Thursday, June 30, 2011

REsignation

This is my official resignation. I give up on what I'd grown to hold onto. It makes me unhappy. The brief moments of feeling complete and warm aren't worth the angst it causes me in the interim. And only me. I let you go and I ran away - leaving a fallible trail of tears and unwanted, unrequited feelings behind. And you came back. Stupid and hopeful, perhaps, but probably just weakened by months of emotion and being unable to process any type of feeling of "closure", I got sucked back in. At first it was easy, but the feelings trickled back to me like a mountain stream of melting caps. A wash took over and I'm right back to where I was when I had dreams and nightmares and grasped for guidance -- and realized I had to leave. This isn't healthy for me. I wanted it. I still do. And that's why I have to run away. It breaks my heart...pieces unworthy of your apathy. I'm a wonderful girl, but the angst drives me to madness - madness I'm certain you misunderstand; I can't be in something so deep and so alone. I have to run. I have to reclaim myself again. I'm sorry, my friend. Maybe we'll meet again someday.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Fettered

I know girls are suppose to understand their feelings - but, lets be real, I'm kind of a dude. They confuse the hell out of me too. Then again, maybe I'm a normal girl and feelings to anyone are that huge bug that gets in your bed and when you feel it crawling on you, you jump up and are all "WHAT THE BLOODY HELL, DUDE?!" and spaz out, running around your room naked with a shoe in your hand, taunting the damn thing with "I'm gonna find you", like it understands. I know how to kill a bug - but feelings, I do not. I can identify a feeling and then, depending on the situation, I have no idea what to do with it. So I kinda just stand there with my proverbial hands in my proverbial pockets, waiting for something to happen; the bug to crawl on my leg - and frighten the bajesus out of me - the shoe to drop, and then I spaz out. All of that is scary: The bugs. The feelings. The nakedness. It is so frightening; sometimes I just want to bug bomb my heart, so to speak. Horrible line, there. I think I just created the lyrics to a really terrible 80s song.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Stories

I've always wanted stories ("for the kids", I say). In the past year, I have realized I have a BOATLOAD of them. I have also realized that, while not everyone has the library I do, there are also many who take the city library over my township one. My stories, not all pleasant - and others growing out of people trying to even out a life that was brimming with WTF moments from the age of conception - are quite unique at times. Honestly, I really thought everyone went to Pow-Wows and taxidermy conventions as kids.

Turns out: Not the case.

I know I've talked about my last (serious) relationship a lot on here, but it is with good reason: It was truley life changing. I loved more than I knew I could. And then I fractured more than I thought was possible when it came to someone who wasn't blood. My heart broke: And then I found myself. Or regained what I knew and moved on, attempting still to become who I am (becoming more aware this process is always far from over).

Even before it was over began, I knew I wanted more stories. When I entered it - shortly out of my nearly 3 year relationship with the one before - it was with hesitation, because I wanted to "just be single", I knew I was missing that time of it just being me. I tend to be very partnership oriented. (I am a libra afterall.) Even in all of the love that I felt, I still questioned what it would be like to have the very Sex and the City Carrie time, to be alone. To fail alone. To succeed alone. To cry alone. To laugh alone. To live alone. To be alone; with no one to answer to, no one to care if I didn't come home at night.

Typing that just now sounds scary. But, my lord!, liberating. Free. Independence! As humans, to understand ourselves, to love ourselves - and then someone else - I think this is an inheirent need...at least for me it was. Is.

I spent my time in that relationship accepting that in order to be with this man that I loved, I was giving up the part of 20-something life I wanted so much to live first. I wanted the stories. MY stories. Not the ones the decisions of my parents - and grandparents - made for me. Granted, I love my library of youth, but this is my time, and I couldn't be more grateful to have these moments of struggle and strife and OMG! how am I going to do this, and I did it! and I'm alone and happy and I'm me. This is my life - and I'm making my stories.

And while I may not have money and a Scrooge McDuck fortune sized pile of debt, in this exact moment, my feet (and tires) are itching just to get away. And it doesn't take airplanes and money to make life worth living, worth telling about. I don't even care where I go: I just want the story. The freedom. Cause, while it might seem frivolous...I fucking can. And that's awesome.

