Defeated

I'm tired. I'm so tired of fighting the system that I'm done, I've given up, I'm waving the white flag. Yesterday, I got a letter from Maccabi saying that my health insurance has been cancelled. Apparently, Bituach Liumi (the National Insurance Agency) no longer recognizes that I made Aliyah and therefore, all health insurance privileges have been revoked. Now, I could understand that this happens to someone who doesn't pay their bills. But folks, I literally got a bill from Bituach Liumi the other day and we paid it immediately. I even have all the codes to prove that I paid my bills. So, what the hell went wrong?

First, we called Maccabi and the person on the phone said that he didn't know the answer because that information wasn't available to him on "his system". When pressed, he claimed that Maccabi has many systems and all are not accessible to everyone, and my situation was on someone else's system in the Aggrippas office. Well, we had to wait until today to call the Aggrippas Maccabi phone number and ask about the situation. They looked into it and told us that it was a Bituach Liumi problem. So, Buggy called Bituach Liumi to ask what's up and they said "they're looking into it". They didn't tell him when they would get back to him, they didn't allude to the fact that anything was even wrong to begin with. They didn't even tell him when we can expect the problem to be fixed. And so, I am no longer covered by health insurance and therefore cannot go to any Dr.'s. Well, I wish I would have known this before I made an appointment for December 16th - I guess let's just hope this situation is completely resolved in the interim.

But, I'm just defeated at this point. I'm tired of fighting every single thing in this Country. I'm getting it from school, I get it from all the of the government agencies, I get it from my bank and the contractor and anyone and everyone. I'm fighting to get my license and I've been doing that since October. It seems like the only one I'm not fighting with is Buggy, and all I can say is B"H for that. I'm even fighting myself to get out of bed these days, today was particularly rough. Buggy had to be up and out of the apartment early, so for his sake I got up and made him lunch and breakfast. I waited in the living room until he was finished davening and then, as soon as he walked out the door, I went back to my bed. I tried to go back to sleep, but it didn't come, and so I started writing instead. Fortunately, I wrote about 5 pages of a new story and so at least I felt accomplished, but it still didn't make getting out of bed later on any easier.

The thought of raising children in this Country absolutely frightens me and, with no way of opting out, I wonder what I can do to make things better?

The storm clouds are rolling in and the apartment is quite cold. I'm too miserable to turn on the heat and so I just put on another sweatshirt and try to get warm. The only task I left myself to do today is work on a spreadsheet of expenses that my Father requested early this morning. I'm biding my time - there's at least another 10 hours to my day and I don't want to do things all at once. At least I still have to make dinner, that's something else I can do with myself.

I wish I knew why it's so hard to live here. I just don't understand why these organizations are just completely ass-backwards. Well, at least I have an appointment at 4:00 p.m. so I have no choice but to get out of the house. I also have to go to town to deal with yet another bank issue. If life keeps going this way I'm either going to end up doing one of three things:

1) Hitting the bottle
2) Start Smoking again/develop a dependence on my Valium
3) Develop an ulcer

Fortunately, tomorrow is the first night of Chanukah and we have Buggy's big family Chanukah gift exchange evening. Hopefully the presents will be good. Well, at least I have that to look forward to...