Stocks Don’t Make Me Cry

Well…I lost for the first time today in the stock market but I also earned my highest gain so I'm still up a hundred and some odd dollars, bringing my total profit this month to $436, which is okay with me.

I want to stay focused on the positive, kind of like these numbers. I have $436 more dollars this month than last month even though today I lost $202. My profit was $309 so that's not too bad for me (then again, the day is not over yet).

I've been exploring an area that I've never tried and just because it’s different (and probably because it’s all about numbers) it does keep these peri-menopausal blues away while I’m working on it--just because it is not about those unruly feelings surrounding all those other things I experience too deeply.

I swear I could dive into the deeps of the ocean forever if I let myself, and just let myself drown, but I can not let that happen. I've pulled myself up from much worse than this before and damn it, if I have to completely talk myself into getting these blues to turn a lighter shade each day then that is what I'm damned and determined to do.

I will scream if I spend one more morning trying to be more of this or less of that about some disturbing concern that isn't going to change anyway. (Oh the irony.) If I just do what I know how to do, if I just go ahead and pull myself up by those boot straps one more time--what some call denial--then maybe I will cry less. That’s worth millions to me.

The Wall Street Journal says the Dow sank!

Wow! I’ve never been one to write about the Dow Jones dip but here I am, concerned (a little bit) about how far it’s fallen.

I have never been much of a financial wiz but these days I am actually trying new things and this year it’s stock trading.

Damn, the Dow is down 226.47!

But the dirty little secret is that it’s really not all that bad (it’s really only -1.62%) and tomorrow I may just try my hand at some bigger stocks.

I’ve been piddling around with little stocks for a few weeks and for the first time in my life.

I am happy to say that I have earned close to $300 dollars (and haven’t lost a red cent…yet.)

Yes, I am doing my homework so I’m not as naïve and delusional as I sound.

I figure if I can learn this stock trading thingy then maybe I can support my stupid and compulsive need to write (because most of us know that’s not going to keep the lights on).

*plans to buy 100 shares of GE tomorrow*

Unimpressed

Sad again today and I know everyone will say you’re depressed and need drugs. I’m not depressed and I don’t need drugs. I just finished raising four children alone and I am almost 50 years old. (Youngest is 21 and still living at home, when she’s not traveling the world.)

I can be sad if I want to be sad. It’s what I’m supposed to be feeling because even though I’m continuing in school (nearly finished in a career I may not even want anymore but for blogging, or maybe not) and am learning an entirely different job (stock trading! lol), I am not very impressed. I think my past life as a single mother raising four children gave me enough shocks that nothing really impresses me anymore.

Not that I want to be impressed. I am delighted to be over all that excitement. It’s just that I am not impressed with this world, I am not impressed with many options that would create any type of excitement and I am going to remain as unimpressed as necessary. I guess in this world that means sad. (It's really not all that bad:)

Stifling Ourselves is Draining

I have been thwarting my creative surges.

Creativity invigorates us and produces more energy and ideas.

I just realized today that I have been stifling my creativity for a long time. I realize now that that is why I have no energy or motivation for anything.

So, this morning I got so frustrated I decided to throw all my negative voices in the trash and just do it, just create the good, the bad and the ugly.

I can already feel some energy returning.

I post this because maybe you're stifling something too, something that is an integral part of how you function and what brings you joy.

The energy it takes to stifle ourselves is draining.

It is Time to Go Home Now

I guess I’m not the only one who has dealt with unscrupulous persons on the web. I just went back to some old blogs I use to visit when my naïve and happy days as a blogger were coming to a close. I thought then and until now that maybe I was the only one who ran into pervs, etc.

I became so saddened (in addition to a partner who thinks blogging is a waste of my time, just like my mother use to think writing and reading was a waste of time) by the types of responses I have received while blogging on sites that I use to have but which I deleted or just conveniently lost the passwords or URL links.

Blogging started out as an exciting possibility about three or four years ago but I’ve tumbled down the hill to reality. It’s not what I thought it was going to be when I made my first blog titled something like Creative Writing.

