Saturday, December 31, 2016

2016...The year from hell...

I can honestly say that this year has been the most awful year imaginable. Coming from me, that's saying a lot. I remember last New Year's Eve I had told myself that this year would be amazing.  My year. I would be in control of my own destiny and everything was going to work out. I felt very positive about it. 2015 was an awful year full of being stabbed in the back by family and being used for everyone else's purposes so I had decided that 2016 would not be that way. On Christmas Eve I had quit Radio Shack. And even though that was extremely difficult for me to do because I loved that job more than anyone could possibly understand, the corporate structure had become unbearable. I had gotten a job offer from Rent a Center and that in and of itself made me feel like I had good things coming.

Boy was I wrong! So 2016 starts out and I'm trucking along learning the new job. Rent a Center, although it was a terrible job, was working out well because customers were glad to see me there, it was something new and interesting for me to do even though like I mentioned, the job itself was just horrible. I had never worked in rent to own before so it was completely new. The store I had taken over was  a complete disaster between customers who were just not into communication and employees who didn't like the job any more than I did. Of course I didn't let them know how I really felt, they all seemed to be of the same mindset that I was. The company had tied our hands so much in our ability to actually perform our jobs that it was a total nightmare. And then there was my boss, who was a jack ass. I'm not at all sure if he had actually run a difficult store, because he had this idea that you just come in and make people do what you need them to. What he really didn't seem to grasp was that you cannot make people DO anything. Especially when it comes to customers who had the routines down to an art. Come in, get what they need, never contact us again. And with the way RAC did business and with the ridiculous rules in place, that literally meant they got free stuff. 

On top of that this guy had zero respect for me whatsoever. And the DM who had hired me was fired shortly after I was hired so I had nobody to go to and ask for help or tell about the unreal treatment I was getting from this guy. My entire crew quit and I ran the store by myself with no help for a month. This "DM" brought in a bunch of employees at the end of the month to help me catch the store back up and he actually acted like he did me a favor. Needless to say, this guy was a joke by any managerial standards, let alone DM, and I couldn't stand working for him. By the time we parted ways he had told me that I had to do basically all of the jobs. Make all the calls, make the rounds running various past due accounts, while trying to get my employees to do the best they could. Considering I was doing all of the jobs, they didn't have anything to do. And yet when he came in and decided he was "over it" he held the fact that I was doing everything against me. It was absolutely mind blowing and hypocritical, not that that surprised me considering how this guy treated me. 

At the same time I had let my friend Autumn move in and that ended up being a complete disaster from the word go. First off, she wasn't even supposed to move in until the end of July, beginning of August but she had a new girlfriend that she just couldn't live without so before I even knew what was going on we went from "sure you can move in a few months" to "wow, you're moving in this weekend. The downside to that is my kids came for the summer and I didn't plan on having anyone at the house while my kids were there because I wanted to spend time with them. Before I knew it I got a text while I was at work that she was bringing her stuff and she was there. She had already given up her apartment so she had nowhere to go. So, I'm trapped. She moves in with her cats, both were pretty cool cats except for the fact that one of them was a WMD. He tried to destroy pretty much everything he came in contact with. Not to mention they both left cat litter everywhere, my hallway, my kitchen floor, my kitchen counters, everywhere they went they left a trail of cat litter and it was so annoying. She thought it was cute. In her eyes, they could do no wrong. But then again, nothing in the house that they were destroying was hers. Everything belonged to me except what was in her room and they didn't touch that stuff. So I was incredibly irritated with this blase attitude she had about my things.

At the same time TK and I were hanging out more and more often. The presumption was that we would eventually end up together. There were many conversations about it, and as it was, he had told me that in eight years he hadn't dated or been with anyone, which kinda blew my mind but to each his own. I could also understand not being with anyone after so long especially given how people had just walked away from me for years and years. 
That being said we were hanging out a LOT. He would come to my house and watch TV or movies, he would stop by my work, we texted a lot. And more and more we got closer. And then everything all blows up at once.

