Category: Life

I’m OK.

~ riggledo ~ 7 Comments

Negativity sucks!  I mean everyone is negative sometimes and it’s to be expected and it’s OK, but constant negativity sucks.  I have a lot of negativity in my life, much of which I can’t control, so I try to control it wherever I can.

My work environment really sucks.  There are five people in my office suite and for the most part we all dislike and barely tolerate each other.  There’s constant negativity, often thinly veiled, sometimes completely blatant.  I try not to take it personally.  I try not to let it effect me.  I try not to participate in it.  I try to stay above it, beyond it.  But it gets to me, a lot.

The negativity and sheer misery that my job brings has really begun to take its toll  on me.  I used to be able to block it out.  I used to be able to leave it at the door.  The awfulness that surrounds me at work sucked, but when I walked out the door  to the office, I put it behind me and went about the rest of my life.  Lately, I haven’t been able to do that and it’s really beginning to take its toll.

I’m trying to find a new job.  I’m trying to find something that will satisfy and fulfill me.  I’m coming up empty and I’m realizing that the seven and a half years that I’ve spent in my current job have been wasted.  I have learned nothing.  I’ve gained nothing.  I have a title that doesn’t match my experience and skills.  I have a salary that will be hard to duplicate, especially in this challenged economy.  I need to make a change and I honestly just do not know what to do.

I decided I needed to look for something different from what I’m, well, what I’m not doing now.  Six years of progressive advancement in Project Management when  I’ve only managed one, very small project the entire time has prepared me for  absolutely nothing.  I’m expected to have experiences and skills and abilities that I simply do not possess because my job has never really given me that  opportunity.  I’m willing to take a step back.  I’m willing to take a lower salary  (though I don’t know how I’ll manage).  I’m willing to start over, if I could just get the opportunity, but people see “Associate Project Manager” and expect me to be able to hit the ground running.  People see that an “Associate Project Manager” is  applying for, say, a Project Assistant position, or a Project Analyst position and  they can’t understand why someone who is “clearly over-qualified” would want it  and then they move on to the next resume.

So I sit in my chair, staring at my screen, desperately wishing I knew what to do,  begging and pleading God for some sort of direction, a sense of what I should do.  I’ve got nothing.  And I’m trying so hard not to be a negative person, but my  defenses are down and I’m being bombarded, it seems, from all sides.

I’ve eliminated as much of it as I can.  I’ve un-followed nearly 100 People on Twitter, many because their negativity has been too much for me to handle.  I was spending (wasting) way too much of my life on trying to stay up to date on my  twitter feed and I finally realized that is just stupid.  So I cut the list way down.

I’ve been reading a bunch of people’s blogs, many of which I can’t relate to.  I’m cutting those down as well, not that I don’t find value and enjoyment out of reading the blogs, but I’d like to be reading more blogs that are things I can relate to.  I’m not a parent and I’m almost guaranteed never to be, so why am I reading  Mommyblogs and Daddyblogs?

I spend so much of my life feeling like no one in my life really understands me. I  spend so much time feeling like I have nothing in common with the people in my  life but instead of finding people I do have things in common with I continue down  the same path and hope for things to get better.  That is not working.

Lately, my life has been sucking quite a bit and I can’t seem to figure out how to  change that.  And when things get like this, I find it really difficult to concentrate,  difficult to sort anything out or find a solution or plan.  I tried to write yesterday.  I wanted to come up with some sort of post because I hadn’t written anything in  several days.  I started three times and this is what I came up with:

Mediocrity

How does one learn to be OK with…  A dozen words are going through my mind for what should go here… insufficiency?  Lack?  Ineptitude?  Less than?  Mediocrity? I’m not sure.

I’m surrounded by it though, and it’s becoming apparent that it’s a problem for me that is a big contributor to my own unhappiness.  I just don’t know how to accept these things as “OK” and go on about my business…

Teenage Lament

There are days I really miss being a teenager!  I miss the lack of responsibility and accountability that comes with being a teenager.  I miss being able to make irrational judgments and decisions and knowing that there would be no lasting effects from those actions.  I miss knowing that I was going to be provided for, no matter what I did.

