Sadness envelopes me.

No cats today. I don't feel like uploading--besides, I don't think anyone has taken any new pictures. I am pretty sure I haven't. Sylvia's 80s birthday party went off fine, it was great loads of fun. We have plenty of pictures, I plan to post them up soon. She was dressed in a purple prom looking dress with a blonde wig with a chunk taken out of the back. Her theme, of course, was Caroline from Sixteen Candles (Jake Ryan's girlfriend). I just cut up a sweater, attached some safety pins (by some I mean a whole package) and made my hair huge and sparkly and my makeup ridiculous. It was great fun, everyone looked great. We had over 4 inches of snow on Friday (for the first time in years!) but it was mostly gone by Saturday evening. The party went off without a hitch.

Now, the title for my blog is what I feel like writing about. Since transferring from a community college to UALR last semester, I have been fairly happy. Before that, I was always busy, always broke, and mostly alone. I was also pretty depressed. Of course, moving down here I am really, extremely near my best friend. Whenever I want someone to talk to, or knit with, or anything else, she is right here. So, I have been pretty happy.

However, today I was in the grips of some kind of black despair. I don't know what triggered it. When it happens, it is like someone rolling you up in a black curtain. Your insides ache, you are extremely sad if you are lucky, but don't care about anything if you are not lucky. I was the kind that was sad, luckily for me, or I would probably still be in it. I heard a commercial on the radio when coming back from taking Sylvia's notebook to her at work. It was an ad for people with diabetic neuropathy to take part in a pain medication test. My father died in 2001 from complications from Type I diabetes. The last 3 or 4 years of his life were in constant pain from the neuropathy in his legs. This is when the diabetes causes the myelin sheath over your nerves to break down. You literally have naked nerves in your legs. At least, thats how it was explained to me. When he was alive, there was no pain medication for it. Somehow, hearing that commercial set off something in me. As I was driving to school, I began sobbing. It was strange, because I haven't cried about anything for a long time, except when I saw "Gaza Strip" last week. Then later, after I got out of school, I was still feeling pretty sad. I called my mom to ask her about my car insurance, because her friend is our insurance person. She began talking about something involving work, just venting like she often does. She does janitorial work, makes less than this physically demanding work should allow, and has no benefits: vacation, medical, dental, 401K, nothing. Again, I just lost it. She asked me what was wrong, she probably thought I was off my rocker. I explained to her how angry I was at how she was treated, how she is so tired, has no prospect of retirement, etc etc. She agreed with me, but told me not to worry about it. OF COURSE I AM WORRIED ABOUT IT. She is my mother, you take care of your parents because you love them, and they took care of you. Sometimes I am so scared that I will not make enough money to take care of her when she can't work anymore. It's probably one of my biggest worries.

So, sorry for such a downer post. Next time I will post about the fabulous 80s party. I'm still sad, but Sylvie and I browsed some knit magazines at Barnes and Noble then did karaoke for 2 hours. I feel a little better.