My life is mine. All mine. And I'm collecting my stories.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Birds are assholes.

I repeat: Turtles are awesome and birds are assholes:


Wednesday, June 15, 2011

When Does Middle School End?

I was alone for a while. I've always had sisters and friends and people, PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. Good, this I liked. And then I moved away after college with only my boyfriend and ferrets in tow.

From 2006 to 2008, it was just me and him and the ferrets. It was lonely. Predictable. And depressing, to be honest. In mid-2008 I started to get out a little more and make a couple of friends. By the spring of 2009, my ferrets had passed away, my boyfriend and I were officially over and I was making friends, while preparing to be officially alone. Only, I finally wasn't lonely anymore.

This was easy, almost, compared to now. I collected friends for the past two years. Wonderful people with whom I fell in love - but it seems that nothing in life is every constant. I find myself, at times, missing the days when I would wake up, knowing I would fight with my boyfriend, go to school or work, eat, poop and sleep. It was predictable. Comfortable. No one was making me feel awkward or question WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH YOU PEOPLE?! I knew, even when the relationship was broken, at least I knew.

But lately things have been changing. My friends have been acting strange. I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. Recently, I learned there is this man-child (very reminiscent of my severely sociopathic dad - don't worry, we don't speak anymore) who I BARELY know (and can only see his behavior for what it is, cause I lived it once before...for 22 years) spreading lies about me - that are likely to come relished with believable back stories and details, al la Sociopath (see: 2 & 3) Handbook. But I have no idea what all he is saying/doing - and the why? Seven, calmly informative words: "She doesn't want to talk to you" - and now it appears he is attempting to manipulate people I care about to get to me. Followed, perhaps, by a few other people acting sweetly to my face and bashing me behind my back. (Seriously? Bandwagon much?) To which my friends react to me, not asking questions about whatever is said, but instead by giving me an awkward vibe, excluding me and making me feel hurt and self-conscious.

I'm suddenly the pregnant girl walking around school with a book in front of her belly.

When does high school end? Actually, I was more impressed with the maturity of kids in high school. When does middle school end? 'Cause it sucked and I'm really not in the mood to pray for boobs again because my "friends" are making fun of my flat chest (also: neener, neener, bitchaz!). I'm a good friend and human being (with feelings!), so I don't really deserve any of this. But I get it: Everything changes, but why on Earth, in our late 20s, is it changing reverting back to middle school? I have a problem with this.

Step away from the Intro to Lit. We're adults now - let's fucking act like it, shall we?

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Frugal Mable meets Budgetary Mary

I grew up poor, then middle class, then slightly upper middle class enough that by the time I went to college, I just exceeded the po­or-enough line to qualify for work study. So that was cute. My sisters did. Me? I was waiting tables and hocking beer. So I have never been an extravagant spender – learned from the best, maybe? My grandmother is very, very frugal and my mother worked with what she had. And she we very clever about it (whether she realized it or not); for example: When it came time for school clothes for the year, she gave us $200 and said “I don’t care what you buy or where you buy it, but this is all you are getting”. 

My sisters and I quickly learned where and how to shop and make $200 into and entire wardrobe for the school year. Mostly, we decided to find our wears at Gabriel Brothers (which is like a broke down TJMaxx – so you really have to search the clothes for holes and stains before your final purchase). And we made our money stretch. She didn’t do this every school year, some years there was more money than others, but I think this tactic worked best – as years when we had more money to spend, we were very wary about how much that Aeropostle (that shit was fancy to us) sweater cost. Every time I go home, I still stop at Gabes (I got an entire summer wardrobe for $150 a few months ago – at least 30 articles of clothing. And not socks.).

Obviously, I am still quite frugal. Deal hunter. I can coupon like nobody’s business (I used to get small audiences when I went grocery shopping and older ladies exclaiming they needed to shop with me. I was 24.). Sometimes I refer to myself as Frugal Mable: I can find a deal on anything and talk people down prices (except for my car insurance company, at least this time around; more on that in a minute). And I sort of have to because, while I make a decent living on paper, I have mounds of school loans and other debt that amounts to approximately three figures (and I’m not counting student loan interest either…sigh.) and DC is an expensive ass city. That is a technical term: expensive ass.

