Bad News

My breadwinner lost his job, and the money will run out shortly. He hasn't had any new interviews this week. I'm coming down sick with one thing after another. I made a 63 on my last math test. I've hit the seven year itch and my relationship is on the rocks. My friend and right-hand get-it-done woman is leaving in just a couple of weeks. I'm grumpy, angry, guilty, depressed, bitter, and generally uncomfortable in my own skin. I think my mother-in-law may be coming to visit soon and the house (mostly my office) is still a wreck.

Life could be worse.

Details

Detail One: Yesterday was the first day we officially had a new home. The first article moved into our new house? The sharp pointy collection, of course! We'll be moving like madpeople today I think, and we're having a moving party the following Saturday. Hopefully that will get ALL of the big stuff and most of the little too. This is going to be complicated by how much Raymond has to be out of town though. Between work and family it's going to be tight. Don't worry, I won't try to move anything but cleaning supplies back and and forth across the street on my own. I'm very excited. I need to take pictures of the few damages to the house today before we do anything else though. Just to make sure everything is square at the end, whenever that may be.

Detail Two: D&D should not be stressful. But apparently it is when you have an unstable DM who wants everything to go exactly the way he envisioned but can't seem to own up to that, and is fundamentally incapable of politeness. That's the way this seems anyway. He's been very rude, and if he didn't have two hundred dollars worth of Rifts books that belong to us right now, we would drop him entirely. As it is we will have to pull a fast one to get our books back without conflict. Grr. We'll form our own group with Raymond as DM, everyone should like that a lot.

Detail Three: In my quest for deep and rapid relaxation this week between the hecticness of school and moving, I have finished five books this week. They are: the eleventh book of the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, Storm Front the first of the Dresden series by Jim Butcher (it's fantabulous), and the first three books of the Twilight series (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse) by young adult author Stephenie Meyer. I recommend them all highly, particularly the Twilight books. The fourth book came out today, and there will be a movie. Also, my adopted Uncle Vaz apparently wrote a book about the making of the movie already. How about that?

Okay, so I'm off to go move, and finish planning a coup. Unfortunately, no reading material until Wednesday. Guess I'll just have to write something.

P.S. If you have not seen it yet, go to Hulu.com and do a search for Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. Written and directed by Joss Wheadon, who did Buffy and Firefly, it is forty-five minutes or so of funny, slightly ridiculous, and highly poignant musical. Three Acts. Watch them now.

Crash

So, you know how you hit a stretch of good luck, and at first you're kind of suspicious of it because it looks too perfect? And then you stop being suspicious and just enjoy it for awhile, but in the back of your head maybe you wonder when the other shoe will drop? And then you hit that end of the good luck, abrupt or tapered and part of your brain goes "Damn, why did I fall for that? I knew it was too good to last long"? But of course, by the time that hits you, you've settled into a new routine that doesn't include the old defensive posture....

I suppose in the scheme of things I'm not that bad off. I've still got a new car. I'm still moving into a new house. But I've been feeling something looming, pressing down on me the last two weeks, making me want to bite everything in sight in spite of my good fortune, and I suppose I should have taken that as a warning.

I mean, I knew that things were going to be tight. However well you budget anything, little things are going to bite you in the behind with glee and force. There are bills mounting up in my brain, some of which we didn't need to incur, that will need paying soon, but we in all likely hood are not going to be able to pay them off in a timely fashion. I learned last night a number of banks have crashed and there was a closed session in the government the other day where they discussed the imminent threat of an economic crash of the U.S. I am disabled and a student and depend on a stable government for money, which will go away in the event of such a colossal disaster. Raymond wants to pull all but the money necessary out of our bank accounts so that we don't run the risk of losing it, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I am dead-level certain that not only will cash not collect interest, it is more likely to be spent than if it is sitting in a savings account. And besides all of that....if such a thing happens then we won't be able to depend on the infrastructure of the city, various utilities, the availability of food or gas or a thousand other things. In an economic crash, programmers are not in high demand, so it's possible Raymond might lose his lovely new job as well. That means we'll have NO money coming into the house....and we simply cannot afford that now. The only good things I can think of out of this (and they are lighter gray patches in a sea of black) is that I might not have to pay back those debts I owe if we have an economic reset.

Of course I feel like a complete wacko considering the collapse of our economy. That's a conspiracy theorist topic, isn't it? Except that one of the nation's biggest banks went under the other day, and there have been something like thirty smaller that have folded recently as well. The FDIC can't take care of them all. But in the event that such craziness doesn't happen for whatever reason, then I'm going to be left feeling like an idiot with a bunch of survival supplies on my hands and not the money I spent on them.

Even without economic disaster things are still going to be tight. I'm fairly certain we aren't going to be able to pay off either credit card or computers before they begin accruing interest, although we may manage the washer and dryer at least. Those bills are going to eat us alive, and the only thing we can hope for is a bonus to Raymond's paycheck, or at least to have his expenses come in.

