This is going to be cross-posted elsewhere, too, but I need to get
this out and all the support I can get would be great.

Hey. . .

I don't want/need e-mails from other people telling me in so many
words how inadequate I am and how I need to get over this and just
do it, how I'm being "negative," and it's "no wonder no one talks to
me, etc.," and all that bollocks.

As most, if not all of you by now, know, I am recently signed up to
be an Independent Consultant for Close To My Heart, which is a
scrapbooking and stamping supply company. Direct Sales. Uh-oh. . .

I have decided to do a workshop to make Christmas Tags on 25
December 06, for $10 to make 10 tags, and I was going to collect the
$ before the 11th so I could get the supplies ordered so I could go
in and be prepared. Read on.

I hate to say it, but If I haven't heard anything by tomorrow at
4.30p.m., which is when I'm leaving to go to tutoring at Maynard (I
promised someone at Church I'd come back for at least that, since
she seems to like me and her daughter seems like she likes working
with me), I am cancelling. I have had two people let me know
they're not going to be able to make it, one because she lives in
Canada. LOL!!!! One because she's doing the whole family thing
with her in-laws and all on that Saturday, which I totally
understand.

What I don't get is why people can't seem to let me know, yes or
know, if they're coming, and even if they can't, I will understand,
no explanations needed, I just need to know how many people are
interested, and so I can collect the money so I can get the tags so
I don't come in empty-handed and look bad. LOL I'm not at all
trying to waste anyone's time here, and I wish people would consider
my time, too.

One thing that is pretty positive, and this is SOOO EXCITING!!!, my
friend, Sue, the one that's wanting to do the gathering on the 11th
(I am still doing the chicken dance over that!! I can't wait to do
this!!!), she's wanting to get together once or twice a week, or
more if I want, since neither of us are able to work one of those
hourly jobs anymore (though I'm thinking maybe I need to anyway, and
just make my daughter my customer, so I can meet my goals!! LOL
Hey, even Ruffles (my Poodle) and Patches (my Calico) would do it.
Probably Neil (the Hermit Crab), too.), and do crafts, read our
Bibles together (since Bible studies and the like seem to be done by
popularity contest at Church ~hiss~ and this situation is no
different, unfortunately). She's a really neat lady and has so many
great stories about Columbus (where we live) "back in the day." I
love talking with her and hearing about things from "back when."

Believe me, I am trying so hard to do what I can to get people to
say something to me about this (and even though it was ever so
tempting, I didn't put "serious inquiries only, please" as that
would be totally unprofessional, so I left that off there. LOL),
but as with all things in life, when you have people (even total
strangers) treating you like you don't even matter enough to
acknowledge long enough to say "bugger off," it does get a wee
discouraging.

I am putting up the "fake it till you make it" facade, the whole
phony smile; believe me, after 10 years, I have learned how to fake
cheeriness very well, especially since there's a lot of things I'm
pretty private about, but when it's all said and done, and when I'm
home at night, and there's no one to see it (except Eric, but he's
off doing his own thing (usually working on things for his game that
he does with his friends, or he's reading), and I'm sure he and Tim
(the roommate) are busy enough not to interrupt me and my venting
and ranting on paper, because blessedly, paper doesn't talk back!
If it did, I'd not be a writer at all! LOL I would definitely not
have an outlet! LOL), I break down. I can't help it, and contrary
to popular belief (specifically my mother's, and other so-
called "friends" that say I can trust them, just to be crapped on in
the end), it's not something that I can turn off like a switch
(though God knows, it would be SOOO nice!).

As I mentioned to a few people the other day, no one knows how truly
miserable I am in life, I just don't talk about it, because the
subject tends to conveniently get changed when I feel (wrongly) that
I can trust someone who's told me repeatedly I can trust him or her,
and I go to that person (against my better judgment, because I'm
misled by their words that I can trust them. . .If you want to hear
about it sometime, I can tell you about that "supportive"
conversation I had with my mother last September, when we fought and
nearly didn't talk ever again. We do still talk, but it's pretty
strained), I'm treated like I have the plague. No wonder I don't
socialize! I am too scared of being hurt yet again, even when I go
out of my way to say to myself before I do anything in the
day, "Alright, self (that's what I call myself, "self"), we're going
to face this down and kick this proverbial ball as it were, and
we're going to try and get past this!"