My kids come to stay the summer with me and I'm happy to have them. I had wanted to keep them longer but my ex is a real piece of work. That being said, they came, Autumn is a complete and total asshole to them THE ENTIRE TIME they are there. I can't for the life of me figure out how she thinks she can do this considering she is a guest in my house who wasn't even supposed to be there yet. But she bitched at them non stop. She also made them clean her cats mess when her GF was coming for the weekend. She bitched at them about the internet, she bitched at them about how much they ate, she did nothing but hound them NON STOP. I am exceptionally pissed off about this because I want the kids to have a good summer and she single handedly is ruining it for all five of us. She's incredibly unpleasant all of the time. All the while she is being completely inappropriate around TK when he comes over. She just never shuts up. Her mouth was running 24/7 about things she didn't even know about. She just kept on being rude and inappropriate, making comments about everything from my personal sex life or lack thereof to making comments about the kids. Nothing I said or did got through to her that she is not behaving in any sort of manner that I am okay with. Completely oblivious to reality. 

And then all at once, she flips out and moves out because my landlords wanted her to be on an application for the property so they knew who she was. I personally to this day think she lied about her military involvement, especially after that entire incident took place. My landlords accused her of dealing drugs to which she seemed guilty. And then she decided to move out without telling me. On top of moving out without telling me until I asked she actually had the gall to say that she had other places lined up in case I ever "did anything to her cats", which I was incredibly offended by considering she knew they were destroying my property and she thought it was funny and cute, and even though she gave me permission to slap him if he did stupid shit like that, I never did. And yet when she needed everyone to feel sorry for her to help her get out of my house, the whole story changed. Suddenly I'm this horrible person. All I did was ask her for a copy of anything proving she was in the military because the landlords said that would be a huge help to show she had no criminal past. Literally, that's it. And here we are.

At the same time TK disowned me and wouldn't talk to me, lied about his phone number all because I told the TRUTH. Yes, the truth people. I still to this day can't wrap my head around it. His brother did something inappropriate and because I didn't make a huge deal out of it and get him thrown out of the bar because I knew I could handle it, he accused me of being a whore and walked away. So now Autumn has officially lost her mind, like actually mental, and TK is not speaking to me at all. And then I lose my job because my boss is "over it". I know he was just using me to hold down the place until he could get who he actually wanted in there. And I get unemployment now so thanks BOSS! 

Kenya and I used to hang out pretty often but then he moved to Spokane so I hardly ever got to hang out with him anymore. Then my "friend" John has some insane shit hit the fan with his kid. But as it turns out, the only reason he cared was because he wanted total control. I wasted a month and a half of my life, literally putting my entire life on hold so I could help him all so I could be treated like any Joe Blow on the street when he didn't need me anymore. So at this point I am batting 1000 and I am just over this year.

I also gave up my house. My so called friends couldn't have cared less about anything that happened to me. Whenever I needed to talk nobody was there. Had my going away "party", really it was just an excuse to say goodbye to everyone, ONLY ONE PERSON SHOWED UP. Honestly, I'm not even sure he showed up because of me, I think he was already going there for whatever reason. This whole year was one gigantic reality check as to who gave a shit about me, and the list was incredibly short. But it did make disappearing a whole lot easier...

To top it all off in November my asshole ex husband decides to file for full custody and he doesn't tell anyone. Not me, not the kids. His new flavor of the year is trying to remove me from their lives all together. She had already blocked my number on his cell phone, the cell phone I PAY FOR. Then she tries to move them across the country but when I veto that she then forces the courts hand in removing me. So now I have to figure out what the kids want so I can make sure I do what's best for them. And the part that pisses me off the most about that whole situation is every single thing, every decision, everything I've done for the past 16 years has been for them. I chose to leave them in MT because that's where they wanted to be. Anyone who thinks that I left them because I was too lazy to take care of them, or didn't want them is completely nuts. It was never that. It's never been that. Jeremy knew, the kids knew, everyone knew why I did it. And yet now I have to defend myself against some chick who's been in their lives all of five minutes in the scheme of things. And they are in a terrible position because they don't want to have to choose and they shouldn't have to. That's why I did it the way I did so they didn't have to. But now they do. And it's all because of that crazy bitch my ex is with. So this is how my year ends.

Not to mention all of the people who have died this year that were exceptional in all sorts of ways, astronomers, actors, John Glen, Leonard Nimoy, Carrie Fisher, and the list goes on, and on, and on. 

So 2016, you can go fuck yourself. I really don't know how much more of this year I could have taken. I'm almost afraid to hope that 2017 is better because well, we see how well that worked out for this year...So maybe I'll just hide and watch from afar. But not until I get this drama worked out with my poor kids. I feel horrible for them and I am just hoping we can get this handled without putting them through too much, especially since the whole reason it's even an issue is purely because of one chicks need for total control. Pathetic...