Stopping the Whirlwind of Change for a Moment

This growing up thing sucks. I'm spending my morning on yet another aspect of my Year of Getting Shit Together. Today's fun menu includes finances.

I've been on the phone dealing with some old debts I finally need to face up to, and I'm waiting on a call about a tax deductible retirement savings I need to get done before the deadline tomorrow in order to lower my tax bracket for this last year and hopefully maximize a return. This weekend I'll gather all my tax papers and get organized -- which I need to do anyhow, as I'm redoing my filing system this weekend right before I do a 180 on my bedroom next weekend with new furniture and decor.

I've had a bit of a month of reckoning with money, realizing how bad I've been with the little I've had, and how much I have to grow up and behave better if I truly want to feel self-sustaining. Granted, I only have debt of about $3,500, but I have no savings beyond a few bucks... It's the latter that scares me.

Being single in a city like this makes for too many easy choices that eat away at income that should be saved. This constant upheaval around my apartment, too, makes me more likely to buy ready-made food rather than cheaping out and eating light foods of my own making.

But I've gotten the ball rolling this month, particularly this week, and have begun saving cash in paper and bank-account form, started a retirement fund, applied for a new credit card now that I'm confident I won't think of it as "free money" anymore, and finally faced up to an old medical bill I've been ignoring. (The trouble with almost-free medical provided by the government is, a lot of us ignore paying it... sooner or later, though, they say enough's enough and the shit hits the fan and they pull out their wage-garnishing tricks. I'm in action right before the shit-contact phase, saving my ass after a couple years of ignoring the one debt I knew I could when everything else was too tight to mention. But the reckoning is upon me and I'm dealin'.)

All of these areas of my life are ones I want tidied up a bit before I start getting involved with others. I don't want myself believing for a moment that any man I meet might be my saviour. I don't want any fuckin' saving, so it's time I stop needing it.

It's amazing how much life can go off the rails when you spend a couple years just hanging on for all its worth, while everything else starts going off-kilter a little as a result of the lack of focus on basic maintenance.

I've been thinking lately of my scooter's total choking as a metaphor on my life. I'd been keeping things running, even if just barely, for the longest time. Hangin' on for the sake of hangin' on, man, but sooner or later, "just barely" stops cuttin' it, and momentum all but dies. I figure that's about true for almost every area of my life, and it's why I've felt so desperate that NOW is the time to remedy it all. Maybe I'm biting off more than I should chew, but I'm so far making incredible headway with everything and I'd rather believe I can keep this ball of change rolling just a while longer.

It's nice to be getting everything, and I do mean every single area of my life, more together with every passing week. I'm pretty surprised at the progress I'm making, and I'm kind of excited February's all done with, because March comes with a lot of time off. Only six extra days off, but it means I have 16 of 31 days off, and don't work full-time again until April. Which is nice.

For now, though, I'm off to be a workin' gal and slog through another 16 hours this week, comforted by the knowledge that, a month from now, my world should literally look and feel completely different, from the inside of the house to the outside of my body and even in the fine print of my finances.

Weird. But cool. :)