2022 was not my year.
2023 is starting off just as rocky.
The short of the story is that my car engine has blown out and I am in desperate need for a new engine or a new car. Problem is, I’m in the middle of a divorce from an s/o of 10 years and what little funds I have had gone to a deposits and first month’s rent.
The long story?
Well, no one likes a sob story. So I’ll try to make this lighthearted.
It was 2019 and I had just gotten married to my partner. I decided to start off with a new job. After all, new me, new job. It was great! Until it wasn’t. It came with a lot of gaslighting from the company and struggles to get time off that I needed for my mental health.
I knew I needed to leave this toxic environment but I didn’t. I stayed because, like so many, I was scared of change. I applied for jobs. Some good. Some bad. But none of them felt like the right fit.
Eventually, years passed and it was 2021. Things escalated at the job and I begged my spouse to support me financially while I quit and looked for a new job. They declined. I sucked it up, as I was always told to do. I found a new job. My current job fired me. Yay.
I went two weeks without pay. No big deal, right?
Wrong.
My oh-so loving husband decided that I was a burden. But I got to the job I was hired on for and found out it was everything I ever wanted in life.
I got to do one of my biggest passions for a living. Cooking.
I even felt happy with my co-workers. They were so kind and accepting and after leaving a job that made me feel less-than, I was ecstatic. One person, in particular, became close with me.
And by default, close with my husband.
Close enough that, one day I was craving Captain Crunch so I went home on my lunch break (I lived 4 minutes away from this job) and found this ‘friend’ and my husband showering together.
Now, how does this all lead up to the car issue? Trust me, we’re getting there.
As any normal person would be, I was distraught.
Hurt.
Betrayed.
I wanted to give them both another chance like the desperate and sad person I was. I listened to the advice to go to a mental facility to better myself because they were ‘concerned for my mental health’ as I hadn’t gotten off the couch since I found out the whole ordeal.
I agreed. I went to the facility.
It was a fucking joke.
One person there, a male worker, was hitting on female clients. They only fed us Frosted Flakes (how dare they not give me my emotional support Captain Crunch!?) and gas-station sandwiches. And then tried to, as punishment, move all 14 women into one crammed home with one refrigerator.
As many women began to panic at this, being uprooted, they began to lash out.
I lashed out.
I threw a painting off a balcony.
It was the most therapeutic thing I could have done. Except it got me kicked out of the facility and almost stranded in North Caroline (hi, I live in Ohio).
I managed to get back to work (which was a struggle because no one would sign release papers for me to get off of a Leave of Absence) and ended up moving from Xenia to Columbus.
But I LOVED my job. My new job as a chef. It was something I was passionate about and good at. And the benefits were pretty good, too.
My paycheck went to the deposit and first months rent. And to balance out the joint account I had with my soon to be ex husband (because I learned my lesson when I found out he’s still sleeping with said ‘friend’, yes. I’m stupid. I know).
My drive to work is an hour long.
One day, on my way home, the car decided to break down.
The engine, after years of abuse, decided it was done with everything.
And I’m so done with everything too. But unlike my car engine, I can’t just sputter out.
So, here I am, writing my not-sob sob story hoping that people will donate money to me so I can get a functioning car to continue going to my dream job and have some semblance of normalcy back in my very chaotic life.
Please help make 2023 better than 2022.