When I was a teenager if I hated my job, I quit.  There’s another one waiting around the corner.

At A Loss

Focus.  Concentrate.  Think Straight.  Be rational and coherent.

This seems to be a list of things I’m not able to do today.  Not really just today but lately.  I’m feeling very overwhelmed these days with all the  things I’m not able to manage.  I’m so tired of trying.  I’m tired of trying to  be what other people seem to need me to be.  I’m tired of having other people impose their expectations on me.  I’m tired of having oblivious  people in my life who just take over my life and expect me to comply.

I’m tired of coming to work everyday just to sit at my desk and not have anything of value to do.  I’m tired of trying to find a way to occupy my time when I know that there’s nothing for me to do.  I’m tired of making the effort to find a new job just to realize that there’s nothing out there for me.  I’ve wasted the last seven and half years of my life working in a position that has given me no real practical experience and a job title that comes with more expectations I can’t meet.

I’m tired of trying to find a solution when I don’t even fully know the problem.  I’m tired of …

There are three, because I started one and a different thought popped into my  head.  I started another and the next thought popped into my head.  I couldn’t sort it out.  I couldn’t make things fall into place so I could coherently express my  feelings… So I gave up and played a computer game.  That’s always easier.

Besides, I don’t want to be negative.  I don’t want my blog to be a place where people go and read my negative feelings and get tired of dealing with it, and take me out of their line up.  And then this happens…


Maybe, just maybe, there are people out there reading my blog who actually really do care about me, and not just the laugh I may or may not bring.  Maybe some people reading this blog actually notice when I’m not around and have concern.  Maybe this is about more than just words on a screen, and laughs that are  conveyed (I hope).

So here I am.  Yes, Jody, I’m “OK” by a relative scale.  I’m well aware that there  are a lot of people in this world, a whole lot worse off than I am.  That doesn’t change my unhappiness, but then again…  I suppose it does put some things into perspective… a little.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

~ riggledo ~ 4 Comments

I was fairly sure things couldn’t get any worse.  A month earlier, I had been  laid off from my job without notice and without much of a severance  package.  Without a decent severance package I couldn’t pay rent on my Studio Apartment in San Francisco’s Richmond District and I had to give  notice to my landlord.  I wasn’t having any luck finding a job.  I was feeling  really worthless in the professional market and I was going to have to move  in with Michelle or else I’d have to move back to Oklahoma or be homeless,  neither of which seemed like particularly attractive options.

In an effort to maintain some sense of normalcy in my life and to maintain good habits for work, I had been getting up early (well anyway, my alarm went off early) so that I could listen to my favorite morning radio show and search the internet for valid job postings or opportunities.  Now that I was  moving, I had temporarily abandoned my job search in favor of packing and  preparing for move day but I still had my alarm set so I could listen to the  show.

It was Tuesday morning.  I had five days to pack the contents of my life into  cardboard.  I hate moving. I love settling into a new place, but I hate moving.  I hate packing.  How is one supposed to live their life while packing?  How do you pack when you’re still going to be in your place of residence for  days?  How do you decide what to pack?  What if you need something before  you move and you’ve already packed it away?  I’m terrible at this and I’m  always still packing the day of the move.

It was Tuesday morning.  September in San Francisco, is the warmest month  of the year but warm in San Francisco is not necessarily warm, especially not at 5:30 in the morning.  I was laying snuggly in my bed when the radio of my alarm clock came on and I heard the familiar voice of the female host of my favorite morning radio show.

“KLLC San Francisco, Sarah and Vinnie, Alice’s morning show. It’s 5:32 AM.  Let’s get right to the news.  A plane has apparently crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City,” she said.  Her voice was the same as every morning and yet it was different.  There was an urgency in her voice that I  wasn’t accustomed to.  I was still waking up and my mind wasn’t fully functional.  I wasn’t able to fully process the gravity of what had been said.  I’ve never been to New York City.  I wasn’t sure what the World Trade Center was, and I hadn’t yet grasped the significance of what had been said.  “Kathy,” she said to the traffic reporter in another building, “What can you tell us?”

