People that feel old like to say that "youth is wasted on the young". Well, I've got a counterpoint to that. May I suggest that "the benefits of compounding interest are wasted on the old and rich"? I know it's not as catchy, but still...
Walking a tightrope with the budget lately. Playing games with the numbers on my own spreadsheets just to keep things out of the red. I've wanted more than anything to provide a comfortable middle-class lifestyle for myself, my wife, and now my two kids. As a two-income household, we should be able to make that happen, right? Perhaps I've been a bit too uncompromising, however, because dang it, money is tight and getting tighter. I just want all of us to be safe, comfortable, and happy. Financially, though, we're dangerously close to moving backwards, and with the new car, maybe we already are. The numbers just aren't adding up right, there's no relief in sight (no raise or bonus this year, so no help to be had from that angle), and the financial imperatives coming up in the next couple of years are daunting. I've scaled back our retirement saving as much as I can stomach, but it kills me because I know how far today's contributions will go in the next 30 years. I can only pray that we both are able to stay employed in our current jobs.
Maybe I need to find a secondary source of income. Guess I'd better record some music, throw it up on iTunes. Then I just need 100,000 of my closest friends to buy my album and that should provide a little relief, eh? No problem at all. I just need to record the album and make 99,998 more friends and I'll be all set!
Seriously, though, besides the money issue, things are kind of fucked right now. Not in a good place. The money thing is stressful, sure, but I'm just in a really strange place in my head right now, I'm confused, don't know how I feel about anything. Fatigued, trying to keep my shit together, be a good husband, be a good father, and oh my goodness I just love my kids to pieces, but I just feel dizzy.
There are three times a day when I'm able to forget about everything for just a few minutes and these are the only three times when I feel ok -
1. When I'm in the shower, I usually space out for somewhere between five and fifteen minutes. It's wonderful. I had to put a clock in the shower stall, otherwise I'd be in there until the hot water ran out every single time.
2. When I head in to my son's room to wake him up in the morning, instead of waking him up right away, I'll just lay down next to him, put my arm around him, and snuggle up to him for a little bit.
3. When my baby girl smiles at me and hugs me when I pick her up. I usually get at least one big smile and hug from her each day. I'll just pace around the house hugging her for a few minutes when she's not antsy to crawl around and play with toys or needing something.
Every other moment of every day, I just feel wrong. Stressed, uncomfortable, always feeling like I'm doing the wrong thing. No matter what I'm doing, I feel like I should be doing something else. Ever since the dawn of my depression in my teen years, I've often wished the whole world would just stop for a bit and let me catch my breath, but the world always kept spinning, same as always. Now, however, it seems less about mental energy and needing a break and more about how there just aren't enough hours in the day. I've never felt so strongly that I just need more time. For every given day, I feel like I need three. The needs of today require 72 hours to accomplish and the needs of tomorrow will require 72 hours more and so on. I'm overwhelmed and disheartened and all I can think is that I need to seriously adjust my expectations. I have so many things I want to do and accomplish, but at this point, I think I need to learn how to be ok with just surviving.
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