Life Assessment

Posted by Nuzzling Muzzles

Another night of insomnia, so another blog post from me.  I was just looking at my iGoogle page wondering why Google put a squashed mosquito on the sidebar, and then realized it really was a squashed mosquito I smashed against my laptop screen just a few moments before, but forgot about. 

I had planned to spend the evening contemplating how to get my life back.  I think about my life and how to make it better during fleeting moments throughout each day, but my thoughts are always interrupted before I can complete them.  I forget about my ideas, just like I forgot about the mosquito I killed.

Anyway, I just wanted one evening when no one would interrupt or distract me, so I could lay my life flat on the table and assess it.  I need to make some decisions regarding my financial downfall.  I need a regular income.  $5 a month from book sales isn't cutting it for me.  I've completely given up on ever seeing any of my inheritance.  Banks, life insurance companies, and employers are money grubbers.  They'll make every excuse in the book for why they can't cut a check that is rightfully yours.

I don't want to give up on my writing career and photography business, but I have to find some way to pay the bills until I start receiving an income from those avenues.  I'm looking at options such as selling valuables and vehicles.  I'm considering finding new homes for my horses, so that someone who isn't getting laid off from her job every few years can take care of them.  I've always said I would never give up my horses, but there comes a time when you have no energy left to deal with anything.  You've been officially drained and nothing matters anymore.  You try to care, but what's the point?  A two-ton brick is just going to drop on top of you as soon as you do.

Kids are returning to school already and I've spent hardly any time this summer working with or riding my horses.  Each week I say to my horses, "Just one more week and then I'll be able to pay attention to you."  That week comes and goes and then the next week gets filled up with appointments and problems.

Obviously, I've got my share of worries, but before I could come up with a game plan to get my life back, I received a series of phone messages from a relative who claimed to have some kind of emergency (something I call "not budgeting your own income responsibly") and needed me to wire money to him immediately at 9:00 on a Saturday night.  This is a relative who has worn out his welcome.  He has these financial emergencies just about once a month.  He seems to believe that I inherited millions of dollars when my mother died, but that couldn't be further from the truth.  All I am is deeper in debt while paying her bills on top of mine.

He's a swindler who uses the technique of insisting the money must be delivered now, and he gets this urgent tone in his voice that gets my adrenaline going.  I already have anxiety issues, and he pushes me over the edge by making his problems my problems.  His method is to get me to part with my money before I even have time to think about it.  I'm tired of his games, so I don't answer or return his calls anymore.

So, he called twice again this evening when I was trying to take just ten minutes to sit on the patio and read a book to relax.  My husband picked up and told him that he's upsetting me, that it's not okay to be constantly bugging me for money, and that if he doesn't stop, my husband will personally fly to his place (it's over a thousand miles away) and kick his hiney.  Only my husband didn't use as nice a word.

Normally, I would have been upset over my husband's mafioso ways, but it's probably for the better.  I've got my own problems trying to find a job so I can put my two kids through college and pay the endless influx of bills, and I can't afford to let one more person ride on my shoulders.  When you consider that this relative was pestering me for cash even before I buried my mother, he deserves the tongue-lashing he got.

My husband has been encouraging me to get back into training my horses, because he knows that makes me happy.  I did take about 45 minutes this afternoon to lunge all three horses, and that activity allowed me to forget about my troubles.  Bombay even got me laughing when he and I ran off together and tried to ditch the mares.  I like to get exercise by taking my horses for a run -- meaning me running and leading a trotting or loping horse beside me on a rope. 

But first I applied for a job, and amazingly the human resources department was working on a Sunday, so I had to fill out a questionnaire in addition to sending them my resume and cover letter.  I probably put 3 hours into the whole process and will have to dig out my old files from my last job to brush up for an interview.  I haven't had to prepare a resume and fill out an application in probably 15 years, because employers usually call me and ask me to come work for them.  This is the first time in a long time that I've had to sell myself.  My reputation no longer precedes me. 

These are desperate times.  I suspect the job doesn't even pay half of what I'm used to, but if it offers health insurance it might be worth considering.  They did warn me that I would have to be flexible and work strange shifts.  Geez.  I'm not a night person.  I can't imagine working late at my age.  I'm usually in bed by 8:00 PM when I can actually sleep.  All I know is that I'm entering a new era of my life, and I hope it's at least better than the mess I'm emerging from now.