Kathy worked for KCBS, the local CBS radio affiliate.  Her job, and those around her, was to report on the local traffic, but there was news reporting in the vicinity and she was the first to report to Alice’s listeners.  “There’s not much to tell yet,” she said, “It looks like a plane has hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center.  Reports are still coming in, but it sounds like it was a small plane.  Maybe a commuter plane of some sort.”

I was waking up faster now, but I still didn’t grasp the severity of what had happened.  Planes crash and that’s terrible, but it’s generally not that  significant a news story.  It’s usually a given that the passengers of the plane died.  A plane crashing into a building seems terrible, but still how bad can it  get?  It was cold in my apartment and warm in my bed.  There was no rush to get out of bed and start my day.  I decided to just lay there and listen for a  while.  They talked for a few minutes about what it all meant, or more  specifically, about how they didn’t know what it meant.  And then Kathy  mentioned something about an Airbus.  At 5:45 in the morning, my faculties  weren’t fully engaged and the term didn’t register with me.  I’m not sure if I even knew then what an Airbus was.  Must be another term for a commuter  flight like she mentioned earlier, I thought.

And then someone mentioned hijackers and three more missing planes.

I got out of bed and turned on the TV.  I knew it wouldn’t matter what  channel it was on because something like this would be on every channel.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.  Smoke billowed out of the tower and flames were visible even at a great distance.  I landed on ABC.  NBC had some young whippersnapper named Brian Williams on the air (where was Tom Brokaw at a time like this?) and CBS had Dan Rather.  I never liked Dan Rather.  But ABC had Charles Gibson and Dianne Sawyer on the air and Peter Jennings on his  way.

I sat down on my ugly, too small couch across from the television, surrounded by boxes and chaos, the clutter an obvious metaphor for the  state of my consciousness at that point, and I stared, mouth agape at this  tragic scene before me.  It was six o’clock.

A thousand thoughts went through my mind.  I want coffee but I can’t see  the TV from the kitchen.  I’ve got a lot of work to do but I can’t tear my eyes from the screen.  I should call my mother.  I probably can’t call my mother  right now, I’m sure everyone is calling their parents right now and the  phone system will be a mess.  What is happening?  Why did this happen?  This is a mistake, an accident, right? And then, as if in response to my last thought, the answer swooped in from the right side of my television screen  and seemingly melted into the South Tower of the World Trade Center,  shooting a ball of fire out the other side.

Looking back, it’s almost like I knew, if I went to make coffee, I’d miss something monumental.  It’s difficult to describe how I feel about this.  Such a horrific sight, a horrible thing to behold and yet, I had to see it.  I had to  know.  And yes, there were a gazillion replays of the moment of impact  throughout the day and weeks that followed, but that wouldn’t have been the same.  Perhaps it’s because I’m part of “The Now Generation”.  Perhaps it’s because I have a morbid fascination with disaster and mayhem and while it  should never happen, if it’s going to, I want to see it.  But I needed to see the  impact “first hand”.  I needed to be sitting there, glued to my screen.  I  needed to be watching the moment that plane vanished behind the already  burning south tower, and I needed to see the ball of fire, the billowing smoke,  and the plummeting debris that erupted from the other side.  And once it  had, I knew there was time.

I made my coffee, brushed my teeth and got dressed, contemplated calling my mother again, fixed something for breakfast and returned to the living  room, ostensibly to begin packing and quickly reglued myself to the  television screen and the tragedy that was unfolding before me.

Through all this, I listened.  I listened as they reported on the missing planes,  on the apparent hijackings and on the phone calls the passengers made to  their loved ones.  I listened as they reported on a third plane that had  crashed into the Pentagon and somehow, that didn’t even seem significant in  terms of destruction and loss of life.  I listened as they reported on building  evacuations in Washington and on President Bush’s relocation and the FAA  grounding all flights within the US for the first time in history.

