knowing a whole long life is no longer something that makes me happy, in fact, the idea of living another 6 decades or so is so burdensome as to render me speechless and immobile?
How to convey that the pain never goes away?

Let me repeat; the pain never, ever goes away. 

Time does not heal this wound. Time does not give me scar tissue, or protection. It merely lengthens the amount of pain I live through in every second, minute, hour, day, week, months.
It never ends.
An ocean of madness and sadness and despair.

I am just getting better at acting. At pretending. At hiding my feelings because the people around me themselves grow tired of hearing of the pain.


I just want to wake up from this pain, misery.

Haunted

One year ago this was the last night I had with Wash, in our bed together. I can't even remember if I left for the guest bed after he fell asleep.
Sunday the 9th was his last day as a person, his last day conscious and talking. 
The last day he saw his friends. The last time we all watched Dr Who together. His last meals. The last time he cuddled his cat. It was the last daylight he was aware of. 
Everything hurts so much right now. It did not hit me when it happened. I feel his loss, but I now also feel mine; I feel the utter expanse of time I have to now face without him. Missing my best friend and my happy future. 
I just want to numb myself any way I can. I want to not wake up. It overwhelms me and dulls until the next second it just starts up again. 
I don't want to be real. I want to be just a character in a story. A happy ending. A way to defy the laws of non-fiction. A way to just not exist when the story ends, disappear when the book closes. 
I want this to all have been a bad dream, some terrible nightmare and when I wake he will be next to me and there will be possibilities again. 
It seems endless. Time does not help my heart, it only quiets my tongue. 
Half of my soul has been gone a year. It's not coming back. Endless pain.

Shalom

Last sunset in Tzfat. 

Tzfat Journal 3 July

So, last night (Tues) we had a lovely dinner of salad, hamburgers (I of course did not partake) and something else I cannot even remember. I was pretty tired from the good but heavy classes. There are now 4 of us learning to read/write/speak Hebrew, so the Yeshiva style class is getting more intense, but at the same time helping me to better my understanding of the language here. 
Our last class of the night was a Farbregen where we spent the first two hours discussing the meaning of this week's double Parsha (the readings that happen weekly on Shabbos) about Journey and 'Stick/Solidity' and how they can relate to each other, and to us from a character perspective. After the lively discussion there was some singing and lots of dessert/foods: 3 types of melon (watermelon, cantaloupe, and a yellow fleshed melon that had an almost sour taste, but was very rich) chocolate biscuits, more peanut butter macaroons, grapes, cinnamon sugar bread, and a challah type bread with peas and corn baked into it! Also a bread similar to pain au chocolat, but served cold. Thinly sliced but not made with philo dough. Plenty of it. It was delicious and different from rugeleh. 
I managed to get to bed at an actual decent hour last night; I was in bed by 11:30 and asleep just after midnight. I did wake up at 4am with a horrid headache, but I might have just been dehydrated from the exercise and hiking on Tues. I slept in today a bit, and ended up getting about 7 hours of sleep, at least a small consolation. It was fairly cold last night, but mostly due to the winds. I can see the low clouds and fog rolling in over the hills around sunset and it is still amazing to me. I think I have been in our dry desert too long! The water is mostly from the Galilee Sea, as best as I can tell. They say there is not much *rain* here, but it is to a degree humid and moist in the air. My skin is already freaking out over that. It is used to a very arid location.
Wed I tried some new things for breakfast: they always have tomatoes, cucumbers (the Israeli/Arab kind that are small but you can eat the skins.) Also eggs and oatmeal. Today I added on my plate some of the goat's milk soft cheese they have that is spread on rice-toast, and a drop of jam on top. It is not as sour as it smelled, but not really close to our cream or cottage cheese. Somewhere in the middle of those perhaps. 
Our first class today was on the role of women in Judaism, how important we (women) are, and what Mitzvahs are unique that only women can perform. It was a lively discussion and next class there we will be speaking on why there are misconceptions that women are 'not equals' in Judaism. The teacher is a woman and seems to be a very cool feminist. There are also mitzvots that are not *required* of women, but they can do if they please; for example, putting on Tfillin. The teacher said there were about 14 total, but we will go over them in the next week's class. It was an interesting take on things that I really did not know, but is utterly fascinating to me. It is a different way to look at being "empowered" in this religious setting/culture. 
My next class was on the specifics of how women have certain responsibilities in the Jewish world and home, and today specifically on Shabbos and lighting the candles. There was also mention (not in too much detail) about how women are technically seen as above/more spiritual than the men, thus why women's mitzvot carry more "weight". The men have to *work* to reach the level women are already at. Next class we will go over some issues of 'modesty' which is far more than just clothes. I am interested in hearing about that topic. I believe there is also a "Tznius" (Modesty) code for men, but I will have to ask about it in class. There is a distinct 'separation' of the genders here and I am still to a degree getting used to this. Some things here are just *not* equal, and it takes a lot for me to really process that; I am still working on finding a way to accept it when I am here as more than just a concession to the culture. Having so many men in my life being such influences on me (and many doing "women's work") has perhaps given me a different perspective on things than for example someone here who was raised in an Orthodox environment, and grew up accepting all the cultural gender norms, as it were. 

 I also had a class by a nice Rabbi on the importance of health and activity in Jewish life, and how we need to start to try to always think in a positive way, even under negative circumstances. Obviously mostly easier said than done. However, there were some nice readings to go along with the lesson that help to frame the mind and specific thoughts, and speaking of taking care of the body we have; while not getting obsessed with our physical looks or needs. There is a balance everyone needs to find, and it is different for each person.
One of the things I have noticed and really enjoy is that so far all the teachers; the Rabbis and the females tend to use both genders when reading or quoting from sources; such as "our forefathers & mothers" or the "Patriarch and Matriarch"  and will insert a "she" after "he" when reading from the Mishna, Torah, or Siddur. I am quite impressed with that. In our Tanya class yesterday we ended up getting into a bit of astrophysics and discussions, which just made me so so so so happy. I have another Tanya class this afternoon, and then a voluntary class tonight after dinner that I can attend down the street at the synagogue by one of the boy's Yeshiva schools. We also have after dinner our last class is an open Q & A with the head (elder) Rabbi here. I am not sure if I have anything to ask, but I know it will be interesting to listen. 

Also, the fruit market across the street is amazing and for about $0.25USD I can get a serving of just about any fruit in season. They also have a large selection of dried fruits and local nuts. Plenty of good things for my brain and body.
I have offered to help bake challah tomorrow with one of the Rabbi's wives, as we are all going in small groups to different local homes for Fri Shabbos, so we will be bringing or baking some bread for the school here for Sat eating. 
I miss everyone, but am less homesick specifically, as I am getting the schedule down and it is starting to feel like a nice routine, which I tend to thrive with. 
No real photos to share today, but if I get the chance, I am going to try and time it so I can go up on the roof at sundown and get some photos.  
I am enjoying myself here on many levels, and learning so much. I am also getting a bit of time to be able to just think without many distractions, which is a welcome change. I am really only regretting not taking with me more photographs of Wash, however, as I am missing him so acutely and being able to be near "him" and our home. 
I believe we have a slight chance of rain here this weekend, and if we do I will of course share as much as I can with you all. 

It has been a most interesting almost full first week here, and I am trying so hard to just do as much as I can, see as much as I can, and try all sorts of new things. I want to come back from this time here with something more tangible than just memories, a way to help my own self, and to really be able to hold onto some positive internal changes. I think I am on my way to doing just that.