Barrel Smells and Silent Screams

My car is in the shop. My evening job cut my hours and my pay so saving up for a house has come to almost a halt, but it's nice having a bit of down time now, even if I do fill it with gardening and other projects. My apartment is infested with bugs, getting bug bombed every couple of days so now I'm sitting on my sister's couch in my old house with one dog that ran away and the other curled up next to me. My cat is locked in the basement getting heavy doses of flea treatments.

I am somehow content though. It's been pleasant sleeping weather at night and I have goat milk on my cereal that's fresh and delicious. I borrow my mom's car while she's out of town and I literally ran into an old friend with my car who happens to have worked 10 yrs at a scrap yard and is going to help me clean up a bit. I have been saving all my herbs, freezing goat milk, and plodding along through the growing season, trying not to beat myself up too much over what I don't have planted or projects I haven't finished.

It's been one year since I lost my job and I'm starting to get my bearings readjusted.

There still is this sinking sense in the pit of my stomach that I don't think will ever get resolved. It comes up heaving every time we work with barrels.
My days are so frustrating sometimes working with retired -other jobs- guys who just do my job for fun. They think themselves into holes constantly. And I know what to do, but get pushed aside because they've worked there longer. I have these embedded ticks and ability to see different movements, but it seems like they don't believe me or they like doing the opposite of whatever I say.

So I fall back and keep one hand on my steam machine and wait for the barrels to come out of the barrel room. I dare not go inside.

I want so badly to share where I have been and what I know, but that brings questions that I cannot answer and bridges that have been burned. I feel this black mark I carry around like a pariah.

Or perhaps I don't want to step in and assert myself for fear that I will just get used up and tossed aside again.

I guess heartbreak is for the ones you've loved and lost, so it's logical to avoid if you never try at all.


....but that's not who I am. Reassessing and returning armed with articulation. Let's see what I can do.