Back in front of my television I processed this information and looking at the buildings in flames and the images of the people hanging out the windows in an effort to gain a breath of fresh air, I prayed.  I prayed for safety for as  many as possible.  I prayed for a quick resolution to the situations in those  buildings.  For the fires to be extinguished quickly and for those poor trapped  souls to be able to make it safely out of the buildings and home to  their families and I wondered what kind of renovations were going to be in  order when this was over.  How long would it take?  How much would it cost?  I was so naïve.

I wasn’t even fully aware of what was being said on the TV.  It was all just so  surreal.  And that’s when I noticed the image on the screen had focused on  the corner of one of the towers, where a plane had entered.  I realize now,  they must have been talking about the strategic impact of the plane and the  structural integrity of the building but I didn’t get any of it.  I didn’t understand what they were getting at… until if fell.

I was stunned.  I sat, literally motionless, until it was done.  Shocked, amazed, saddened, it all ran through me at once.  Was this really happening?  Was it possible, I was witnessing history as it happened?  Things will never be the  same again, I thought, we’ll survive and rebuild and move on, but things  will never be the same again. Little did I know?

At the end of the day, when I felt sure nothing more could happen, when I had seen all I felt I could stand, when I had to be done with it for awhile.  I watched Peter Jennings closing comments for the hour, and I looked on as  they showed a prolonged shot of the Lower Manhattan Sky Line, shrouded in smoke and dust, scarred and forever changed.

For days after, all the imagery was replayed over and over.  Maybe it would be different if that hadn’t happen but the sights of that day are forever seared into my memory.  I thought about including some pictures in this post, but as I write, and remember, I realize, photographs aren’t necessary.  We all saw  it.  We were all there.  And if you’re like me, even a hint of a thought about  that terrible day is all it takes to see it again, in your minds eye.

“We will never forget”, is not just a figure of speech.  It’s not just a rally cry for the patriotic.  It’s a fact, an undeniable fact, something about which I am simultaneously proud and tremendously, tremendously troubled.

I was fairly sure things couldn’t get worse.  I was wrong.

Eleventy-Billion Degrees With a Chance of Toys

~ riggledo ~ 7 Comments

I really love the week-ends.  The only problem I have with week-ends is that they are never long enough.  There really should be more week-end than there is week.  That’s a movement I could get behind.

This was a good week-end for sure.  Much too hot for my liking the first half, but otherwise pretty good.  Not a whole lot happened, really.  It was hotter than blazes on Friday and my little apartment with no air conditioning was still eleventy-billion degrees at 1:30 Saturday morning when I finally went to bed.

I imagine Mischa has mixed feelings about days like Friday.  His fur coat certainly didn’t help any in the keeping cool department and you know it’s hot when he doesn’t even want to sit with me in the recliner, preferring instead to sprawl himself out on the floor to sleep.  On the other hand, on days like this it gets to be much too hot in my bedroom to sleep with the door closed.  For that matter it’s much to hot to sleep with any thing covering me and without the fan blowing directly on my body as I attempt to sleep. Since the door remains open, Mischa is allowed to come into the bedroom with me, which is normally not allowed.  It must be quite the toss up for him, be cool all day or get to sleep in the room with daddy?  Decisions, decisions…

Anyway, with it being the eleventy-billion degrees that I mentioned it was difficult to sleep.  But sleep I did… eventually.  My alarm clock went off at 9:30 because it was laundry Saturday and I didn’t want to be too late getting to Michelle’s house to do my laundry.  I was hoping the whole way that it would be cooler at her house than it was at mine.  I always feel bad going off and leaving the cat in the closed up house when it’s so hot, but really there’s no alternative.  I open all the windows that I can open and still consider my house secure, close all the shutters so the sun isn’t shining right in and turn on all the fans (there are five) maximum blow and oscillating to try and help matters, but on these days it often reaches 90 degrees (or more) in my apartment while I’m gone.  Poor kitty and poor me when I come home to it!

