Choked By Uncertainty and Guilt (And I want to Fight Back!)

I don't know how much more I can take. I can barely breathe and yet, I don't want to quit on living.

What's up my Outcasts.

Not gonna lie to you,I'm feeling heavy inside in my own skin.

Like someone or something is reaching up from the inside through my heart in my chest, reaching up to my throat and stripping me of much needed air.

Blurring my vision in multiple places...bringing me to my knees as I sit or stand.

I don't even know what to think right now as I go through yet another trial of life in the infinite Book of the Ronin,

but I know this much, if there's a book out there, I need to decompress by writing.

Writing from the depths of my soul crying out for a breather...for help...for an ear to listen..for my own release and understanding.

I'll be honest, I don't even think this will have any kind of structure like my other pieces because this is so potent,

but that's okay. That is how life works best. When it's unstructured it's real, right? Well at least I believe that when it comes to writing anyway.

My friends, I amin a choke hold from the inside from an entity I call Uncertainty.

I want to Fight back...combat it with all the positivity I can, but as a Black Man, a Husband, and a Father busting his ass trying to do his very best...

I'm terrified right now of the Uncertainty...the Unknown of the situation.

I'm no stranger to Uncertainty and the unpredictable. I've been born in it...raised by it in a home that was always on the brink of falling apart..something that led to my origin of the emotional advisor and savior that I'd become over the years. I didn't get a grasp of it until my later years, but I came to realize that everytime there was something good or stable going on under the roof, there would always be something creeping up to wrap it's arms around me from behind and take that shit away.

As a mockery of faith

As a reminder of impermanence.

As a reminder that no matter how much you smile or fake your happpiness, struggle, survival, and suffering would always be there waiting to poke you back into reality...

off the cloud of Jesus and hail Mary you were indoctrinated to accept.

The biggest forms of uncertainty I faced as a young child was the divorce of my mom and dad due to infidelity (and probably a whole lot of other things), and homelessness that came from the lack of support from my father that was honorably neglegent and battling his own childhood traumas at the hands of a Godly man and a woman that knew how to manipulate and use the Dark Arts of her soul.

You would think my mom was the shining light...she was...but the darkness in her grew with each day, though she never mistreated her boys...

she raised us hard with the understanding that you had to claw and fight and grind for what you wanted...and she wanted nothing short of excellence for her boys...something that would leave a mark on me and guide me to repeat some of the same choices and experiences she had.

Dad left, mom had to be both parents. Divorced him...and our safe little bubble shattered within months. We were homeless and in the shelter system within the year because our house burned down and no one in the family we had was in position to help...nor did they want to. My mom would scorn my grands about telling us "Let the church help you." One hell of a snub....but it hardened my mom even more to nudge us:

 "Don't trust anyone to help you. They only come around when they need something and then they gone."

Get an education...go to the Army...get free housing...get married...have children and raise them better than she did. 

That was the standard she set...but there was another standard I didn't realize was set until I became a parent and did all those things....I was bred for a life full of uncertainty and yet was never ready for it...I was never prepared for it...and something else....the Provider's Guilt she had no choice but to carry because she had No ONE...not even family that said they loved you no matter what and if you needed help come to them.

That was passed on to me...and it manifested in 2018.

The uncertainty I felt when everything I earned went to bills and swallowed up the savings I worked so hard for because I made some risky choices and my Wife didn't stick with jobs she picked up...Provider's guilt as a man manifested. 

I had to scramble to survive....and I was failing them all...and fast.

We lost everything....and I blamed myself for it. My penance, I thought, was to drive three hours away to work for four days straight while my little income provided my Wife and Kids a place to rest their head while I slept in my Car instead of living in a hotel. It was a sacrifice I decided to make as my entire world crumbled around me. Everything I worked hard for went away...I was left with nothing but my car, a pen and a pad,saltine crackers, water, and thankfully my job at Wells Fargo, where I could sleep in the parking lot and wash off the sweat and mugginess of a North Carolina summer night.

Fast forward a few years later...my Own marriage was on the fritz...riddled with the uncertainty of our bond.We got together but at a blazing pace. We were so happy until we weren't. We had kids we love, and we lost ourselves as well as who we were as individuals,or rather who we wanted to be and what we wanted. 

We split and the uncertainty of being alone with kids terrified the shit out of me.

It was my time to be my "mom", but I didn't realize it at the time...

I had the kids majority of the time, doing everything I could to make sure they had everything they needed - a win no doubt because somehow, though from different points in our lives, Wife and I were able to put our heads together to make sure they were straight.

Rent eventually got outta hand and so I had to move...that presented uncertainty in pure form. Credit was ass and I barely had a couple hundred to my name and had to come up with a security deposit...

But the Universe had it's way with a victory near Christmas day that year, when I got accepted into the apartment I'm in now - on the verge of leaving because it's hard as fuck to cover everything when you're the steady form of income covering mostly everything.

How ironic, my dilemma now is about us moving yet again after 4 years here...rent and utilities have gotten really expensive for me to handle, and she's been struggling to find work that pays enough to even help with flexible hours up here. She now finds herself on a flawed gig-economy with a used vehicle...at least she is trying her best to help out (tell my scared mind that).