Prompted by my car insurance renewal yesterday and having about nothing in my bank account week (in an effort to pay off my rotational points card that had racked up way too much the previous eight weeks, because I didn’t want ANOTHER card open), I have decided to make a change. And what unwelcomed change is  fun without a challenge? For every crap situation in life, I’m fairly certain you can make a game out of it, e.g. credit card debt and the ongoing switch-to-0%-APR game. Last year was great, it was my “Yes Year”, but it turned into something much more expensive than I would have normally lived. It was wonderful and worth it and I am STILL enjoying those experiences and I want to continue saying YES! to everything, but I also want my debt to go away.

Currently, I have about $15,000 worth of credit card debt. (Am I being too open?) I’ve always been rather good about credit card debt. (I have a really good credit score.) I opened my first credit card at 18, and paid it off at the end of the month, usually. In college, I bought my car and put the down payment on a card – with three jobs at the time, I had a plan to pay it by selling my old car and working my ass off for a couple of months. Then I broke my foot: I couldn’t work and I had to use my money from my old car being sold to live on. Then my computer was dying and I was 8 ways to bummed out and I bought a Mac – on a credit card. Dumb, yes? Do I still have it and use it? Yes. Did it get me through grad school? Yes. Good investment? Yup. I also managed to get some more credit card debt during my year of grad school (we really couldn’t work because it was an expedited program).  Within 6 months of graduating with my masters (with my school loans deferred for 6 months), I paid off all of my credit cards. A year later, my live-in boyfriend lost his job and since he didn’t have any previous credit cards, guess who’s we lived off of? Then my company furloughed us, the economy tanked, we broke up (and living on your own is more expensive) and my parents said “pay your own car insurance” which is really high and I had no choice but to put on cards.

While we’re on the subject, my insurance is really high. I’ve never *knock on wood* been in a major accident. Once I ran over a railroad tie in my parents’ driveway (I figured out last night that I will have paid more than what it cost the insurance company to fix my car by the time it’s down paying the increased rate. So that’s cute.) Then a dump truck was going way to fast and spraying 395 off of NY Ave at rush hour with gravel and I instinctively swerved to miss the gravel and bumped a guy who was going at least 30 over the speed limit in the lane left of me. Other than that, I’m an idiot and have two speeding tickets from April and May of last year – one of which I was driving a mini-van. No, really. And why was I doing that? Because I decided to roadtrip down to Nashville instead of fly – 'CAUSE THAT’S CHEAPER, RIGHT?! Last summer I also bumped into a Lexus that still had paper plates: I had just renewed so I was supposed to get one small accident forgiveness: HELL YEAH!, I thought as I called to make sure that Progressive would, in fact, “forgive” the accident. They said yes and when I got my renewal, they had lied. So I called in and eventually Frugal Mable talked them into forgiving that accident ($500 is their max for small accident claim – the claim was $550. I should have paid out of pocket. BUT THEN WHAT’S THE EFFING POINT OF INSURANCE?)

But I digress back to my point from a few moments ago: Yesterday I got my renewal. For six months my car insurance is over $1,300. If I pay in full or auto-debit, it’s about $1,160. That’s insane. My car payments are only $4 more a month. And with my car paid in July, and me being hell bent on not accumulating any more debt, I need to start paying my insurance by month – not by credit. Also, my step-dad has generously been paying my phone bill for the past seven years and he doesn’t want to any more. So add another $100. All of this and my sub-$400 bank acct (which is only that high cause I turned in credit card rewards points for a $250 check 10 days ago) and my $77,530 worth of school loans (and I just looked and $77 of the $315 I pay every month into my FEDERAL school loans actually goes towards principle … I just threw up in my mouth. Also, FUCK YOU GOVERNMENT. You greedy assholes: Education should not be a money-making scheme. And you wonder why the economy won’t pick up? Cause anyone that would be willing to buy big-ticket items are too busy giving you fucking interest money on their mother fucking educations. Dicks.)