Another problem with this situation is with the extreme heat comes a loss of kitty appetite.  He hasn’t eaten much in the last few days and his already too light weight has gone down by three quarters of a pound (10% of his body weight – I wish I could lose 10% of my body weight in three days, but then it wouldn’t be any healthier for me than it is for him) and if he doesn’t start eating again, he’s building up to another trip to the vet.  Don’t know what they can do, though.

Anyway, I gathered all my dirty laundry, and cooler bag (Michelle gives me ice from her ice maker when I come over), opened the windows, closed the shutters and started the fans.  I headed out to the car and loaded up.  I arrived at Michelle’s house about 12:45 and hauled everything inside where it was just as hot as at my house, dang!  Nothing like running a clothes dryer all day in an already hot house, right?  I started my first load of laundry and we headed out to lunch at Red Lobster, Michelle’s a sucker for Red Lobster and they had a shrimp promotion – plus she was paying.  It was 102 degrees in Vallejo where the restaurant was.  After lunch we went to Target and Safeway and got back to her place around 4:30.  Three more loads of laundry waiting and it was obvious I was going to be there later than I anticipated.

I put the first load in the dryer and started the second load in the washer and we sat down at the dining table under the ceiling fan and played a couple games of Yatzee!

While we were playing I noticed that her balcony door was closed and I asked her if she really found it to be cooler with the house closed up and the blinds closed and the fans on.  She said she did.  So we sat in the heat with the house closed up and played the game.  It was fun, but man was it hot.  Finally about 6:30 she asked me to go out on the balcony and start the grill so she could start dinner…

Folks, it had cooled off by, like, 20 degrees!  It was actually very pleasant outside while still a steam room in her apartment! We ate dinner and watched Race to Witch Mountain while I finished my laundry.  I didn’t get home until nearly 11:30.  Fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as hot in the house as I feared it  would be and it cooled off pretty quickly when I opened doors and windows.  At 1:30 it was still pretty warm in the bedroom, so I went to bed with the door open, uncovered and with the fan blowing again, but around 3:30 in the morning I woke up somewhat chilly so I evicted the cat, closed the door and pulled up the covers.  I slept until around 10:00 Sunday morning.

When I awoke on Sunday, I set about taking care of some household chores while simultaneously trying to keep track of the time while trying to not  think about the fact that I was having my first “date” with Little that day or the nerves and anxiety that came with the anticipation of that.  I put away the laundry from the day before, swept the floors and cleaned up the kitchen.  Then I cooked and ate some hot dogs while I watched a little television and then it was time to shower, dress and head out.

I arrived at Little’s apartment a couple minutes before 2:00 prepared to take him for a fun-filled (I hoped) afternoon of Miniature Golf.  I was invited in and Little’s mother informed me that when the Big Brother of her other son came over, they hung out at the apartment for a couple hours so that the Little Brother and the Big Brother could get used to each other and would I mind doing that and we could go out the next time.  It made perfect sense to me; I just didn’t want to presume to invite myself to hang out at there house for a couple hours.

I asked Little to show me around, show me his room and his toys.  We sat on the floor in his bedroom for almost two hours and played with toy cars, ninja figures a batman figure and a…  He said it was a power ranger?  (I’m a little out of touch when it comes to such things.)  Then we did a jigsaw puzzle.  “It’s not mine; it’s my cousin’s.  It’s for girls,” he told me.  Then he pulled out some coloring pencils and paper and we drew pictures for each other.  He drew a turtle, a shark, a dolphin and a fish and colored the paper blue for the water and he wrote my name at the top.  I drew a bus for him (he starts the second grade today.)  He said it was cool and could I draw a car.  So I drew a red sports car, complete with racing stripe and smoking tire marks where it had peeled out.  Then he asked me to draw a motor cycle.  I’ve never drawn a motorcycle before but it turned out OK.   The rider was supposed to be a man in jeans and a leather jacket with a helmet but by the time I was finished it was clearly a dog… In jeans, a leather jacket and a helmet.

