Auditing

I've long had a philosophy about life that may seem rather cynical. I believe that the universe audits happiness. If you're going along through life and things are going rather well, the universe will find you and audit what you have in your life that makes you happy; what makes you happy will then be stripped from you. I've often experienced these highs and lows in life, as I know every other person on the planet has experienced as well. That being said, my concern isn't for them. (Sorry.)

I've had my happiness audited quite a bit in my life. Just as things are going well - smooth sailing and whatnot - they are then unkindly and sometimes even unjustly taken away from me. For example: I had a truly wonderful time in college, a time that lasted 2 years. I had great friends, I found the greatest man on the planet and fell in love with him (and he with me), and I had an education that was robust and worthy. Upon graduation, however, I was left with far fewer friends and found myself searching for employment for 11 months. I had to extend the student loan payments, my family was left to pay my other bills, and I fought depression quite often. Then all of that changed! I found a job I liked, I could afford to pay my bills and once again my life was back on track, happiness was daily and I genuinely looked forward to having one of the best Christmas holidays in recent memory. That's now gone, too.

I was fired for my job, I had to defer my student loan repayment another six months, and my family is, once again, paying my bills. And while it apparently wasn't enough to create malicious lies in order to fire me, my former employers are now contesting my bid for unemployment. And after I found out that I don't have a case to sue them for discrimination and unlawful termination, I was informed that my unemployment request was denied. The malicious party at my former employer has succeeded in taking way every ounce of not only my livelihood, but my pride.

I want to be devastated. I am devastated! But I want to feel it. I want to be able to feel how truly upset I am so that I can know it's real, so I can have a physical reminder of what has happened to me. But I simply don't feel that way. Okay, the longer I dwell on what happened the angrier I become. None of what happened is fair and there's nothing I hate more than being told there is nothing I can do about it. There's a piece of my heart that feels cold and dead and heavy; and yet so much around it feels uplifting and rather rational. I'm actually not sure if I'm coping or if I'm in denial; they feel pretty much the same.

The point of auditing, however, is that once the universe is done with you, has kicked you down to the lowest form of yourself and made you want to just fall asleep and die, things inevitably get better. One thing people have continually said to me is that things will work out. "Things will be fine in the future, Crystal." Well, that's nice, but I can't look to the future because the pain of what is happening is happening right now. As a logical person I understand that there will come a time when my life will be infinitely better. I'm not so cynical that I can't accept that there's a really happy future ahead of me. But it's the right now that I want to be better. I want to be employed. I want to have a paycheck that is on par with my education. I want to be respected. (And I want the person responsible for firing me to receive all the incredible justice that her incompetent self deserves). I want to feel better now, not later. I'm just not sure how that's going to happen.

I've never appreciated the concept of living life day-to-day as I've always been a planner. I've always had a 5- or 10-year plan and now I hardly have a 5- or 10-hour plan. The only thing I'm looking forward to is spending Thanksgiving with family and from now until then I have no idea what my life will consist of. I do not like that feeling. It does not feel safe. I don't know what to do.