Allow me to digress again.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Okay. I’m back. Moving forward…

Hi. So I decided that if I’m going to be poor, I might as well make some fun out of it: Lemonade out of lemons, perhaps?  ::searches for vodka, makes frozen alcohol drink:: Enter: The Extreme Budgeting Challenge (imagine that being read al la WWF sports announcer). I’m still working out the kinks: So far it’s just an idea I plan on initiating soon --- very, very soon. But it would go something like: Any part of money spent that is (slightly) optional, will be trimmed extremely significantly.  My first thought was $30 for food per month and $50 for “fun” per month, but considering I went to Safeway last night and bought lettuce, tomatoes, a cucumber, dressing and pistachios and it cost $20 (even with Frugal Mable buying BoGo (buy one, get one free)), that seems a little too unrealistic. I worked on my budget, unminding what is unable to change which includes: rent and utilities (approx. $970/mo.), three student loans payments (totaling about $560/mo.), credit card payments (approx. $320/mo.) and my car ($222), which will be paid off next month and replaced by a monthly car insurance payment ($188 or $88/mo.; I’m still trying to decide if I should save $600 and go with liability only) and cell phone bill (approx. $100/mo).  Obviously there are other miscellaneous expenses such as: a social life, gas, Netflix (this is a non-negotiable, particularly now that I feel I will find myself at home more when I run out of funds in the “Fun Fund”), etc. but as they are not a set amount – or high enough to really matter -  I’m not going to go into that much detail (yet).

With that huge mouthful out, Budgetary Mary is off to make some rules for the Extreme Budgeting Challenge and will be back with you shortly. So far what I know is that I will have a set budget each month, al la Dave Ramsey, minus the envelopes, and much more impoverished and extreme! (wee, now it's fun right?!). If I run out of money in the fund, there is no “emergency fund”, as that money will be going to paying off credit cards (and it's against the rules...duh!) – so I will have to find interesting, cheap free, ways to keep myself full-bellied and entertained and with a social life in tact. This blog will hold me accountable, regale you of my stories of extreme budgeting, and document my (under!)-spending.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Suppose To Be's

For as long as I can remember, I have filled my life with "suppose to's".  A couple of years ago, in the midst of my relationship falling apart, I went to see a psychic. I also went to a psychic fair. And each one: the psychic, the palm reader, the crystal reader and the card reader all told me the same thing: Let go of your suppose to be's.

I think it's true that a lot of women go to psychic types for guidance sometimes. Guidance and entertainment. It's like therapy on LSD that presents you with the future (if you go to a good reader). However it came out with each one, it still elicited the same response in the rocks and paper and hands and medium: You have to let go of your suppose to be's.

In that relationship, I clung on to my suppose-to-be's and let go of trying (and I'm happy today that I did). But I'm a Libra. I envision life in a romanticized sense. Everything illuminated. Love. Electricity. Roses. And Fairy Tales coming true.

I know. Life isn't a fairy tale. But a Libra could wish, no?

***

Over the past year, I've learned some very important lessons that perhaps I knew already, but decided to ignore. And I'm done caring what other people think: They don't see how you see and can't feel what you feel. Getting advice is nice and all, but when it comes down to it, you have to follow your heart. And trust your instinct. I had trouble trusting my gut, clinging on to a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure because the world disagreed with what I was doing. And then I spent so long dealing with the repercussions of heeding others warnings and taking their advice and not trusting my gut and listening to my head over my heart. Every whisper of wisdom from friends was what my mind thought too, so of course that's the right answer. And then I learned that with all the logic and reason in the world - despite the fight of intellect, instinct will rule.

And no matter what anyone says and all the negative words that I would have let get to me before, 120 days of torture have taught me that no amount of approval or disapproval will or should ever sway the decisions of one's heart. That beat, the tugging strength of desire, is immeasurable. Ignoring it likely leads many to madness. The ideas of others aren't beating, they can't understand. Sometimes you just have to say: Fuck you guys, I'm following my heart. Whatever that means. And where ever that leads me, is and where I'm - and how it's - suppose to be.