Well if you’ve been following this blog you know that a few months ago I was told I was being thrown off disability when they determined I’d “improved enough to have gainful employment.” So since the end of October I have been literally sick with worry that I would be unable to win an appeal to stay on it knowing damn well I couldn’t work long enough to get a paycheck with a body that hates me this badly.
They had me fill in some paperwork to say why I felt their decision was wrong and at the very end it allowed me to put extra “notes” that weren’t part of their totally useless questionnaire. I’d just about had it and kinda lost it a little bit and wrote something raw, angry, and 100% honest. “After YEARS of staying single I allowed myself to get into another romantic relationship with someone who I see once a week during a good week. I am constantly at the verge of breaking up with him. Not because anything is wrong with the relationship but because I don’t know how long I can sustain these once a week visits. Currently it’s been killing me. I don’t know how I am supposed to have gainful employment when I can’t even manage a part time boyfriend!”
And it’s painfully true. It’s been six weeks since I’ve seen him and we’ve only been together for a year and this isn’t my first six week absence. Every time I’ve visited in the past three months I have gotten violently sick either while I am visiting or right afterwards. Life just sucks sometimes.
Since sending in that paper I heard nothing for a long time. And then I got a letter saying I needed to attend a phone meeting to update my information. I thought this meant my appeals hearing in front of a judge so for three months I was stressed out thinking about it to the point I was losing hair and getting very angry. But when the phone call came through it was just a woman on the other end asking me to update my information who seemed just as confused as I was. So I guess I still am on disability and they dropped this whole appeal thing. Did I get a letter saying so? No, I did not. And this isn’t the first time they’ve pulled a fast one and then took no responsibility and pretended it never happened. I feel like I lost three months of my life but I won’t complain because for now it seems like everything is maybe back to normal.
In the meanwhile I found out I filled out the paperwork wrong and she wanted me to fill it out again. Can do. She told me it’d be coming in the mail… there was one problem with this. I live in a tiny rural town that probably only has six postal workers and half of them were home with Covid. The skeleton crew left behind were doing their best but it’d been over a week since some people in town had gotten their mail and they were telling people not to try to pick theirs up. This normally wouldn’t be a problem but usually this paperwork has to be filled out and returned within ten days of when they think you should have received it (not when you actually did!)
So when I finally got it I knew I had to go to the bank to get a statement from that day, fill out the paperwork, and get it to a different post office to avoid it getting stuck in town. This should have been easy except my mother accidentally closed my bank account trying to get her name off it on the same day. By the time I figured this out the bank was closed. So I had wasted another day trying to get this paperwork out. The next morning I went to the bank almost in tears to beg them to reopen my one account so I didn’t have to report a change (which I am not even 100% sure how to do!) The problem is that during this Covid spike the bank closed the lobby and the only way to do business was through their one drive up window. I went as soon as they opened, knowing I’d otherwise be sitting in a car queue for hours.
Luckily they were able to reactivate the account but were having a hard time giving me a statement that had my name, account number, and current balance on the same sheet of paper which is what the disability people were asking for (and which I have always had a trouble getting from this particular bank.) By the time I got it I was happy but feeling exceptionally sick. I was so anxious I’d only slept four hours the night before. I wasn’t safe to drive out of town to send the damn thing out so I took a nap and prayed I’d be at least somewhat OK when I woke up. Luckily for me I was.
I decided to drive to the nearest proper city, Keene, but I was so fucking out of it I couldn’t find their post office. I know it’s on Main Street, I got my passport there years ago, but I just couldn’t figure out which building it was and I was getting super frustrated. I decided to give up and find a different post office on the way home.
Troy was nearby so I asked the GPS to find the Troy post office.
“Did you say Lamar’s Doughnuts?”
“NO. I said POST OFFICE. What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
This argument went on for several more minutes before I parked and found the address on my phone to type it directly into the GPS. It was just up the road from where I was. But the GPS was in a mood and for no reason what-so-ever decided to drive me through a trailer park with the worst road I have ever seen in the state. It was right up there with the car killing logging roads I went up the previous summer complete with a small hill composed of jutting rocks. I was in a RAV so I went for it – at a literal 2 miles an hour. And I made it!
The post office was in a little plaza and I would have never guessed it was a post office if it weren’t for the signs. I walked in and it was dark. No staff? UHM… but I could hear someone shuffling around behind the mail slot so I took this as a good sign and left my paperwork (with excess postage because dammit I’m not letting that thwart me either!) in the outgoing mail and I left.
On the way home I realized I hadn’t checked the gas gauge and it was on fucking empty with no gas station for miles. I literally coasted home on a wing and a prayer. I made it – but this all shows what chaos life has been like.
I’ve been sleeping the several days since. My whole body hurts but I feel relieved. It’s been six weeks since I’ve seen my boyfriend and I… really could use a fucking hug.