Yeah, Life or whatever

It has been a wild day of mishaps today, and some ever stranger conversations.  I could blame it on the fact the mercury is going into retrograde tomorrow, or that there is a VOC occurring as well, and while i was joking about that with a friend on twitter, I know better.  I’ve told ya’ll that I work in a sewing plant..we make ACU(that would be uniforms) for the military.  It’s a piece rate kind of thing..if you make a certain level(production rate) then you make better than minimum wage, if not..that is all you get.  I refuse to settle for minimum, so I work damn hard…Mississippi is a right to work state so there are no unions ala “Norma Rae” to help keep the workers from being taken advantage of, so…anyway, today my machine did not want to cooperate at all..breaking thread and just being stupid..so enters the mechanic who had to take the thing apart and of course that takes time, so while I wait, I am losing money.I could rant  I guess, but what is the point? In fact, I took the time to joke about it on twitter. I blamed it on the retrograde…it’s not..it’s just one of those things that happens to a machine that has a lot of years of wear and tear on it and by operators who push it to make money.  Shrugs..it is what it is.  So while I am waiting, the girl behind me who is also having problems with her machine…yeah was Monday for all of us….begins telling me about her life and how damn hard it is.  Really.  I would never have guessed  that someone who actually have life hard…She complains that she cannot afford to pay her rent, her bills, buy her kids things to start school, and yet…..she buys beer EVERY weekend..enough to last all week.  And her husband buys cigarettes.  Ya’ll know I had to…so I did…I ask her, why she bought those things when she obviously needs to keep a roof over her kids heads and groceries in the house, etc.  But those are things we need, she says.  NEED?!?!?! FFS! Really? The 30 plus dollars from the beer would have bought some school supplies. and at over 6.00 a pack for the smokes, she could have put couple gallons of gas in her car.  I just shook my head, because people like her would not understand my thinking at all.  “So how do you do it,” she asks?”You work 3 days a week, and I know you have a houseful of people”.  She is right on both counts.  My ex, youngest daughter, her husband, and granddaughter all live with me.  Robert draws piece of disability check, I work 3 days, and Robyn weekends at the bar.  It’s a challenge at times, but we make it work.  How?  Well we pay the bills first, that’s how..whatever one that is due, gets paid…then maybe if there is something left, it goes on what we want.  Sometimes I am willing to go without so others can have their needs or wants met(usually Brae), but that’s just how I am made.  Life is a challenge at times when dealing with medical issues, legal things that I am in charge of, or just family dynamics which can be challenging even when we all don’t live together.  But when I wake each day, and I may not want to get up and go to the plant,  much preferring to sleep late and hang out with the princess…I put my feet on the floor and hit the coffee pot switch on the way to the shower where I wash away the wisps of last night’s dream, and mentally prepare myself for the daily grind.  Some days it’s a little easier than others..I appreciate my friends who tweet or send me text to make me laugh…makes the long day seem to go faster.  Other times, it’s just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and making it to the end of the day when I can come home, deal with the issues at hand and make it to my bed at a decent hour.  Life is meant to be lived, experiencing all that it has to offer, the ups and downs and in betweens.  If one does not take the opportunity to do that, then you are just existing.  I cannot imagine going through life like that.  Even on my worst days, when I would lie awake at night and ask the universe to just let me check out for a little while even, and then find myself hitting the alarm the next morning swearing because I did not, I would not even consider just “existing”..going through the motions of life, without experiencing the pain,joy, laughter, tears…everything in balance that makes up life.  So while my life is nowhere even close to being perfect, I accept that it is what it is and value everything that I experience each and every day.