Let's add to all this one best friend who is ill and in economic travail, whom I would like to rescue but can't because all of my assets are tied up in other things. I'm not as bad off as she is, so I feel guilty not only for not rescuing her, but for not being able to do it even though I can afford food more readily. Another best friend is heading for Japan tomorrow, and I wasn't able to see her one last time. I just hope she answers her phone today. Still another friend is leaving for Washington State in December, a woman who has been a steady rock in my life for almost the last year or so. I'm headed into a rough period of my life and I'm losing the two calmest people in my life, the people who have acted like harbors in a storm for me. I'm not sure how badly I'll scare off anyone else, and I know for a fact that too many of my friends depend on me for a similar service, or at least have too much drama in their own lives to cope with mine too. It is not in me to wish them anything but the greatest possible joy in their futures, but I seriously resent the circumstances that have led me here. Or something. I need to resent something.

And then there are the little things. I HAVE to get the litmag done. School ends in a week and I HAVE to get that work done. Moving has snuck up on me and I'm not ready for it yet, my house isn't ready for it yet.... Will I or won't I get a chance to see my grandparents in a couple of weeks? It depends on whether I can get a ride. Whether I can get a ride depends on how successful another of my friends is with his new business venture. If he is VERY successful, he won't be able to take me, but I can't possibly hope he WON'T succeed. I have too much to do, and not enough time to do it in. There are too many circumstances I don't have any control over, and the ones I do I don't really see anyway not to mess them up. Moreover, I'm back to wanting to hide in the back or my closet or under my bed and tell everyone and everything to go to hell. I don't even necessarily have my health. I desperately need to visit a dentist, but don't have the time for that. Of course, if things crash magnificently in the next few months, I might never get a chance to go see one, so I should probably MAKE time to have my jaw drilled into painfully. I'm solid knots from the base of my skull to the tips of my toes and can't seem to get anything to relax. All of my ligaments have tightened down to screaming levels over the last few months. My hip aches almost every day now no matter what I do, I might just have to start living on painkillers -- if they'll work.

I resent practically everyone and everything right now for various reasons, and want desperately to have a target on which to settle the blame for all of this.

And in the midst of this I am aware that my situation is still pretty good, comparatively, so I have that little annoying voice in the back of my head telling me that I'm whining, I don't really have anything to complain about, and I should just get over myself and do the things I need to do. Thanks so very much, little voice.

I'd better go take some vitamin B. And eat something. At least that will give me something legitimate to bite.

New Job, New Car, New House, New Stratum of Society

So I mentioned we were going to go looking at a house to rent in my last entry. Here it is, and yes, we go to sign the paperwork tomorrow for moving. Our lease with our current apartment runs through August, and we have given them their outrageous sixty days notice. SIXTY days? Seriously? It's the new management. We're probably not going to get our security deposit back, having been here for four years of wear and tear. But we'll still be more than fine, I think.

So, nice house right? It's right across the street from grocery store, so I can get food while Raymond is away. The whole area is fenced in and densely vegetated, with a natural pond nearby full of fish. The backyard has a deck with a retaining wall, and it is very, very private. It has three bedrooms and two bathrooms, with a decently sized laundry room and a walk-in closet almsot the size of our guestroom. It will, quite simply, fit us perfectly.

But wait, what is that parked in front of the two car garage? That, my friends, is Eve, our very own 2007 Mustang convertible. She's lovely and a sheer joy to drive, and still has most of her manufacturer's warranty. The buying of this car has apparently increased our credit substantially. Eve has only two drawbacks for me: she can only take two passenger's in the backseat, and the front passenger seat was never designed for passengers my shape and size. I don't know who it was designed for, but I'm going to have to figure out some sort of cushion system that works or cripple myself riding in it. The driver's seat has all manner of bells and whistles for adjustment, and so does not have that problem.

For the first time in my adult life I am above the poverty line, and it feels wonderful. The simple fact that I can buy a book (a new book!) when I want one feels jawdroppingly amazing to me after so long hating to window-shop because I could never afford anything I looked at. It's like stretching after spending a lot of time inside a very small box. And who is responsible for this wonderful change of events in my life? That would be Raymond, pictured on the right, hard at work at his new job after earning his well-deserved degree in a subject he loves. In January we began not only a new year, but a new life. I'm very excited to see what comes next, and quite determined not to make a hash of it. Wish me luck!

Amazing New Things

There have been some amazing things happening lately. I went to Raleigh to compete in the NCSBDC, and my schoolmates looked out for me. I said I wanted to go on the architecture trip to DC, and the money magically appeared. My classmates invited me to go to Virgina Beach with them afterwards, and I went. I received a scholarship that made a lot of things possible for me. Raymond's new job made it possible for me to go to Animazement this year, my first Con ever. Raymond himself graduated, and he alternates between working at home and going to Raleigh for a week at a time, where the company puts him up in a nice hotel and he is vastly appreciated by his coworkers. We've actually begun to be able to pay off our accumulated debts to family and cards, and set aside money for rainy days. I can buy a book now, and not have to agonize over every penny. (I still try to buy them used though. *shrugs*)

Much of that extra money has been sucked up, of course, by all the things we needed but were doing without, or by the things that suddenly broke into a million pieces as soon as we could afford to replace or fix them. The fish of gobbled down a great deal of it. Nevertheless, there was enough to spare, provided we are thoughtful about our expenditures large and small, that when the van began to die at stoplights and on the highway, we were able to decide that we had had enough. That's right, as of today, you are reading the blog of a person who has sold her soul for a 2007 Mustang convertible. Yes, it has a leather interior. Her name is Eve, and she is one sweet ride, with less than 8,000 miles on her. Payments are steep, but not as steep as they could have been. We crunched the numbers and even with our debts we can afford her, especially since we can expect Raymond to begin accruing raises after a year at least.

