"there is no mountain i’ve found here that i can move.."

when it rains, it pours. i am barely holding my life together with both hands. my SSI income is just barely enough to cover my rent with enough left over for a coffee or two if im lucky. and today i received a letter from my landlord stating that there will be a 4% increase in my rent. because clearly i'm not already paying far more per month than this tiny, cramped apartment with a multitude of shady neighbors moving in, no handicapped parking, and a flight of steps that seems to get longer every time i have to climb it.

i haven't gotten my tuition refund yet so i went to student accounting on tuesday to ask why. they screwed up and something was checked off as full time even though i'm half time JUST LIKE LAST SEMESTER, and even though my tuition bill and financial aid letter were completely in line with half-time. i was expecting this money *last week*. i said, how long until its disbursed to my bank account? she goes, 3-4 days. i'm like.. my bills are already overdue.. i've got a shutoff notice on my electric cause i'm a month behind.. her response? "start calling family." i just looked at her for a minute and then said "i don't have any." because that's much simpler than explaining that my family is poor too. that i'm not like these 18 year old kids who can just pick up a phone and have a wire transfer in ten minutes. do you not think that i thought of asking my family already? i've cost my grandmother enough money because of my shitty health.. and even she doesn't understand exactly how much all the OTC things i need cost. there's all sorts of things that i need or have needed that insurance won't cover. she wanted to know why i had to buy my walker out of pocket. well, i have no reflexive response in my left leg and both legs frequently buckle while walking. but we don't know why yet. of course everyone suspects mitochondrial disease, but it's not an official diagnosis. and nothing else that i'm diagnosed with at this point is justification in medicare's eyes for a walker. i take benedryl very often to help with my allergies and nausea. it works fantastic and it's much more gentle than any prescription allergy med i could take.. but it means i have to buy it myself. tegaderms for my pain patches. adult diapers. organizational shelving baskets and drawers to organize the insane amount of medical supplies i have as well as keeping dangerous things out of reach of my very curious cats.

how nice it must be, for people who can just ring up mommy or daddy every time they need money. when i ring up my grandmother for something it means *she has to go without* so i simply don't do it unless its a serious necessity. my grandmother has spent her entire life sacrificing for this family and i am shouldering a tremendous weight every single day of my life over how much i'm costing her financially, and how much i am costing my entire family
(not to mention everyone else in my life as well) emotionally and mentally. before i got so sick i had a handle on things for the most part. after i managed to beat back all the false diagnoses (including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and dissociative identity disorder) and get off the 17 psych meds i was on, and i was finally a functioning human being. six years of my life are *blank*--i simply dont remember them thanks to all the medications i was on simply because nobody considered the idea that i might be autistic until well into adulthood. i was officially diagnosed with asperger syndrome about two years ago and the only psychiatric medication i take is something for anxiety now. i've made huge strides and i turned my life around. i worked hard to get myself on a positive trajectory, to become a person who accomplished things. a person who mattered.

and now everything is broken. it's all falling apart. i can't survive on my own, and all i am doing is causing the people i love pain and suffering. i cannot think of a single person who wouldn't be at least slightly better off if i ceased to exist. all i do is cost money and cause worry. i'm a walking breathing human shaped burden and i hate myself for it.

my grandmother. my mother. my sister. my brother. my aunts and uncles. my cousins. my friends. i *cost* everyone in my life in one way or another. i don't understand how something so worthless can cost so very much. but everyone would be better off if i got hit by a truck tomorrow. people would grieve and then move on with their lives just like everyone does when someone dies. world keeps spinning, life goes on. i wish i had it in me to remove myself from the equation, but i dont. so ill just keep on going and infecting everyone around me like the plague, and sitting here uselessly while they suffer.

it's okay pluto, i'm not a planet either.

 “Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes, 

but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, 

because they lead little by little to the truth.”
― Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth

for some reason, every time a conversation about space comes up, there's always a comment war about pluto. today i saw the above image, a gorgeous piece of art that unites all the planets and pluto together as one. as i was taking in this brilliant image, my eyes drifted to the comments section to the right, and felt the wonder quickly leaving my body with a heavy sigh as i saw that, once again, people were all but marching around with picket signs saying "boycott nasa", and their rabid fanatacism about something they know nothing about beyond that it's name is pluto and it used to be a planet led me to this blog entry. i see this all the time, any time the subject comes up. even on "the big bang theory" the brilliant physicist sheldon cooper takes neil degrasse tyson (guest starring as himself) to task for "demoting pluto".

 and so i have to say to those insisting that pluto was a planet when you were young and therefore should still be a planet now.. things change. that's what makes science and the universe so beautiful. every day we learn new things, and we should be appreciative of that. pluto was labeled a planet when you were young because at the time, the best minds on our planet believed it was. but the best minds of today have a lot more knowledge and resources for gaining that knowledge, and as we discover new things about the universe, we must adapt to new truths.

we used to think the earth was flat, too, until the brightest minds figured out the truth: that not only is our planet round, but there are other planets out there that are too! defying new truths and information demonstrates a serious lack of ability towards adaptation. and science has also taught us that those beings which can not or do not adapt to their current environment are doomed.

instead of reacting like toddlers--kicking and screaming that pluto is a planet as though you and a test you took in third grade know better than brilliant, educated people who have devoted their lives to studying space--perhaps you should sit back for a moment and think about the beauty of discover, about how much information is right there at your fingertips, about the amazing technologies we've developed.

our grandparents went through life learning only what was taught in a classroom and knowing of the world only what they saw on the evening news or read in a news paper, if they even had access to those things. and here we are, with all of history, all of science, every single piece of human knowledge in the world, only a few pushed buttons away. you can learn anything you want to within seconds.

so why, in the face of all that, is it so very important to you to deny those beautiful truths? if you truly feel that pluto should still be classified as a planet, go to school. study the sciences. learn everything you possibly can about the universe and then go work for NASA and prove them wrong. otherwise, you're just wasting a perfectly good brain by clinging to falsehoods simply because they're familiar to you and more comfortable than forcing your brain to process and understand new ideas.

"Discovered in 1930, Pluto was originally classified as the ninth planet from the Sun. However, its status as a major planet fell into question following further study of it and the outer Solar System over the ensuing 75 years. Starting in 1977 with discovery of minor planet 2060 Chiron, numerous icy objects similar to Pluto with eccentric orbits were found. The most notable of these was the scattered disc object Eris—discovered in 2005, which is 27% more massive than Pluto. The understanding that Pluto is only one of several large icy bodies in the outer Solar System prompted the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to formally define what it means to be a "planet" in 2006. This definition excluded Pluto and reclassified it as a member of the new "dwarf planet" category."
- Wikipedia