This is resonating with me. Both that tumblr and the one it's referencing contain copious F-bombs and other language, so before you click the link let me explain. It's a tumblr started by a fiction author whose blog I sometimes follow, dedicated to following her progress as she figures out how to run her life like a grown-up.
Anyway, it's resonating with me because hi, I'm going to be 39 in six weeks. This is distressing for two primary reasons, one of which you can probably guess if you've been following along here, which is the one where I really want to have a baby before I'm 40, but that seems to be becoming less and less likely to happen. The other reason is simply that 39 is only one year away from 40, and people in their forties are supposed to have their lives much more together than I do. I mean, seriously. I had every expectation that, by the time I reached this stage of my life, I would have figured out how to act like a reasonable adult human being who can manage her finances and keep a clean house and wake up before 10 AM and not call changing from pajama pants into sweat pants "getting dressed." EXPECTATION: UNMET.
Sigh.
So, it's been a while. How've you been?
I've been vacillating between okay and not so okay, but mostly, I've been okay. I mean, I haven't been posting here because the baby project and the diet project have both been hung up in limbo, the baby project because we have to make some major improvements to our finances before we can even go there, and the diet project because I can't just do dieting in the winter. Although I have managed to maintain my weight loss, so I'm pretty proud of that. But now that the weather is warmer and the days are longer, I'm starting to work out regularly again, and I've got my eating habits mostly back to where they were pre-holidays, so I'm starting to lose again, little by little. My current goal is to be down to a size 10 by my birthday. But when nothing is moving forward, there's not a lot to say about it; and the parts of my life that have had movement are covered over at my Profeshunal Writur blog. On a personal blog focusing mainly on getting healthy and battling IF, there's really not much to say when nothing is happening in those areas and everything is pretty much okay.
Except, of course, when it's not. And there are plenty of days when it's not. For about a month I managed to not think too much about having to put off TTC and to just be okay with it, but that's getting harder to do, and the not okay moments are increasing. There are moments like today, when we were on our way home from a mild spending spree at Target, the first time in months that we've been able to loosen our belts a bit and buy a few small wants instead of strictly needs, thanks to Husband's student loan money. And it's fun to spend on wants, even small ones, especially when you haven't done it in so long, and today was a beautiful day, and we were both in a great mood. And then Matt pointed to a truck idling next to us at a stop light, a really nice truck, and started talking about how he'd like a truck like that some day, and I just became overwhelmed with this absolute certainty that our financial situation will never improve, that we'll never get to have nice things, we'll never be able to afford to start a family, we'll never get out of debt, and we'll spend the rest of our lives just scraping by and struggling to hang on to the little that we do have. And even though I don't particularly want a truck of any kind, I became suddenly angry with Matt for showing me nice things that are so completely out of our reach that they might as well be on another planet, and it was all I could do not to burst into tears on the spot.
So yeah, there are times like that.
I'm out of work again, which isn't helping. Things were going great for a while -- I had some steady support clients, and although I was undercharging for my services and therefore having to work my butt off just to make ends meet, at least I was working, and the ends were indeed meeting. But then all of my clients left me at once, for various reasons, as always happens. Projects got wrapped up, in-house employees were found to possess my same skill-set, other freelancers were found who charge even less than I was charging. And while things were still going so well, I raised my prices and changed my business, and Matt and I decided that he would be my partner and be in charge of sales and helping me drum up business. Except we haven't managed to drum up any yet. And while I've only been out of work for a week, and Matt and I are still strategizing about the best way to approach potential clients, and we're going out tomorrow to introduce ourselves to some leads, and I know that these things take time and I knew that it wouldn't turn around overnight, I'm still having to fight the urge to panic and give up and undo all of the changes and go back to not charging enough to earn a decent living.
Anybody need some web design work done? Or know somebody who does? Because I'm available, and I could use the work.
But I'm mostly just thanking God that the gigs all dried up right when we got Matt's student loan refund, so we've got a bit of a cushion, and really, there's no reason to panic. And I'm doing my best to trust that the work will start flowing in again when we really need it to, which is what it's been doing without fail for the last three years. And I'm really, really grateful that we've been able to hold onto our house and pay all of our bills and keep the 'fridge stocked, and I know that we're so incredibly blessed just to have everything we truly need. But, man, you guys, just once, it would be so nice to be able to get ahead, to have the money not dry up, to not have to rely on cushions and to be able to make some actual progress paying off our debt, to be in a position to help people and give to charity without a second thought instead of feeling like a charity case.
But mostly, I just want to be able to afford to get pregnant and have a baby. That shouldn't feel like so much to ask.
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