But wait, there's more! Raymond got a good chunk of change back from his company expense account. Not all of it, but enough to be happy making. And then yesterday, right down the road from us, a three bedroom house in a forested, fenced in lot directly next to a supermarket came up. It is adorable, very nearly perfect. We are looking at it today, because our lease is up in August at the apartments, and we really want a house. This one happens to be in our price range.

I tend not to believe in coincidences. Thank you, Universe, for the helping hand up the ladder. I surely do appreciate it.

Flowering of the Rose (or the Thistle)

It is raining outside. But I am okay with that, because it's a lovely, gentle, spring rain. It is officially spring-like outside, with the light, intermittent little droplets wetting the ground just enough to mingle the smell of warm damp pavement with the powdery scent of ornamental pear trees in full bloom. There is a brisk little breeze, gusting in a game attempt to become a full-blown wind, but though the blossom laden branches jitter and bounce, the tiny white petals still cling to tightly to their centers to be snatched away. It is an absolutely lovely day outside, and the feeling of real, honest to-goodness SPRING in the air fills me with delight. Even better, I have come home to an apartment empty of people, where I can relax and unwind for a few hours all by myself. Furthermore, although I am alone, I have walked through the door to the sound of one of my favorite music tracks playing from Raymond's computer. I know he must have done it to welcome me home, all the way from Raleigh, and I am still smiling for it.

My moods of late have been rather volatile and mixed. I love being here by myself, I really do. I feel so much...freer, I guess, to do and be and feel whatever I like. I'm far more relaxed. Oddly, I find myself wanting to share this feeling of relaxation and release with Raymond....but since it arises out of being ALONE, I'm not really sure how I can do that.

Strange how we can both cherish and resent those things in our lives which we hold the most dear. My solitude. My husband. My sight. My dear friend Relaeh. Writing Club. Even reading. People and things I have agreed to and WANT to have and be with and do. There are not enough hours in the day, in the week, in the MONTH to do it all justice and not feel depleted. And I am constantly reminded, when I get the urge to DO something, that I am held hostage by my sight. Sometimes all I want to do is hop in a car and drive MYSELF downtown to buy a cup of tea, or a book, or an ice cream cone. But I can't. There are always people attached to my travel, husband/friends/busdriver.... I cannot simply walk out the door and go. Oh sure, I can WALK some places. But that takes far more effort than suppressing the desire to go somewhere. And no matter how accommodating the people in my life profess to be, I still feel guilty about asking them to interrupt their own life-streams to take me this place or that. I want to do things on my own, and not inconvenience anyone. Especially not myself.

What would it be like, really, to be completely my own person? The master of my own destiny, queen of my abode and captain of my own ship? What would it be like to be completely in charge of my own person, my own life, and absolutely no one else's?

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy to be married. I'm very happy to be of such help to my very dear friend and to share her conversation and her company. I'm ecstatic to have the people of the Writing Club shower me twice a week with their prose and poetry. But I simply can't seem to shake this subtle, pervasive feeling of being tied, trapped, held hostage against my good behavior. I want to live and be and do the things that I want. I want to be like this lady in "Eat, Pray, Love", and drop everything not fullfilling in favor of a wild adventure into the core of my own being and drive.

Is this a faze? Do I need to fix it? Am I broken? I used to feel as if I were here almost solely for the benefit of other people. I was here to serve them, to give everyone every part of me I possibly could. I believed I was here purely to HELP everyone.

But I don't want to help everyone now. I feel rather like I've done my time and been burnt to a crisp in the process. I need some tender-loving care dammit, and I DON'T need those closest to me saying silly, self-centered things like "You haven't stopped for a single moment to spend time with me today", or "Why don't you want to stay over at my house?". Really now people, I've spent the last CHUNK of my life giving you everything I had. Please, can't you do me the courtesy of backing off? My answer is simply "I was doing something else that I wanted to do" and "Because I just don't want to be there." Take it or leave it folks, I'm about done with being guilty and diplomatic. I NEED my space. I NEED to do my own thing, and sometimes that includes you, and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes it includes other people NOT you. I've given as many people as I could all the understanding and compassion, time and energy, love and life-force I could possibly manage for years. I don't think it's really unreasonable that I get just a little of that reflected back on me in return.

I love you. I really, really do. I promise that this is a phase, and I will get over it. It might take a year or two, but I WILL balance out. That's not really a very long time in the scheme of things. So as you love me back, do us all a favor and just LET ME GO. Share your life with me sure, I want to know. But support me in my exploration and experimentations. Let me learn what it is to be a strong individual.

I want to learn to be myself. LET ME.