Fadedwords

I’ve had the kind of day the requires a brownie with chocolate frosting on it, so that’s what I’m having.  I learned months ago that sometimes you just need something, and if you deny yourself you end up feeling bitter about WW and about weight loss and then you make even worse choices than the brownie would have been originally.

I have a conference this week in Greensboro; I thought I had filled out paperwork to get cleared to be out Tuesday-Friday.  Apparently I made a mistake, and I received four phone calls this morning before I was actually near my phone to answer.  It was the secretary at school asking if I was going to be absent today.  Long story short- I had to come in to work for half the day so I wouldn’t lose a whole sick day.  It means I won’t be able to leave for Greensboro until 4ish, which means rush hour traffic and driving after dark.  100% not excited about any of those things.  I really wanted to just get there and deal with registration and all that today.

Brightside of everything is that today is a teacher work day, so no students.  I’m glad about this because I’m just not in the frame of mind to deal with the kiddos today.  I love them and enjoy working with them… but like I said: it’s a frosted brownie day.  That’s no place for small children.

So.  Today was a friend’s daughter’s birthday.  I also needed to get my oil changed.  I took care of all of that, and had a great time at the party.  Then my friend BC asked if I wanted to go see Nights in Rodanthe, which I did.  We went to her apartment and found a showtime, went and got dinner, and I got a fairly inexpensive Halloween costume.  The movie was fabulous (bring many tissues if you’re going to see it), and then I came home.

I got on line to check my bank account, because I knew it’d be a little low.  I was somewhat surprised to see $0.00 as my checking account balance.

Apparently Sch*0lastic did not charge my debit card immediately when I paid for two books I bought at the book fair.  Instead of charging immediately, which 99.999% of companies do, they charged my card today.  So I had been budgeting under the impression that I had already spent that money, and I had not been charged yet.  So that money came out today.

I’ve had to transfer $100 from savings to cover me “just in case” until pay day, which is Tuesday.  But I’ve also had to come to a very difficult decision.

I’m going to have to give up horseback riding.  The past two months trying to save for lessons have been terrible.  By the end of the month I’m in panic mode because I don’t have any money left.  As much as I love riding and hate the thought of not doing it, it’s not responsible to do it.  I should be paying my bills, helping Jake with major household stuff, taking care of Merlin, and saving whatever is left over after that.  Right now my bills are being paid, albeit not all of them on time every month (my student loan payment is due the 28th of the month, and sometimes I don’t get paid til the 28th of the month).  I help Jake with what I can, but anything beyond basic bills is something I can’t help with… and sometimes even the basics don’t work.  And poor Merlin has had something eating at his skin for the past few weeks, and I cannot afford to take him to the vet to get it checked out.  I’m barely putting anything into savings, and the past two months I have been withdrawing from savings to cover checking.

It’s just not working.

So maybe in another year or so when I have my credit card debt paid down and my one student loan closer to paid off I can look at this again.  Right now it’s just not working.  I’m sick of living like this, and the only thing that is expendable in my budget is riding.

I don’t even know what their refund policy is… it’s quite possible (and likely) that I will be told that they don’t do refunds.  We’ll see on that.  I’ll be emailing the director of the academy to ask.

Today is a day that I wish I had gone to a state school, never gotten a credit card, or gotten a job that paid me enough to pay my bills easily.  None of those things is the case, so I have to give up the one thing I love more than anything else to be an adult.

Being an adult sucks.

Clearly I haven’t been writing all that often here.  I think I mentioned before that I wasn’t feeling in the mood.  If not, there you have it: I haven’t been in the mood to write.

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I really love being able to ride again.  But it’s hard not to feel like crap when my new instructor won’t even let me canter yet.  I don’t know what the heck the problem is, but she won’t let me canter.  Apparently I had nothing to worry about with jumping; that’s a long way off from the looks of things.

I’m down today.  I’m frustrated.  There are so many things that are not going the way I wish they were, and I can’t seem to fix any of them.  I no longer know what to do about any of it.  Riding was just the icing on the cake today.

I am in an incredibly rough position financially. Like… incredibly rough. After car payment and cell phone bill, I will have $63 in my checking account that is supposed to last me until the end of the month. That doesn’t include groceries that need to be purchased to get me through, or Weight Watchers cost. It doesn’t include the fact that my car is nearly on empty and I have to put gas in it. It also doesn’t include the fact that my student loans are due on the 27th, and I don’t get paid until the 28th… and that’s another $163 that I don’t have.

I don’t know what I’m going to do.

I have a very small amount of money in my savings account that is not spoken for. If I take it out to get through this month, that means I have to start over trying to save. There is more money in that account, but it is money I have been putting aside for horseback riding. If I spend that, I will have to cancel riding.

Jake owes me money for groceries, and I feel bad even thinking about it because I know that I have left him hanging on bills in the past. But I know that that $100 would help substantially. I should be geting a mileage reimbursement check next Wednesday for about $102, and I should also be getting a check for providing homebound service… but I don’t know how much that will be for. Those things will help a great deal. But they don’t help me right now.

I am so sick of living like this. I am always struggling, always unable to do anything fun for myself… always worrying. And I don’t know how to fix it. I could cut out Weight Watchers… but damnit it is the only thing that works. Then there’s riding… and I guess that’s what I should not do. But then I think about how much I love that and how it’s the only God damn thing that I love doing. And I think I need to be doing it for my own mental health. But I can’t keep living this way either. All I do is worry about money. I never have any, and if there was an emergency I would be absolutely screwed.

I don’t have time for a second job. I don’t have anything else that I can cut out of my budget. Everything else is a mandatory bill. Mortgage. Cable. Electric. Student Loans. Credit cards. Insurance. Medicine. Groceries. Dog Food. Gas. Cell phone. Car payment. And I refuse to shirk my financial responsibilities in this house anymore; I have been an unreliable mate financially, and it’s not fair to Jake.

And I’m sick of being the kid that turns to her parents or aunt every single time money isn’t working out… which is incredibly often. And if I asked for help I couldn’t even lie and say, “I’ll pay you back” because I couldn’t afford to pay them back. And I don’t want to mooch off of my family; they have their own lives to support. If I’m not worrying about money, I’m feeling guilty and irresponsible because I seem completely unable to manage it effectively. I don’t feel like an adult 90% of the time, because I have this weighing on me all the damn time.

I know that everybody is struggling right now, and that there’s no way to fix this. I’m just incredibly overwhelmed and I don’t know what the hell to do.