This week I’ve hit a slough of despond. I can’t see the point in any of it. I’ve had to sign on and there’s nothing like the job centre for making you feel like a worthless human and it’s not that I haven’t tried not to be here but here I am anyway.

I feel left behind, everyone is planning something and I can’t. Holidays, trips away, concerts. I can’t go and I don’t know if it’s worse not to be asked or to be asked but not be able to do it. Either way, it’s fairly horrible.

Unemployment also really brings home how alone I feel. I love living by myself, being single wasn’t how I’d thought my life would be. I wasn’t supposed to be in this place but given that this is how it turned out, I’m generally not unhappy. Today though, not working, not having any money, worrying about what comes next, I feel alone. Everyone else seems to be moving towards something, I’m being asked, yet again, to shrink my expectations of what my life should be. It’s not fair, I’ve done the work here. I’ve come to terms with Stef dying, I’ve accepted that a husband and children probably won’t be part of my future (note the probably, I’m open to it, I’m just trying to be a realist here). What’s left doesn’t suck, I love being an aunt and a godparent, I have a freedom that my friends who are parents don’t have. All I really need is to be able to support myself. I worked hard, I’m not unemployed because I was bad at my job, it was just bad luck and cutbacks, that they didn’t renew my contract. I know this, but at the moment, it feels so unfair.

I’m lucky, I have a parent that won’t let me starve (thanks Ma!) and people that care about me, I live in a country that (for the moment at least) doesn’t have some kind of safety net, I’m more fortunate than a lot of other people. I know this, I am grateful for it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. Today, I’m tired of trying to be positive, of doing the best I can and going nowhere and getting nothing.

I curated a whole service about God not being fair and I know that this time is only wasted if I let it be. No-one died and I’m not nearly as down, depressed and heartbroken as I was 5 years ago, I got through that time and I will get through this the same way, one step at a time.

Just for today though, my life sucks and I’m miserable about it…