2022 was bad - where do i go from here?
happy new year.
am i really happy though? will things steer into a new direction, or will it stay shitty as always?
2022 was a really bad year for me. poverty happened. the financial situation in my family got really bad in the middle of 2018 (due to my dad's irresponsible financial decision) and it went downhill from there. things took a bad turn when my mom was diagnosed with diabetes and hypertension, and she gradually lost her vision. she still can see but maybe around 20%? what did my dad do? sold off the rest of his assets from his failed real estate business and shake his balls. he is still shaking his balls until today with no intention of recovering his finances. covid happened and we plunged deeper into poverty. still shaking his balls. meanwhile, i have no balls to shake and right now i'm paying for the sins of his financial mistakes.
i'm lucky that i have a few friends that'll always help me, but they can't help forever. they have their own struggles too. out of hundreds of people who claimed to be my friends, the ones who reached out to me i can only count with my one hand.
i have been working since 2001 and wanted more; better pay, career progression and stuff like that. i've been applying for jobs since i quit that fucked up leftist bar (everyone in local queer scene loves that bar, if only they knew what happened but that's a story for another day) at the end of february 2021. i think most of my friends don't realized their privilege. i'm masculine presenting, i don't look typically like my race, i can't speak mandarin and i don't pray 5 times a day (how does this essential in hiring someone ffs). those are some of my employment roadblocks, now that i'm 40, let's add that one to the list. it's really annoying to have friends said "just apply for jobs" since that's the thing i have been doing nearly everyday for the last two years. and the same kind of friends sending me job offers (i'm assuming that they really want to help) but it doesn't help me at all when most jobs are dead-end jobs. do i not deserve a good career like you?
since i am at the bottom of maslow's pyramid, dating / relationship definitely not in the books. one thing for sure when i'm seeing someone, they're the first person i texted about anything that happened in my life. sure, i can tell my closest friends, but they have their own lives and they're partnered too. it's really lonely down here when you're at the bottom of the chain.
somewhere in september '22, M texted me after more than one year since our last talk. she texted me in august 2021, checking in on me but i was feeling like shit from unemployment and a friend dead from covid. i told her i didn't want to be a burden to her. perhaps i didn't respond the way she wanted me to, and she became passive aggressive. suddenly everything is about her. strings of angry text popped up, and she told me not to respond. so i didn't. and now after more than a year, M told me that she thought of me a lot, daily, and it sucks. she wished me well. still, i did not respond. she made it clear in march 2021 that we don't have a future together, so what the fuck?
maybe one day i'll write about what happened between M and i, but i don't have the energy at the moment.
i woke up today with one of my cat getting sicker, fecal matter leaking out of her swollen butt. my mother was visibly depressed. our family coffers are empty. there are bills to pay and sick cats to treat and feed. our body needed nourishment, for years we've been eating just to beat the hunger. i am too tired physically and mentally to keep asking for help. my family is one sickness or disaster away from being dirt poor and still my father does nothing to repent his financial sins.
i should've died in that accident (refer post 5/5/22). everyday i woke up and prayed that i did, because i did not deserve this life. i did not deserve to live like this.
to whomever reading this, may you have a better new year than i did. you matter. i matter too, but by the look of things, i'm not really sure now.
"the calm,
cool face of the river
asked me for a kiss"
-- langston hughes