I know in this business you have to go out of the box, and all that
stuff, believe me I know, and I wish people, even the total
strangers who don't even know me, would speak up and say something.
I am polite in my inquiries, (and I know I am because I do most of
my inquiries by e-mail, and I always bounce them off someone before
sending them out, usually someone out of the country who's known me
1/2 of forever, so I can do this guilt-free), I'm smiling (years of
retail issues to be nice about it has taught me to be nice and fake
perkiness, and how to hide my feelings), I'm friendly, and upbeat
and all that good stuff, and I've been asked by people pretty
recently why I'm always so happy and cheery. I just tell them that
it's just part of my personality, that I love to be cheerful
(really, I don't, but they don't need to know that!!! LOL). Smiles
and laughter are contagious. That sort of thing.

Now, inside, it's a whole other story, and Stephen King and Wes
Craven would LOVE to talk to me, I'm sure, about what goes on in my
head, despite what goes on outside of me. It's like a Monet
painting. Far away, it's all pretty, and when you get up to the
nitty gritty close-and-personal side of it, it's one giant frame of
dots. A mess. If I keep people in my professional life as strictly
professional relationships, they only are going to see the painting
at the distance, the way it's meant to be seen, not the dot mess up
close, the things that few people are allowed to see of me.

I know to keep the personal stuff personal and the professional
stuff professional. Years of telemarketing have taught me that.
Don't take out on Jane what John just said, and John and Jane are on
opposite sides of the country and probably don't know one another.
My life is a miserable thing, but people who don't know me don't
need to know that!!!!! LOL

It would be nice to be able to snap my fingers and to get past this
overnight, and regardless of how people seem to think it works, it
can't work that way (much to my dismay). I have not got that
ability (much to my mother's disillusion that I seem to), and I wish
I did. God knows, if I had that kind of ability, I would have a lot
of friends who'd be a lot happier knowing that their pain has been
just a dream, because I would use that gift on them, too, without
batting an eyelash.

I'm in a place that I was in two years ago that I swore to myself
that I would never ever return to again, and I feel like a failure
for allowing myself to even stop and take a picture of that time in
my life. I don't know for sure how I got here, but the more I'm
ignored when I put reminders up about "Hey, I need you to please
RSVP so I can collect the money and so we can have the supplies to
work with," and I get repeatedly IGNORNED for no reason, it doesn't
help, it only triggers other things in my head, and I hate it. I
do. I won't lie, it hurts. I would rather have a root canal
without the anesthetic (even though I've never had one ever, from
what I understand, they're pretty painful!, even WITH the novacaine)
than go through all this.

The holidays are the most hateful time of year for me (my kids being
gone are the reasons I hate the holidays), but I am willing to climb
out of my cocoon and go out of my way to make sure that
the "perfect" (and by perfect, I'm not talking Ozzie and Harriet
here, I'm talking perfect in the sense of what I see how people do
things with their families, and it's not all messed up and
dysfunctional . . . Much like the reason I'm NOT going to
Thanksgiving nor am I even going to Christmas ever again with Eric's
family, thanks to his grandmother and mother how they were acting
not only toward ME last year (and I can't understand all that crap),
but how Eric's mother (gotta love those psycho mothers-in-law!) was
being in general, she scared the crap out of me, and set a LOT of my
psychological trouble off, which is pretty scary) little families
have something fun to do, and I can laugh and joke with the best of
them, if they would just give me a chance. I'm not sure that I have
warts, haven't seen any recently (and I've looked! LOL) I know I
don't have anything contagious, but I don't know what to think. I'm
sure that it's me (of course, to hear Eric tell it, it IS me, always
is, always will be me), but if there's a remedy, I'm willing to do
anything, short of strong-arming people into giving me an answer as
to what to do that's going to work the first time around, and it's
been proven to work, to cure people overnight.

I put up the false front for everyone, even the so-called "friends"
I have, and when I'm asked how I'm doing, "I'm fine." is all they
get out of me, since side-conversations and convenient subject
changes are the norm for people who "care."

Now I've gone and wrote you a doggone book. Sorry about that.

Just get back to me when you can. . .

I appreciate this, and I am glad to be here. You've helped me
through things before, and I am hoping I can still come to you now.

Love you.