My first piece for xoJane! "It Happened to Me: I Declared Bankruptcy"

I'd love it if you'd check out my first essay for xoJane, Jane Pratt's site, "It Happened to Me: I Declared Bankruptcy," and if you like it, pass it on, like it on Facebook, etc. I'd really appreciate it. That's a self-portrait of me with my rent money on line at the post office buying a money order. Thank you!

Okay-ish

Just a quick note to say thanks to everyone who contacted me. I don't really know what to say...am I okay? Ish. I'm okay-ish, and I've come to accept that sometimes that's the best you can do. Definitely a lot of dropping my head in my hands when things just seem insurmountable and I'm just trying to work on everything one step at a time. I think the problem is I've set myself up with some pretty big stuff to tackle and I'm a control freak and perfectionist so have trouble asking for help, even when it's offered, and I don't think anyone can really help you fix the internal things, the stuff, for lack of a better word at the moment.

I'll figure it out and things are all proceeding forward; I guess sometimes I feel like they're proceeding forward without me and I'm stuck trying to stay afloat. That's probably a victory in itself, staying afloat, and I should remember that. So I will be okay. Better than okay, hopefully. Right now just not so much, but I'm working on it all, just have to learn not to try to work on it all, all at once.

I'm reminded, too, that my use of rock bottom, well, plenty of people, including the woman who I associate the term with, have been through a lot worse than I'm dealing with. I don't think that thought ever really makes people feel better, because we all have our own trials, but I am thankful for what I do have and one word, one step, one day at a time, I'll get out of the messes I've made. Speaking of kickass, strong woman, a long time ago, in what always feels a little bit like a life someone else lived, aka 2003, the amazing Mimi Ferraro sang "Fighter" by Christina Aguilera at karaoke. Indeed. Come to think of it, the people I most admire are the fighters, the works in progress, the ones who looked at their lives and didn't like what they saw and changed things. I said to someone I care about, who I really never thought I'd be saying it to, that I was proud of him for just that, and I am. I'm not ever someone who wants to see people living down to their worst selves, including me, and I fear that of late I have. That I've spent the last year or two coasting along, rising to some challenges, yes, working a lot, on my self and "work," but ultimately staying stuck in too many ways and a lot of that lack has caught up with me, and maybe is a good learning process for me, of how to structure my life, of who exactly I do or don't want to be. I hope I can learn something from it, anyway.