But today, I realize that I need to take it back, even fight for the right to blog again. I need to mercilessly delete offensive people and even block them from my blog (once I figure out the new system here at blogspot).

I can feel the source of my anger now, or at least part of it as I feel like I am approaching home. It is because too many things thwarted my most important part of myself—my need to write. It is time to take it back now.

Writing Helps Me Hear Myself

It is true. I know what is bothering me. I have lost all my joy from writing.

I use to talk myself out of all my funks and I have stopped writing so I can’t talk myself out of them anymore.

I need to continue to do this. I don’t care how well or poorly it’s written. I need my helper back because I really can’t make it through life without her.

I am going to write my every thought today so that I get over this fear and anger I feel persistently.

I will not listen anymore to the reasons I have to write better or be more interesting or make money at writing.

I don’t need to make money at writing anyway and I don’t even need anyone to approve of my rants or raves.

I just need to pull myself out, every morning, of this fog that tends to settle when I listen too much to others and not enough to myself.

And somehow, writing helps me hear myself.

I can not stand anymore to be acceptable to anyone because the worse thing that can happen, happens.

I become unacceptable to myself.

Who can live like that?

unedited sixth-grade-level drivel

Or maybe yesterday, writing out my frustration is what made the day work. I know that what I am experiencing can not be about what others in my life do.

There are good people in my life now. Something is up with me. Perhaps if I go ahead and write like I use to, fearlessly, even though it’s on the fear-filled World Wide Web, I will be able to somehow begin to make sense of my never-ending self-hatred.

What am I angry about right now? (These days, I’m almost always angry about something.) I am at this time angry that all the work I did Friday is lost, kaput, gone. Argh!

My computer kept crashing Friday and again this morning, as I open up my trading platform in addition to the women’s forum I usually read, it’s all crashing again.

I guess I need to take some of my money and buy myself another computer, a laptop, so that when this piece of shit crashes I will have something else.

I know this computer isn’t a piece of shit. Shit always happens with computers. I will not discuss it with my partner either because these days I think it is best that I talk to the world instead of him. However, I’m not even going to say why.

(I feel angry at him but I refuse anymore to try to figure that one out. What good will it do? I have no way to change it and I’m sick of it always being about other people.)

I need to stay focused on what I can do and what I can change and the things I can make happen. I will somehow drag myself out of this perimenopausal funk that wants to frustrate me daily.

I will pull this self-hatred out of me if it kills me.

If it takes free writing like a maniac then that’s what I’ll do. Otherwise, I’ll just quit writing altogether. So, don’t be surprised if I post unedited sixth-grade-level drivel 10 times a day and/or you never hear from me again.

(The world cries at the thought of losing my amazing blog conversations with myself.)

*laughs at self*

Having had so many blogs in the past

I am now scared to blog, scared to be honest on the internet and for good reason but I'm probably more fearful than I should be. Writing has become a problem for me since I started blogging and communicating in online forums. I hate to write now. There has been too much criticism and too many weird things that I've experienced with internet communications.

It almost feels like it is time to quit, that writing has taken its course and it's now finished; the time seems to be coming when writing no longer is what I do. Funny though, I have only six or seven more classes to complete before I earn my bachelor's in journalism. This is not good.

I will finish the courses and see what comes next, I guess. I've started a new career too that is a lot more lucrative. It has nothing at all to do with writing. I think I want money more now than to express myself. I think I'm sick of expressing myself.

But I don't quit just because I don't know how to quit because all my life this has been what I do. This is a strange confusion I feel these days and it does make me terribly unhappy. I wonder how it will all turn out but for now, I will just post this...just for the sake of posting.

Well, here’s an update on my irritable 6 a.m. mood:

I spent the day reading the Barron’s and our local Sunday newspaper. I forgot all about my emotions. I think this is a recipe for success in my case as I teeter on the edge of trying to become a menopausal woman.

It is now eight-and-a-half hours later and I feel fine, which is the case most days once I get things going. Perhaps I should skip my early morning musings from now on.

In short, I am so damn sick of my emotions. I think I should read nonstop and it should probably have nothing whatsoever to do with women’s issues. I should go to school for business or economics to get my head out of my feelings. I am tired of my feelings.