Binding the Ties

As I stated in my last post, my mother Rita is coming down next weekend to store some of her personal items in the basement of her property, property Chi. I don’t really mind this, as I haven’t seen her in well over two years and I’ll only be seeing her to help her move the stuff in. Then I have to go to work. I think she’s also bringing her fiancé Andello. I’m actually looking forward to meeting him because I have good memories of him when I was a kid. He was the guy that always made the funny exclamation at church whenever the speaker would say something powerful, like “OH!” It always made me laugh, so I got no beef with him either, I just don’t want my mom to come over and start bossing the tenants around or something. Yes she’s the owner, but I am the manager. If it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t be making a DIME off that property so she has to step back, let me do what I do, collect the profits that I send her every month, and keep quiet with a smile.

The much bigger issue is lending the money to Rex. I ended up lending him the other $500, but I don’t like lending money to anyone. I wrote about this in detail in a post I did last year called Operation LFS. I started Operation LFS for the sole reason of getting everyone off my back about borrowing money because it was getting ridiculous. Rex was the only person that I would have ever lent money to and now I’m officially done. I can no longer lend money to anyone. The Bank of Roger is closed for good this time, and I’ll even burn the bank to the ground to make sure it stays down. Rex said he’s going to pay me back in two weeks. I believe him. I don’t have a problem with him paying me back. No, my problem is what I’m gonna have to endure for the next two weeks.

Sociopaths stick to routine, or at least those that are like me do. Every morning, I wake up and don’t get out of bed until I‘m at peace with the idea that this is my last day alive (I started doing this when I was diagnosed and throughout my treatments). I take a shower, put on my pathetic security suit, and then go to work. Once I get to work, I order the same breakfast (egg whites with home fries and wheat toast) then I check my bank account online. It shows me how much money I have and it’s a reminder of why I’m putting myself through the hell of working these two awful security jobs. Well, Friday morning I looked at my bank account and saw that it was now $1000 lighter and it killed me.

Security jobs are not fun. People look down on security guards and disrespect them. I have to deal with that along with patting down the nasty ass package handlers at the shipping depot, dealing with Annabel and her BS, taking ridiculous nonsense orders from both client bosses and security bosses alike that have nothing to do except to bother the worthless security guards. I do the jobs that most people find demeaning because I have a plan and I want that money, so it’s okay. I can handle the real estate stuff. I can handle the jobs. But if I don’t see the money that I’ve worked for, I’m gonna be crazy and irritable. $1000 is about one full month working at the bank job. One month of waking up at 5:45am to go to a place where people give me dirty looks and snickers at the worthless security guard. Twenty days of that with nothing to show for it?! Crap. The next two weeks are gonna be absolute hell but I’ll adjust to it. I get depressed and miserable, wondering why the hell I’m putting myself through all this and whether I’m doing the right thing. It sucks, and I have 10 more days of feeling like this.

What really kills me is that I know that I’ll have to keep Operation LFS going forever. I thought that I would be able to finally tell my family what I’m doing in Smalltown once I can quit these jobs and do my own thing. But now I see that it would be for naught. The pride I would feel would immediately turn to headache when family members on both my mother and my father’s side will be coming out of the woodworks. BAWO NI ROGER! O PEJO META! ORE ME, JOO, FUNMI OWO!! (“Hey Roger! Long time no see! My friend, please, give me some money!—in Yoruba). I’ll be like “Bitch, I don’t even know you!” (I don’t know how to say this yet but I’ll learn.) It’s human nature (especially in Nigerian families) so no one is really at fault. But when one understands human nature, one has to either plan for it or ignore it and rely on hopes and variables. I don’t hope.

I’ll keep LFS going. When I retire from these jobs, I’ll tell everyone that I graduated from college and am once again working as a teacher, this time in Smalltown. Not many people will try borrowing money from a teacher so I should be all set. And if they DO try to ask for money, I’ll tell them that I’m still paying back my student loans. That should do it. Rex needed help so I helped him. There was nothing wrong he did by asking me, and I did what I was financially and mentally able to do. But in the long run, I don’t think I can do this again for a long time, especially for people that are NOT Rex. Look it’s not that I’m selfish and cheap. Okay, that’s part of it, but the truth is that my money is strongly tied to my mental state. My mind is on cruise control because, if I actually stopped and took a look at what I was doing (two full-time jobs, running the real estate business, Project MFMA, and property management while living in what I can truly call a bat-cave), I’d probably jump off a cliff. I have to keep everything routine and if anything disrupts this routine, it could be a disaster.

Family is important and, despite my recent bitching, I like my family. They’re better than most and I’ve gotten used to them. From what I've seen, I could have done a hell of a lot worse. But no matter how big my business gets I’ll only be able to share my pride with me. It’s like that thing that my brother and sister taught me when I was a kid: Keep the happiness to myself or someone will find a way to take it. I was hoping that lesson was just for being the youngest of the siblings, but I guess it’s a life lesson as well. I’ll have to adjust to that too.