Failure feelings and gratefuls

"You're not a failure. You just haven't succeeded yet."
and
"You're not a failure until you stop trying."

C's words of wisdom to me this morning as I expressed my fears and my feelings of failure regarding finances. I seem to swing back and forth between zen acceptance and full-blown panic. It always gets worse when I'm forced to use my credit card to purchase basic life necessities because I don't have any other money to do so. I mean... I could dip into my saved tithe money, but that's earmarked for Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch, and I REALLY don't want to do that. (Maybe I ought to send that off today, so I'm not tempted...) Plus I don't want to get in debt with God. I hate the thought of owing him.

I'm doing my best, dammit. I really am. So why is this so hard? Why can't I make ends meet? And "work" isn't helping to ease my mind, either... It's gotten so sporadic. Either I'm down sick or she's busy. It's like two ships in the night, and it's stressing me out. I'm not working this week because I'm out today with the end of this respiratory infection (which I thought was getting better, but seems to be getting worse?!) and she's busy every other day of the week. But the thing is that I never know when E will be busy or not, so if I don't grasp that (hidden) window of opportunity... I'm out of work for the week. And that means that my livelihood suffers. Because, really... I'm trying to survive on $160 a month (food, gas, misc. expenses)... if I'm lucky. I rarely get that much. And if I get gipped on a week or more of work? I get to do November on $80, probably.

I have no idea how I'm going to pay for my next tank of gas. I know C will buy me groceries. It's not like I'm going to end up on the streets.

I just don't feel like I should be allowed to plan a wedding in the midst of "I can't support myself", you know?

And I do feel like I'm failing. Not that I'm a failure, per se, because I know I'm trying my hardest. It's just that apparently my best isn't good enough, and that's really, really frustrating and scary...

If I could only get on food stamps, that would help so much... but they're playing games and being stupid. I really don't need to go into the details, but I've called them 6 times so far today alone and haven't received an answer... when I was supposed to have been contacted by them on at least three separate occasions in the past two weeks. *sigh*

Okay, now on to the positives and the gratefuls, to even out my perspective and calm my turbulent emotions.

My fiance refuses to view me as a failure, and encourages me, and will not abandon me in the face of these difficulties. I know I can rely on him to help me get through.

I got a call from the rheumatologist's office this morning and am going in to get my referral ball rolling as soon as I'm done with this post.

The massage program is really, legitimately starting in January. That means that I'll be able to get trained and licensed like, half a year sooner than I had previously thought. That also means that I'll be "scraping along" for less time than I had dreaded.

I met with my Jedi friend last night, and he's going to officiate our wedding for free! He and his wife are awesome, and I'm looking forward to working with them. They are the same couple that put on the zombie haunted house, and they're really excited about the wedding, too.

Despite being poverty-level, I am able to get health-care due to insurance and the generosity and care of my dad. I am so overwhelmingly grateful for that...

Note: I need to go back and re-vamp the post that I wrote during/after the initial shock of that "Domestic Violence Incident". I didn't have all the facts, I was seriously being affected by my biases in that area, and I just want the whole wide world to know right now that, though I haven't gone back and fixed that post (i.e. added the objective facts alongside my emotional interpretation of the incident), my dad is not what I made him out to be at that time.

That's a grateful, too. R is still the same guy that he always was. He didn't mysteriously turn into an abuser; he never was an abuser. I've realized that just because dysfunction exists in a family, that doesn't automatically mean it's an abusive situation. My family has dysfunctions. Oh, does it ever... but it's also a lot healthier than it used to be. I can say that for each individual member of the family unit too, I think. Including R.

So, note to world? R is not an abuser. He made some bad judgment calls, but so did Mom, and so did I in how I reacted. And I also realize that most of what I hear about family life comes with Mom's slant on things... including stories of R. So if Mom is feeling a certain way about R, or if there's some misunderstanding between them, her words are filtered through that mental screen. I had not really realized that before. So all this time when Mom didn't "get it" about money, it came across as "R is selfish" or "R is controlling with money" or whatever. Now, she "gets it". R is sane, logical, and makes perfect sense. Funny how that works, isn't it? Our biases bias us. Go figure, eh?

I'm also grateful that I'm going to be home for Christmas soon, and I'll get to see little Peanut for the first time! And Mom and I will be wedding crafting. And I miss the dogs. And I miss my siblings. And I have the best idea ever for Christmas presents for the family, since I can't afford to get them anything. (So I'll MAKE them something!)

And I'm grateful that C's family is accepting me as one of their own. I talked to D about getting together as one big family during the holidays, so Gramma, Grampa, and I will be having Thanksgiving dinner with the R's! Coolio.

And I'm grateful that wedding invitations got sent out. I'm happy about that.

I'm very, very grateful that I'm marrying a man who tells me, "You're not a failure. You are only a failure when you stop trying." Yeah. I'm grateful for that. (Also, he got upset on my behalf when I told him the food stamps saga. He wants to go down there tomorrow and call them racist! LOL)

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