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That has nothing to do with anything. My visiting teacher said that to me the other day and I've been repeating it ever since, mostly in a highly sarcastic tone.
Apparently I‘ve moved out of sadness and into a really pleasant bitter-against-anyone-who-appears-to-be-remotely-happy stage.
(Of course, I’m not OUTWARDLY bitter, I just smile benignly and hold my feelings back, letting all of that nice toasty rage warm me from the inside. Kind of the same as when you’re really happy, but with more potential for stroke.)
I’m working on an extra freelance project right now, so as to earn a few extra dollars. I’m working late at night on that project and then getting up early to go to my regular full-time job. This means that right now I’m ALSO bitterly jealous of people (including, AHEM, my husband) who are consistently getting 8 hours of sleep at night.
If this is true for you, NEVER, NEVER tell me, because then I will be forced to resent you just on principle (the principle being: I’m tired), and if you ever stay over at our house, you will have to listen to me slamming bathroom drawers shut at 5:30 in the morning, in a series of purely coincidental I-swear-I’m-really-trying-to-be-quiet-so-you-can-sleep-but-OOPSIE-I-guess-I-just-did-it-again type accidents.
(These accidents are somewhat related to the 2AM oh-shoot-is-that-the-button-that-turns-on-my-alarm accident that I sometimes have when I come to bed and see my sweetly snoring spouse.)
(I’m really very accident prone.)
We were going to use the funds from the project to pay off back taxes, but they were diverted instead into our Fun With Cars emergency fund, so the net effect is that we still owe Uncle Sam just as much as we did before, but HEY, on the plus side, we now own a red ’93 mustang convertible that is completely paid for.
On the day that it became clear that we would need to use the money from this project (THAT IS KILLING ME SLOWLY NOT TO BE OVERLY DRAMATIC ABOUT IT OR ANYTHING) to buy another car - WELL. I just knelt down right there and said a little thankful prayer unto heaven, is what I did. My husband had to restrain me from doing a little dance of joy, right there in the driveway.
(If you’re not getting the sarcasm here, then please, COME CLOSER, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.)
My husband swears that the car is no fun at all to drive, since it’s old, and old, and also, Very Very Old, but come on. A red mustang convertible. This cannot be as embarrassing as he makes it out to be, am I right?
Somewhat unrelated: My husband and I are thinking about getting our real estate licenses. Just for an on-the-side type of thing. That probably sounds crazy, considering the market. But I love the industry and know it inside and out. I was an RE agent in Las Vegas for a couple of years, and was an escrow and title manager for five years, so I completely and thoroughly know the drill. And I have to believe that driving people around to look at houses (one of my favorite past-times EVER) would be a much more fun occasional side job than sitting on my couch creating technical illustrations and documenting software codecs.
So listen – next spring? If you’re looking for a bitter, jealous, slightly irrationally exhausted real estate agent? With a totally hot ancient convertible?
You know where to find me.
(You can hardly wait until I get this thing going, can you? I can tell. Man. My phone is going to be ringing off the freaking HOOK.)
PS: I feel compelled to say this: Eventually, when you keep on having financial issues, upon issues, upon issues, at some point, even allowing for a bad economy, and a failed business, and unemployment, and clients who don't pay you, and unexpected medical bills, and bad luck, and God (apparently) hating your guts - even allowing for that, at some point you have to look around and accept that some of your financial wounds are self-inflicted, because you have been JUST A LITTLE BIT of a (sorry Mom) dumbass. It's true. There has certainly been an element of that here.
But we're working on it. We have good jobs. We are roughly subscribing to the whole Dave Ramsey thing (minus the fanatasicm and mystical overtones). We are making very, very, very slow progress, most of which feels as circular as the situation described above, wherein I earn extra money to pay for something and it is instantly used up for something unexpected, like an exploding car, or tires, or a rash of medical bills for a year old surgery that your insurance has decided not to pay for, or, you know, damage caused by frogs falling from the sky. Like that.
But we'll get there.
Or else I'll have a stroke.
One or the other.
The end.