Then he asked me if I could draw a robot and when I was finished with that he asked me if I could draw it fighting with Godzilla…  Quite the imagination on this kid!  I am, by no means a great artist, but I did OK.

We checked in with his mother before I left and she said she could tell he was more comfortable now, so I guess you’d call the “date” a success!  I asked him  if he’d given any thought to what he wanted to do next week and he said he wanted to go to “the lake”.  I asked him if he meant Lake Merritt and he said, “Yes I want to go to Lake Merik.”

So, next Sunday, it’s Lake Merik!

Slaying The Beast

~ riggledo ~ 6 Comments

Wow.  Who… What was that?  Hmmm.

OK.  Let’s talk turkey shall we?  It’s not really as bad as all that… Most days.

Most of my readers already know that I’ve struggled throughout my life with clinical depression.  It runs in the family.  It wasn’t formally diagnosed until  about seven years ago when I went to the Employee Assistance Program  office of my company for advice on how to deal with a co-worker with whom  I was in conflict.  I never did get the answer to my question.  The EAP person asked me why I was there, I told her, she proceeded to ask me a litany of  questions about things that had nothing to do with the problem and then  finished the session by saying, “Sounds to me like you’re depressed.  You should get some help with that.   Have a nice day.”  OK, she wasn’t quite that cavalier about it, but pretty close.

I was irritated by this, but not really surprised by what she had told me and with great trepidation, I did seek help, first from the Adult Psychiatry department of my health care provider, which was a joke and then from medication which was a stop-gap measure at best.  Even more to my dismay,  I sought out and found a therapist who operated on a “sliding scale” fee,  meaning the fee was based on my income and often, as in my case,  discounted from her regular fee.  My health insurance doesn’t cover this and  I am paying out of pocket for her services.  Its money well spent, but it’s a lot of money that could be well spent in many other ways.

About a year and half ago, I hit a slump and on the advice of my therapist I took a leave of absence from work and took part in an “Intensive Outpatient Program” for depression.  I was in this program, three days a week, for three weeks and I felt like it was a complete waste of time with the simple  exception  that it kept me from having to go to work.  Three weeks away from work and I was feeling a whole hell of a lot better.

Then I decided that five years on anti-depressants was more than enough and it was time to stop taking them.  I weaned myself from the pills very slowly to ensure there were no side effects or withdrawal type symptoms.  When it was done, I felt even better.  Actually, that’s not quite true.  Or it is true but  entirely too simplistic.  In a lot of ways I felt exactly the same.  I felt the same level of depression, same amount of fear about what happens next.  But at the same time, I felt good about having taken control of the situation, taking it  upon myself to manage my life and my symptoms.

For almost ten months, I’ve been “drug free” and it’s been going fairly well.  My job is still a trigger for me and often times I feel like crap while I’m at work and then snap out of it when I leave.  (My job, in a very real way, is killing me and I have to do something about it.)

This past week has been a real struggle for me.  Money is tight. I’ve taken on additional responsibilities. I’ve made some positive steps, but I’ve also had  to make some difficult decisions. And yes, for a couple of days, I felt as if the darkness might win out.  The interesting thing is I immediately started to feel better after I wrote my last post.

 

Through all this, I have learned something new.  It seems likely that the  depression may never fully subside, though I pray with every fiber of my being that it will.  What I’ve learned is that “happiness” is sometimes a conscious decision, one that I’m sometimes not strong enough to make.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not talking about being artificial or dishonest.  I’m not talking about pretending to be, and to feel, something that I’m not.  I know people like that – I work with people like that – and I hate them.  No, I’m talking about making conscious choices about how I’m going to allow what I feel to affect me.

I wish, with all my being that the darkness would turn to light, that the beast would take his last breath.  I wish that I had the strength to take that plunge  into the “molten thoughts” below my narrow path.  There’s a lot there.  I know there is.  I suspect if I could just find a way to tread those waters, I’d  find a lot of healing.

