I Can't Decide

I'm hoping this post is really, really short. Because it's extremely late and I'm exhausted.

I cannot tell the difference between opportunity and distraction. I am at a place in my life where I have been left desolate by the absence of opportunity - not the absence of privilege. I got that in spades, but the absence of specific opportunities that usually accompany my types of privilege. I have debts and obligations, and no way to fulfill them, and then along comes this offer. . .

The only offers I have gotten, including the one that enables my current living situation, are well below my value, and don't even begin taking advantage of my specific range of acquired skills. They wouldn't pay a quarter of my obligations, even before tithing and taxes.

There was a time when you just took any work you could get to keep yourself and your family alive. My dad tells these stories all the time. Do whatever you can. I remember going with him on a paper route at obscenely early hours. I remember the stories he told of janitorial work at the courthouse and jail. He did what he had to.

But the problem is that "whatever I can" doesn't keep me alive. The generosity and pity of an old friend keeps me alive (and her nourishing belief in me). The only family I can support are the cutaneous bacteria colonies and digestive biomes that come with human mortality. And the latter aren't doing well these days.

Are these kinds of offers, these pittances, opportunities or distractions? After years and years of fiscal failure and desolation, am I even allowed to make the decision? Two dollars is better than nothing? But it's all relative, isn't it? I'm not a paperboy in the eighties. Two dollars IS nothing, compared to what I actually need.

Do I refuse the offer and focus my attention on something more improbable but that I know I'm supposed to be doing? Or do I just say, "yes" to everything and hope that it doesn't spark catastrophe in my life? In hindsight, I tend to assume that anything that results in disaster must have been a distraction, because I have to think that or I will have to face the possibility that I'm just a screw up, and then kill myself.

I actually face the possibility that I'm a screw up all the time. I've survived so far, but only by waiting until the feeling goes away before making any major decisions. I'm either too smart or too stupid to be entirely what my brain is telling me I am already. Nobody can function on any level with the sincere belief that they're a screw up, so even if it's true, it's not worth believing.

Why can't someone just pay me a living wage to do something I'm actually good at, and that doesn't suck my soul out my eyeballs?

The "I Can't Decide" in the title was because I couldn't decide on a title. Of course I'm going to take the offer. I don't get to say no. I just push through until the situation becomes untenable and then admit defeat and retreat. But right now, my eyes are glazing over and I still have to make my bed and put my laundry away. Good night.