January

Boys had vomiting and diarrhea last night and so stayed home from school today. The tummy aching was enough to cause moaning and choruses of "I want my mom," in various degrees of piteousness that ranged from genuine to truly melodramatic. I had the fortune to be able to leave the house and get work done in a coffee shop around lunch time but returned home to babysit for a few hours.
Love the kids but, fed up with cabin-fever, they were little monsters. Had to physically carry Loftin to his room on my sprained ankle. Rational discussion with a six-year-old seems like it should be a feasible thing but was, in practice, not.
Me: "Hey buddy, I need you to look at me."
Him (head lolling about like a bobble-headed toy): "yuuuuuuuugh"
Me (taking his head in my hands and facing him towards me): "Look at me. Look at my face. I'm serious. I need you to make good choices. Do you think you can make good choices?"
Him (lolling his eyes and knees wobbling so they collapse beneath him, forcing me to release his head which then also wobbles unsteadily): "Yeeeeeeeeeeaaahhhsssssss"
Sure.
Me: "Do you think that you can stop teasing your brother if I let you come back out in the living room?"
Him (jiggling and wobbling and throwing himself onto the floor): "I want to be goooofy".

I'm trying to remotely access a university account to do calculations but the software isn't loading properly. Very irritated by that. I feel impotent. I can't get anything done properly. I can't develop my research and  I can't protect my invention with international patents because I can't afford it. The deadline is March...May? I can't remember. Then the international placeholder expires and anyone can infringe on what I've done. The elation of receiving the U.S. patent in October is dulled by the knowledge that my investment of time and money during the past ten years will go down the drain because I can't afford anything. The lawyer's invoices are in a stack by my computer. I don't even bother opening them because whether the price is $9K or $15K it doesn't matter. I can't afford to pay anything. I couldn't afford to go to the fucking hospital for an x-ray when I fell off a mountain. Now, I can't even run and get fit again after getting fat with hormone injections and inactivity.

I realized today how tired I've become. Not recently. Not because of exertion or lack of sleep. No. This is a different tired. Its set in so slowly I barely noticed it: a gradual realization that this is what life is going to be now. I don't get to develop any of the work to which I've dedicated the past decade of my life. I've lost time and, worse, I've lost the ability to trust and attach.
God, what a fucking disaster.