 

I stared at that last sentence for a long time trying to figure out exactly what I was trying to say, how to phrase it.  And the thing that kept coming to mind  was, “If I could just find a way to safely tread those waters…”  I think that’s  really the point, though.  There is no safe way.  The only real answer is to dive in head first, to take the risk.  It will hurt.  I will get burned.  But hopefully, when it’s all over, I’ll be whole.

This process of healing is work.  It’s hard work!  I don’t mean to imply that I  have all the answers or that I know what to do, because I don’t.  I’m still too scared to take the leap.  And there’s a lot that gets in the way of it, but I suppose knowing what’s needed is a big step in the process.

 

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I’m OK.  Things are moving along.  Some days are worse then others and I have some big decisions to make and steps  to take, but I’ll survive.

 

I will live to post another day!

Stuff Good!!! Want Bad!!!

~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

I can clearly see a correlation between my mood and how I perceive my current financial status.  I can also see a correlation between how I perceive  my ability to buy stuff and how I perceive my financial status.

I recent days, I’ve been feeling pretty good about my status.  Things are  getting better.  I mean they must be.  I was able to make a couple on-line purchases, recently all but the last of which have been received.  Stuff good!!!  Want bad!!!

This morning as I was backing out of my garage to head to work, feeling somewhat guilty about how late I was… AGAIN!!!, I had the thought pass  through my mind that “Hey!  Today is payday and I made it through with money still in the bank!  I must be getting better at this money thing!” and suddenly I felt better.

Three pertinent thoughts did not cross my mind.  1)  I happened to win $156.00 in the lottery on August 4th and that money was my “walking  around money” for the last two and a half weeks.  Good for me for not blowing through it, but still that’s money that didn’t have to come out of my pay check.  2) I only had about $80.00 still in the bank, which means if I hadn’t won the lottery money, I wouldn’t have had any money left by today.  3)  Those mail order purchases?  Those were made with a credit card.  One I’m TRYING TO PAY OFF.

I have three credit cards that I’m trying to pay off and not have hanging over me.  I got them all paid down at one point.  Not paid off, but paid down.  All three of them are maxed out again.  Damn it!

One of my many habits as a bad employee is that I make use of my internet connection and local printer in my office to pay my bills each payday, during office hours, of course.  It makes me feel good to know that I’m staying on top of my expenses and making them a priority and making sure everything is current.  I was doing pretty well for a while, though I did get a bit off track  when I went on my vacation.  So I sat down with my homemade spreadsheet to look at what my bills were and I very quickly realized that I don’t have enough to cover everything that is due right now.  By the time I pay my rent,  my car insurance is deducted from my account, I pay my therapist and I paid the bills I deemed essential, I’m left with very little money at all for things  like groceries, gas, etc.

My outing with Little has been postponed, due to a family matter that requires his family to go out of town this week-end.  I’ll touch base with his Mother early next week to set up a “date” and then the following week Sunday, we should be getting together again.  We’re encouraged to keep these outings cheap because it’s out of our pockets, and since we’re just getting to  know each other, I don’t want to set a precedent for expensive outings so I’m sure it’ll be something simple.  I’ll probably take him for ice cream and a chat the first time, maybe a walk by the estuary in Alameda.

Anyway, I started out feeling pretty good about my situation and by the time I finished paying, or should I say not paying, my bills, I was depressed.  Which brings me back to my point.  There is a clear connection, for me,  between positive outlook and financial stability.  I place entirely too much  importance on money but I really don’t know how to change that.  People need stuff! I need stuff! Often, I find myself in a situation where I have an  opportunity to purchase an item that I have been wanting and I “have the  money”.  Spending the money on the item may not be the best use of the  money but I can’t seem to see that in the moment.  I only see that I have the opportunity and the means to take advantage.  My rationale in that moment  is, “When am I going to get this opportunity again?  And I have been wanting one of these.”  So I do it.

I’ve known for a while that there’s a problem there.  I have a “negative relationship” with money.  I do.  There must be a way to separate myself from this.  There must be a way to better manage the finances from an intellectual  level without having it be a reflection on my life and my worth and have an  impact on my happiness.  There must.  I just wish I could figure out what it is.