finding a way

I hate my life. I am miserable.
I want nothing more than to change all the things that bother me and though I try to remain hopeful, and usually do, I am powerless to do so. I can't make enough money to support my child, because I don't have the skills necessary to get a job that pays a "family wage". I haven't really even gained any useful knowledge from life. I didn't even attend high school. I almost finished a two year degree at a tech college, I liked college. I want to go back to school, but have NO help with my daughter, and thus I have no one to watch her while I attend classes. I don't even have anyone to pick her up for me if I'm late.

Most of the colleges that I have found do not have on site daycares that serve children over five. My daughter is six. She is currently maxed out in daycare hours just for me to go to work. I love my job, and there is nothing wrong with what I get paid, I got a great starting wage. The only problem is that I already have a family to support. When your career and family life aren't parallel, there are obvious issues. It isn't my boss's fault that I chose to have a child with someone who decided to disappear, offering little or no help at all. That's my fault, I know. I was very young when I chose him, and I actually didn't know that there were people out there who were any different from him, or I might have seen through him. I really thought his behavior was normal.

I don't have very many friends, the few that I do have really don't understand me at all. I don't mean that in a miscommunication sense, either, I mean they don't have the capacity to (in some ways, don't get me wrong, they're great people, but let's just say our gifts differ), and they don't appear to want to. As a result, I often feel like I don't have anyone I can *really* talk to. I'm not very close with my family, my family consists of mainly my mother and my sister. There isn't really anyone else that is close by (or open) enough to try. Visiting out of state costs more than I can spare, and saving up only works if you make enough to pay for what you need, as I understand it. My mother and my sister are at each other's throats each time they are near each other. Any time we are all together, I cannot be heard, because I *physically* cannot speak that loudly. I have my daughter, who I love dearly, and I am very close to, but this isn't her burden to carry.

New people, I often have trouble with, too. People don't like me. They tend to come to me when they're upset, but they don't want to know me, or talk to me, or anything else. I seem to be judged very quickly (before I even get a chance to open my mouth) when I meet people, and generally not positively. Most commonly, people decide that I'm boring or dumb. Other people's opinions are difficult to change, and if someone decides they hate you that quickly, do you really want to spend your time changing their mind? Apparently, I'm not scary, animals and children (especially babies) love me. People, on the other hand... I love people, and I genuinely care about them, but they don't seem to return that sentiment at all. Normal social situations, to me, look like a bunch of people trying really hard to fulfill various social roles. It feels very fake, like they are playing a part in a play. I hate fake. Anyway, since I have no one to watch my child, I'm limited to people who like children. It'd be easier, I'd guess, to try to spend time with someone else who has children, since there'd be a level of understanding not otherwise present. It'd be nice to be understood. I don't mean if people would understand what I say, that part isn't that hard, I can tailor what I say to the listener's needs, if I know who they are. I mean on a much deeper level.

I'm too old to have accomplished almost nothing.