Sad News from New Hometown, Florida

Image by John Hain from Pixabay

 Hello, Dear Reader. As I start writing this, it's almost 9 AM Eastern in what I'll call New Hometown, Florida (as opposed to Miami, which is where I lived when I started this blog a decade ago). Right now the temperature is 77℉ (25℃) under mostly sunny skies. With a south-southwesterly breeze blowing at 5 MPH (9 KM/H) and humidity at 93%, the feels-like temperature is also 77℉ (25℃). Today's forecast calls for a high of 87℉ (30℃) and scattered showers throughout the day. 

I'm sorry that I have not written here since September 29, but as you know, there are several reasons why I have been relatively slow in creating content for A Certain Point of View.

First, as you know, Facebook blocked this blog in late March because some Trump supporter (or supporters) didn't like what I was writing about their beloved Donald Trump (aka Mango Mussolini or Orange Caligula). This forced me to create a "sister blog" over on WordPress — A Certain Point of View, Too — to compensate for that unfortunate decision on the part of the Social Network. 

At first, I thought I'd post on both blogs on alternate days ﹘ you know, like one day here, the next day there. But building up a new blog and gathering enough followers to make the effort of creating content takes a great deal of time and work, and because I have had to invest some money into the WordPress account so I could get features only available to Premium accounts, I feel compelled to focus more on A Certain Point of View, Too than on this blog. 

And so far, my efforts are paying off, even though the new blog is not as traffic-heavy as this one. A look at my WordPress stats page for the year so far looks like this:

And per my Insights section of the Stats page, here are my numbers as of this writing:

• Posts: 221
• Views: 8,610
• Visitors: 5,160

A Certain Point of View, Too is only a bit over six months old, but I now have 162 followers there, as opposed to just 23 here after a decade of existence. If it were the other way 'round, I'd understand. It's a  new blog on WordPress, a new kid on the block, and so on and so forth. 

So, that's the benign reason for my shift from being an everyday Blogger contributor to becoming a whenever-I-can Blogger contributor.  

The not-so-benign reason is that after nearly five years together, four of them spent living in the same house in New Hometown, the woman I loved and I are no longer a couple. The immediate cause is that an old flame from her youth reconnected with her on Facebook; he apparently has been madly in love with her since they were young, and the now Ex apparently wasn't as "in love" with me as it looked. So, even though I live under her roof, help with the bills, and until recently slept in the same bed with her, she's suddenly madly in love with the guy.

I should have seen it coming. From the beginning, we've had a lot of ups, downs, disagreements, and even verbal fights. She's an extremely sweet and generous woman, don't get me wrong, but she also has a serious drinking problem that stems from social anxiety, two bad marriages, and other issues that I can't and won't get into. She has to have at least one strong alcoholic beverage every night, and on the weekends, her favorite thing to do before she suddenly decided to hook up with her new boyfriend was to get seriously drunk on Friday nights (she has to work during the week, so she limits herself to one drink Monday through Thursday) and all day on Saturdays. 

I am not a teetotaler by any means, but I have seen what alcohol abuse does to a person on more than one occasion, so I try to not overindulge. I assiduously avoid drinking when I am unhappy; alcohol is, after all, a depressant, and unfortunately, I am rarely a "happy drunk."  

The Ex, though, uses booze not just to get over social anxiety, but also to cope with the stresses from work (especially now that she works from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic), deal with her three adult kids and their issues, and try to give me some sort of home life after the death of my mom.

That is our main source of conflict, although we have quite a few more, including the fact that she is a Trump supporter and I am definitely not.  

The other factor, though, is that although she and I used to have lots of fun together when we first met - no kids around, so we were intimate a lot - now...we don't. 

She still likes me, don't get me wrong, but she doesn't love me.

I have thought about moving, but there is no waiting list for Section Eight housing at the city level here, and there is no clear-cut information on a county-level waiting list either. And I can't go back to Miami. I no longer have family members I can turn to there, and I know for a fact that getting on a Section Eight waiting list there takes years.

So, yeah, Dear Reader. I am sad.

Overwhelmed.

Feeling worthless.

Alone.

Frustrated.

Depressed, even.