So yet again there's the perfect storm of a situation, providers guilt, and the uncertainty of fear that lingers in my head like fog in the morning.

We filed our taxes and we were supposed to get them back by now. 

The plan was simple, take the loot and use it to cover all our moving expenses, including paying a month or two down on rent, getting some starter furniture and food, the bare essentials. This was going to be our year to start fresh with EVERYTHING, even our individual selves and seeing where we really stood.

But fate would have other plans in the form of the state hitting us with back taxes from 2022.

The IRS finished our return and was going to pay us...until they found out an offset was needed and sent the entire refund to the state...

for the funds to wait in limbo possibly never to be seen again even with a promise of them sending it to us in a check.

A check that has a chance of not catching us before we move.

Yes we still need to move, and we don't have the funds to do it.

I broke lease for us to move, which legally means paying the remaining two months rent, three times rent amount for a fee and forfeiting the security deposit (which would have been lost anyway because they would find any reason to take away from it)

So there's no going back to this apartment for the rent to continue to increase. I already signed the new lease and paid the deposit.

We're locked in - except we're not - money wise.

Uncertainty and Provider's guilt put me in a strangle hold again, society and mom whispering in my ears

"You're the man, this falls on you."

"It's your job to make a way to make this happen."

"You should have stacked your bread."

"You should find some side hustles."

"You should have multiple streams of income."

"You should have waited to move. It would have been cheaper."

"You're plan was risky from the start and now you need to scramble."

"You're not doing enough for your family to survive."

"You need to get another job. A better one to chase more money."

"This proves you're not good enough."

"You are on the verge of suffering again with no way out because this isn't meant for you to obtain."

All these words and voices, and it terrifies the little kid in me, already traumatized because as my best friend said earlier today....

I'd been here before....and  lost it all on my watch...as the head of the household. 

It's all or nothing, what do I have? What do we have?

The amount of angst I feel is immesearable.

There's deep buried shame even if it's a situation beyond my control and more than just me are going through something similar.

The fact that it's me and my family at risk of being homeless again is damaging to who I am...to my identity...to my ego, I admit.

I am at a loss as far as what to do...but we need to leave...and I don't want to quit.

The Wife is out right now doing her part trying to make 250 plus a day - and yet I feel guilty because I'm a man...I should be carrying the earning weight even though I cover pretty much all the expenses for the family, bleeding into the savings to stay afloat...

I know I didn't fail, but this feels like failure as a man...a father...as a husband in so many ways and I just beat myself up so easily..knowing that I should be grateful for the little things.

I know I should be, but it's so hard to pull myself out of my own misery of the perception of being shitty.

I can't live like this...neglecting the good and being hyper-vigilant on all the threats that are out there or in my mind. 

I can't quit on me...I have to fight this. I have to fight against the perception of me failing my family. 

Hell I have to start with realizing that it isn't just me alone. She is busting her ass too...crunching the numbers in a way only a Virgo can...doing her part to fix things...to honor my sacrifices and shortfalls to prevent the catastrophe in my soul from manifesting. She knows I Wrestle with the stress of it all. I carry the weight of it like it's just mine...and it isn't.

I am not in this alone.

This fear that I face...this strangling I feel around my neck...the shallow breaths from my lungs...the rapid pulsing heartbeat waking me up in the middle of the night...it all comes from the wounded inner child in me.

The parts of me that were abandoned or scarred because of how uncertainty influenced my life.

How scarcity was the ultimate big bad that always came to my doorstep because my mind allowed it to, and still allows it to because I don't see abundance...I see struggle all around and inside of me...a detriment of a belief that is taking every bit of will to FIGHT.

I know there will be victories and losses. But the victories blur with the lackluster, and the losses stand tall like a goblin hungry for centuries here to take what's theirs. 

Positivity.

Abundance.

Joy.

Unity of Souls, Hearts, and Efforts.

As stressed and as....indifferent as I feel, I know one thing. I cannot and will not quit on my family. I won't quit on me. I've been through so much shit in my life, there's no way that I can stay down even with so many losses I've taken in my lifetime. 

The Universe has poked me today during my readings. 

The 7 of Cups tacles about making decisions and riding it out with confidence that things will play out as they need to,not necessarily to punish me for existing.

The 6 of Pentacles, reminding me that I have help out there even if it isn't all fiancial. That my Wife is out there in the thick of it too doing her part without waiver. 

The Ace of Pentacles, reminding me that good will come our way. A seed is planted and that must be nurtured and harvested in its own time, not our time. 

And alas today's oracle card that told me to let my feelings out. All of them. Even the ones that scare me...and believe me I AM SCARED.

But I'm also Still Here....and that counts for something. 

That is something certain.

That's something to not be guilty about, but rather....grateful. 

Maybe that's how I fight back...showing up as me...everyday. Knowing that even in the face of the unknown that I'm here and I'm real. 

I'm #StillHere.

Still a #Man.

Still a #Father.

Still a #Husband.

Still a Good Person.

Still an #Outcast

And Still...The Ronin That Writes.