Alone (I mean really, really alone)

It all started off as such a normal day. I went to work and Zac went to school. I had no idea that I would be getting a surprised text from my wonderful nanny. She said simply, "Hey! Call me!" in her text, with two exclamation points, no less. I was driving at the time, but still dug out my phone to call her. "The electricity is out  in the house," she calmly told me. I asked if anyone else's electricity was out on the street. "Maybe a breaker box blew," I reasoned. She checked with the neighbors and they had electricity. I told her to go check my breakers. She reported back that everything was in the on position. Then it occurred to me. I had changed electricity providers in October and there was a lag before they sent me my first bill. I got a bill due in December. Either I was in denial about the bill, or I misplaced the bill, or I'm a complete fucking idiot, I don't. The point is that the bill didn't get paid.

Then I got another bill in early January that was all happy and normal and said (I'm paraphrasing) "Sure, you were late on your December bill. Just pay the December bill and your January bill with this convenient 5% late payment fee, and we'll forgive everything. Cross our heart". So I believed them. I get paid on January 30th. I was like, "If I time this perfectly...if I write a check three days before it is due, then it will be processed on the day that I get my direct deposit and all will be forgiven.

What I didn't know was that they had send a disconnection on January 3rd. A disconnection notice that I never got. I'm going to give the company a free pass and say, "Maybe I didn't check the mail. Maybe it got lost in the 25 years worth of mail that I get from the previous owner. Maybe I just lost my f*cking mind" I don't know what happened. All I know is that on January 23rd, the power was off.

Do you know what it's like for a Financial Advisor to realize that they have messed up their bills to the point that a utility gets turned off? I'll let the irony sink in because it didn't escape me. I started crying and as Oprah would say, it was an ugly cry. I felt like a failure, not only as a Mom that couldn't even cook dinner for her son, but as a professional. I felt like a fraud. So I cried. I called Seven and let her talk me down from the edge of anxiety and depression.

I had two choices at that point: I could go home and try to scrounge up candles and flashlights and live on peanut butter and jelly until I found the money, or I could pack a suitcase and load up my Saturn with an enormous dog, my kid, and two suitcases. Yes, I'm not proud. In fact, I would challenge someone to find me a single Mom that has any amount of pride left. I tucked my tail between my legs, wiped the mascara off my face, and drove my ass to my parents house. Clicker came over to my house and took all the food I had in my fridge and freezer. Then I cried some more and went to bed at 9:30pm.

After paying December's bill, the disconnection fee, and the outrageous reconnection fee with money that wasn't mine, my electricity is back on. Zac, Sam, and I are back home tonight. When I was packing up my suitcase, my Dad said something along the lines of, "All these years, I've been waiting for you find your one, but it hasn't happened."

Alone. My Dad called me out for being alone. For not having someone that could make it alright when the power went dark. For not having someone that could hold me while I was crying. Alone.

I don't know if I've ever been more alone than I've been in the past two days.