She was born at 6am on New Year's Day,
In an alley right at the heart of where the homeless children play,
And the truth is that we will never even know her name,
Cause as long as we can fill our glasses up, we will look the other way.

And it's not that far from here, to New Orleans,
Where the seemingly forgotten people are still foreclosen on their dreams,
And we'd just as soon keep on staring at the TV screen,
While this world just bleeds to death like some romantic end to a movie.

Oh my God, this is insane,
How'd it get like this, or has it always been this way?
Oh my God, I'm so ashamed,
When we try to close our eyes and make this go away.

And we sit in our highrise apartments and complain about things that don't matter,
And we race through this life just to see who can die with as much as we can gather,
And a few blocks away a teenage mother plays Russian Roulette with her daughter,
Is this the best that we can do? Is this the best that we can do?

Oh my God, this is insane,
How'd it get like this, or has it always been this way?
Oh my God, I'm so ashamed,
When we close our eyes to make this go away

I don't think there is actually a way to describe how much love I have for Marianas Trench.

They are helping me through what is probably the hardest few months of my life.

More of that to come later, I'm sure. I've been really struggling to deal with the past week but every time I try to get it off my chest, I feel like I am coming across like more of an attention-seeker than someone with "real" problems, which leads me to believe my problems are pathetic. They aren't and I know that. I might post about it eventually, but as always it's shop-related and I'm on a downward spiral and actually pretty scared. I am hopeful things will get better after the insanity of Christmas though, and I apologise to all my friends and relatives who are going to receive cards/presents late/not at all because of the bullshit life is throwing at me at the moment. I'm also sorry to the few friends I've really spoken to about it because I feel like a constant negativity dragging you down and you don't deserve that. Especially you.

Yet again I've been delving into the depths of depression and I sometimes sit back and can't believe how much I'm letting everything around me affect me. I have never been like this before, and what's worse is that nothing devastating has even been happening. Trading standards, fire inspections, threats to close me down, sue threats... sure, I got angry and demotivated about life when those things happened, but not like this.

I remember when I used to be happy, maybe I am over-sensitive (well, no 'maybe' about it lol) and take some things too seriously but I have always overlooked the small inconveniences of bullies trying to ruin my day when I was at school or finding it hard to fit in where I am now. But suddenly there is this shadow hanging over me and it scares me because no matter what I do it's not going away. Some days I can't even bring myself to get out of bed, and then I open up the shop ten minutes late and someone has a go at me and I cry. Or the other day, I stayed at the shop until 2am and my first five customers the next day asked for the only things I didn't get around to doing, and again I cried. Then I accidentally destroyed the upstairs stock room and cried again. I feel pathetic.

I keep telling myself things WILL get better; positivity has always been a reasonably strong point of mine even if I don't always show it (I think I get the negative front from my Mum, heh), but it is getting to the point where I wonder if it will. I know what I have to do and yet every time I try to achieve it, something pushes me back.

Ash has been incredible. He's been coming in almost every day recently in an attempt to help me get everything done, yet every time I get half way through, I am stopped by a delivery or something going wrong or having to sort a few other things out. By the time I get back to it, I pretty much have to start all over again, which is exactly my problem. It feels like I'm constantly pushing to improve my life and it's not giving me ANYTHING back, and I think that's what's pushed me over the edge. That and I've barely left the house for anything except the shop in weeks; a mix of lack of money and energy. I also broke my laptop AND my phone which left me feeling a little disconnected for a while and probably didn't help lol.

I am praying every day that things get easier, but in the rush up to Christmas all I can do is surround myself in everything and hope that I come out the other side without going too crazy; although I'm worried that I already have. (and some may argue that I definitely have :P)

Today, I haven't gone outside for the first time in about two years. I've got my lazy bottoms on and I have literally done nothing. I probably should have gone to the dentist and done some banking and done this, that and the other, but it is the first CHANCE in two years that I've had to do nothing.

It's kind of made me think about what my life has become. The majority of people now have smartphones (including pretty much all of my unemployed friends), lots of my friends have been on week-long+ holidays this year and moaned when they've had to come back, some people can't live without their daily dose of Starbucks, and I'm sure everyone has bought new clothes with their nice pay cheques.

And yet I book a four-day break (Orkney next month, heeeellll yeah!) and people tut and say, 'not another one'. In the past two and a half years, the most time I have taken off in one go is five days, and that ended in disaster because God forbid I leave the shop in someone else's hands; most of my holidays have been a two-day city break. Bear in mind that I also often only get a couple of days off per month, I have forgotten what it is like to have a "weekend" - sure, I schedule Mondays and Tuesdays off, but in the hope that I might get one of them off. It's been a long time since I've bought clothes from a shop other than Primark, I buy cheap meals and ingredients in Tesco, I only drive my car when I have to, I have a shitty phone (not that I want a smartphone), I never buy make up or jewellery, and when I buy toiletries they're usually on offer in Superdrug.

I'm not coming on here to moan about it, I'm just stating what my life is like because some people have no idea how lucky they are. I book holidays because they're the only thing I have to look forward to, they're the only way to guarantee that I can get away from the shop, even if it's not for long and even if I worry about what I might come back to. Simple day trips are reliant on getting staff to cover the shop, nothing planned is concrete in case someone calls in sick and the whole time there is a chance of someone calling with a disaster.

I am scared of going back into employment, but I long for a time where I can take a whole week off and not even have to worry about what's not being done at my work - and even get paid for not being there! Where I can finish work one day and know I don't have to face anything for the next couple of days. Where, although I am naturally a saver rather than a spender, I can actually afford to live my life and not be thrifty all the time because I HAVE to be. I enjoy responsibility but sometimes it does get too much.

So naturally, it annoys me when people complain about not being able to afford something while they earn double what I'm earning, or have a pop at me because "not many people get to go away that often". The average worker gets 120+ days off per year (that's including weekends and paid holiday) for working 35+ hours per week. I work 50+ hours per week and in the past year I have taken 13 days of unpaid (in fact I have to pay out for staff) "holiday", 10 days of which have been during my "weekends". UK full-time employees are entitled to 28 days paid holiday, I have taken 3 unpaid. How dare you complain that I take time off? Or that you work too hard and need yet more time off? When I leave the shop, I am actually going to feel guilty for being paid to take a week off.

I think some people should count themselves lucky because they don't even realise. I don't count myself unlucky, I know there are plenty of people worse off than me, but I hope that in a consumerist, I-want-it-all-and-now society (particularly highlighted in the recent riots), this might put life into perspective.

I had a customer come in today (I know, mad things like this seem to happen every day... anyway) with his kid and bought something (another crazy thing which happens a lot). The kid had picked something up and the Dad went round to put it back before they left (which admittedly is nice, a lot of people don't bother). Cue the child screaming and screaming. No telling off, no ushering him out, just sheepishly picking the damn thing back up and BUYING IT. I almost wanted to refuse the sale.

He then said, 'ugh, he always does this. Starts screaming and I have to buy him things.' I DON'T KNOW, maybe it's BECAUSE you keep buying him everything he wants!? He's learned all he has to do his shriek and you'll give in. Obviously I said nothing, but after he had left, my next customer commented on it too.

The problem is, I see this sort of thing happening all the time. It's worrying that it's become so common, and these children will soon grow up to find reality is going to hit them hard in the face. And the sad thing is, it's not even their fault.

I think lack of discipline is ridiculous as far as the law has become, but things like this are just common sense, surely?