Broken

So here we are. Or rather, here I am. I was thinking yesterday about the bad luck I’ve had over the years – I can’t even call it a “run of bad luck” – because that implies something more temporary, not years of abject shittiness. And yes, my bad luck has stretched back so far that I don’t even recall the last time it wasn’t a constant presence in my life. Where I wasn’t constantly looking over my shoulder to see what would come next. Where I didn’t have friends telling me that I seemed to be cursed.

I’m sure some of these things have been of my own making, due to my own poor decisions. Dating assholes who turned out to be bisexual sociopathic liars trolling for hookups on Adult Friend Finder? Yeah, my bad. Winding up with asshole tenant Katherine Hart who trashed the place and skipped out on rent? Yep, me again, too trusting. But all the other shit – the bathroom ceiling collapsing, the crash that totaled my car, the job crap, the IRS losing my tax returns for 2 years, all the other stuff like that that happens on a DAILY basis around here – and then let’s not forget the disfiguring cancer, along with the bike crash/broken collarbone/brain injury – I’d say that’s all not my fault. That’s fate or whatever you believe in kicking me in the teeth, generally when I’m already down.

But I soldiered on. I did. Even when The Cancer came along, I thought – well, there’s some benefit to having had a lifetime of continual bad luck, because I bounce back from these things pretty quickly. The job/money stuff? Panicky, but I thought – I have so many irons in the fire, I’m damn good at what I do, something will come to fruition.

So what did it take, after all these years, to finally make me lose hope? A letter in the mail on Saturday, telling me that lucky me was selected for a fucking audit by the IRS. Yes, an audit – which on the surface is kind of laughable, because I hardly make enough money to make it worth their while. Though maybe they think I’m lying about that, and have a fountain spewing gold in my basement. Who knows.

But yes, that’s what did it. And it’s not even the actual audit that’s done it. Hell, I don’t cheat on my taxes – I don’t make enough money to make it necessary for me to try to conjure up ways to cheat. Besides, even if they decide I do owe them money, so what? You can’t get blood from a turnip, as they say.

It’s more the timing of it. Because here I’ve been humming along with the work/job hunt, lots of interesting prospects out there, I’ve been talking to people about their potential needs, etc. – all things sufficient to give me a slight glimmer of hope in the darkness. And now, with this shit, all that comes to a screeching halt. Because this IRS agent is coming to my house in 3 weeks and I now have to spend all my time between now and then trying to find my damn paperwork from 2008 and 2009. Because yes, they apparently look at 2 years at a time.

And oh yes, did I mention that that was all when I had the whole cancer/bike crash/brain injury thing going on? So not only did I not have a clue what the hell was going on around me at the time, but any paperwork from then is buried amidst piles and stacks of medical bills. This will be my life for the next 3 weeks, and it probably still won’t be enough. And I’m at the point where I’m losing any real-life friends I once had, because I’m getting scared to leave the house, as it seems like something bad happens every time I do. Though clearly the crap luck finds me at home too.

So it’s not the audit. It’s the fact that I was done with the IRS shit a few months ago, or so I thought, after dealing with it for several years, with them losing and misdirecting paperwork, erroneously freezing this account or that - in other words not knowing what the hell they were doing. I was done. Now this. And the fact that it comes along at just this time – that part makes me feel like Charlie Brown, where I think okay, this time I’ll kick that damn ball, and then fate comes along and yanks everything away and says ha, not so fast! You didn’t really think your life would improve slightly, did you? You fool.

I finally understand how hard the universe is working to destroy me. How much it hates me. That it's conspiring against me. And crushing me. Crushing my soul. And it's working.

What does this all mean? Right now, it means I have no hope left in me. I'm fat, surly, broke, single, beaten down, and tired. Very tired. It means I’m on the verge of giving up. I don’t know what that means exactly, other than that right now I don’t have it in me to write anything that approaches dry wit or is vaguely entertaining. The well is dry. That could change tomorrow, or next week, or never. I don’t know. I just know that until it does, I’m checking out.