It’s after 3 am and I should definitely be asleep, but I’m not. And it isn’t because I’m not sleepy. My eyes are stinging like crazy. It’s just that I am experiencing some anxiety.

There are the obvious financial concerns. Like, I don’t have any money and don’t know where I’ll be living a week from now. I’m afraid my landlord is going to walk in the house tomorrow and demand to know why the hell we are still here. It’s a valid question.

So there’s that stuff. Then there’s the general “unwell” feeling I’ve been having. A solid month after I started wondering if I was pregnant, I still haven’t had my period. The tests said I wasn’t pregnant and I hope they were correct. It’s technically possible but not terribly likely. More likely is that all the stress has screwed up my cycle, which was never all that trackable in the first place. Probably my worse-than-usual diet, caused by being broke as fuck, is not helping anything. I seriously feel like I need a couple of Red Bulls just to get going in the morning, and my refusal/inability to pay for Red Bull apparently means that some days, I never get going.

And… I just don’t feel good about myself. At all. I got a brief boost after learning about the job interview, but now I am back to biting my nails and wondering who the hell would hire me for anything. That is obviously not a good attitude. It just seems like all my flaws are under a magnifying glass right now. I’m broke, I don’t have a job… And having always based my esteem on my career, I can honestly say that most of the time here lately, I feel like a piece of garbage.

The man doesn’t help. He’ll announce that my skin looks greasy, ask me if I’m wearing that, then spend all day ogling other women. Including butterfaces!!!  Thanks! I can honestly say that in 26 years of life, I have NEVER been more critical or embarassed of myself than I have since I met him. And yeah, I should have a high enough opinion of myself that no man can drag me down. But he’s the man I chose to be with — and, most irritating of all, he’s RIGHT.

My skin is oily and yes, I am wearing that. My hair is weirdly curly in some spots and straight in others, frizzy all over, and basically looks like shit unless I spend an hour with a curling iron or hot rollers. I am too clumsy for high heels and don’t like them anyway. I’m too fat to be a trophy wife (and wouldn’t one have to be married in order to be a wife of any sort??), my teeth are crooked, and thank you but no, I don’t want to get contacts. I am a dork. I have been known to wear socks with sandals and put my hair in buns… and not in a sexy librarian way. It’s a good day if I remember to use eyeliner. I am not and will never be any type of Asian.

It’s been made clear to me that nobody would ever want me exactly as I am, and the best I can hope for is to be tolerated, or to work towards some type of perfection. But it’s not just him… Part of it is Dallas, where even welfare mamas carry designer bags and get their hair did. In Missouri, I was considered eccentric, but because I didn’t wear ill-advised fluorescent tank tops and because my hair was all the same color, I fit within the realm of respectability. Did you know that there is a plastic surgeon in Dallas whose swimming pool is shaped like a female breast? His hot tub is the nipple. Seriously.

And the rest of my problem is just… me.