It rained here.

Always when it rains, I feel better.

But not this time…

Today I feel coated in something else… weighed down by too many other things left clinging.

Maybe it’s because I’m so damn tired of chasing and running after something, only to find that the financial reprieve I am working towards seems to keep one step ahead of me at every turn.

Only thing is, I’m not alone.

I’m a 32 year old degree packing creative who lives with her parents while holding down an important sounding but still part-time job, job. I volunteer the other 21 hours of my work week to a local theatre or to other creative endeavors, and I spend about 10 more on top of that glued to blogs I manage, write for, or promote… all (of course) for free, in the hopes that all of this writing and wrangling I do will someday help me land better paying, benefit-providing work.

And I’m not alone.

I come home at night to a very loving and welcoming house – one that I am eternally grateful for – but one that doesn’t belong to me.  I miss sitting around the house in my underwear, I miss watching whatever I want on T.V.  I miss having my friends over for Sunday potlucks, because I had to move home and far away from them and although I’m eternally thankful to my parents for welcoming me home, I miss my autonomy and I miss my dishes.  I miss my artwork on the walls.

And I’m not alone.

But while I sit and scheme and try not to think too much about the jobs I’m not getting, or the apartments I’m not decorating, or the health insurance I’m not permitted, I find so little hope in the world around me that I wind up wasting a perfectly lovely rainy day with doomful frets and angry fist-shaking impotence.

I watch President Obama try to resuscitate hope from behind White House doors and miles of silence.

I watch the Republican party tear itself apart to tear apart the present government, fueled by Tea-Party-Crazy and Intolerance-in-Spades…  I watch them deplore others for their sex or sexuality at the same time they claim to deplore fundamentalists who deplore Americans for their suposedly-God-given beliefs to deplore whomever they damn well please…

I watch everyday people cry out against, and climb over, their fellows in last ditch grabs for some kind of benefit to themselves…

I watch people loosing their mnds, and nobody can do anything to stop it.

Because nobody seems to know how to step up and take responsibility for anything anymore without leaving a handy little backdoor for themselves should it seem that responsibility was a poor stance to take on the global “How can I stay in power” stage.

And I’m not just talking about talking head politicians with too many talking points.

I’m talkign about us.

The screamers and squawkers and out-of-work pleaders.

We’ve got a part to play too.

We shop at Walmart even though it is a mecca of cultural bankruptcy, we embrace Netflix because it offers cheaper DVD’s, thus eradicating the need for local video stores, thus leaving us dependant on Netflix, and then we get angry when Netflix raises prices on us… as though Netflixian capitalism owes us some sort of moral debt for our support…

We buy books on Amazon.com because it’s cheaper, neglecting the local bookstores that actually continue to employ humans in our own community.

We endorse millions of dollars on legislation that limits citizens rights to marry whomsoever they love, and bemoan the lack of money put into our schools.

We allow politicians to take over the airwaves with multi-million dollar campaigns… knowing full and well that they do NOT have the “average” American’s best interest at heart, but rather their own self-glorified hunger for magazine covers and political fame.

And so, many of us sit on the sidelines, cringing at the emotional masses rallied by crass and extreme verbiage… and we ask ourselves – where are the likeminded and angry but still sensible?

And I know, this is a lot of complaining with naught of much else…  But I’m tired.

I’m tired of working my butt off just so I can linger around the bottom line.

I’m tired of looking for better jobs only to find that this “Employer’s Market” has buoyed the positions I should be eligible for so far beyond my reach.

And most of all, I’m tired of listening to all the idiots scrambling for power chew up soundbites and spit out one-liners that have absolutely nothing to do with me or my concerns.

I don’t care what party you hail from – just start making sense!

And stop shopping at Walmart.

I wish I could pause the world with my tiny voice and shake some sense into those who have the experience and the voice to start lifting us out of this damn hole we’re all in, but I can’t.  This country doesn’t work that way anymore… So instead, I haul out my beleaguered little laptop and tap out a series of words and frustrations that will be read by a handful of people…  And then I hope that this unburdening of my own wearied soul will make me feel, no matter who else actually reads it, at least in my own way, a little better.

Because we’re supposed to have more power than this, damnit.

But we don’t seem to anymore.

And that thought has seeped into my sails tonight, wrapped me in uncertainty, and ruined what should be a marvelous rainy tint on the night…