My last entry, October 2011, was a year and a half ago. You have no idea what can happen in 18 months...

In December 2011, I smashed up my car pretty bad. We had to pay to get it out of the impound, and to get it fixed. Then in March, someone rear-ended me and totaled the car we had just paid to fix. In April, someone hit me in the rental car I was driving. My husband used the insurance money to buy another 4-door car...a standard, which I don't know how to use. So my husband got that one and I got his 1994 pickup with a bench seat. In May, my husband and I decided to host a foreign exchange student for the 2012-2013 school year. That was also when I was approved for financial aid for the summer 2012 semester to get my last required credits. In June, I started my final college semester. That was also the month that my life changed forever: my poor little stepson lost his mom quickly and unexpectedly to a botched lap surgery. I became a full-time mom to a 10 year old overnight at the age of 23. Keep in mind, I'm still driving the tiny truck, now with a kid in tow, while my husband drives a 5-person vehicle alone. In July, I finished the very last credit I needed for college graduation. In August, our Swedish exchange student arrived, and she and my stepson started school in town (my first year as a "school mom" and I had one in 4th and one in 11th!). In September, my husband and I celebrated our first anniversary right around when I received a bill for $2000 from my university, as my approved financial aid for summer couldn't actually be applied to summer semesters (I know, right?). Since then, life has been coming at me non-stop. My December graduation was postponed, since I didn't have the 2 grand to pony up. My stepson's grades were absolutely abysmal, and while everyone liked to blame his traumatic circumstances, it was clear to me and his teacher he simply wasn't trying. Our exchange student chose to leave us for another family because she had the audacity to demand (I'm not kidding with that word) my husband to buy her another Diet Coke when he poured about 5oz. out of a 2 liter bottle she had paid for (as if he didn't pay for the house she slept in, the food she ate, the car and the gas that I drove her around in). My stepson started having trouble seeing the board in class, that is when he stopped misbehaving and bothered looking at the board. Then he started getting toothaches really bad. This was right after the health insurance he had with his mom expired. Speaking of health insurance, my husband's ulcers or gastritis or acid reflux or whatever it is has been acting up, and his job doesn't offer insurance. Add to this the fact that I STILL don't have the degree that I finished earning 9 months ago and am now raising a 10 year old, and you get me still working part time with night and weekend hours.

Now, I'm not saying my life sucks. I know that there people that don't have any family or a home or any job or a nearby support system. But I am saying that my little family is less than 2 years old. Think about that. I said "I do" 20 months ago. Repeating "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" will only get you so far. I'm tired. I'm a 23-year-old non-college-graduate full-time mom part-time off-hour board op and I'm tired. Life needs to cut me a break soon, or at least my guys. My husband works full-time in a career that he just kind of bumped into in his early twenties. Definitely not a "life calling" or even close to being enjoyable, but he gets up every morning before the sun is out so he can support his little boy and useless wife. My stepson lost his mom at nine years old. He lost his mom, had to move out of his stepdad's (who had been his "daily dad" since he was 3 or 4), and had to move in with his dad an hour away to attend his 4th school in 5 years.

I have been tested beyond anything I would have ever expected, and that's just in the last year. And while I like knowing that I was strong enough to handle all that, and stronger now because of it...I doubt I can handle much more. I'm not fun anymore. I'm not happy anymore. I'm a serious, cranky, unpleasant nag of a human being, an empty shell of the ridiculous and vibrant person I remember being. Maybe I'll feel better getting this off my chest, even if no one ever even reads this. I can only hope.