"Is it hard to make arrangements with your self
when you're old enough to repaint but young enough to sell?"
-Neil Young
My quote of the moment there on the left is Neil Young's Tell Me Why, one of his greatest songs. It has been running through my head for days... and I get that little lick going when I'm dissatisfied with where my life is.
Let's evaluate together, shall we?
I'm happy to have a job, I'm glad my kids are healthy. They're developing wonderfully, even with the bumps and bruises and pimples of regular life. We have money and a roof over our heads. Our school district is okay, if not better than okay. I'm not happy about Geoff's teacher assignment but will fight tooth and nail for him, that's not a problem. Jessie is doing great in school, and she's a blessing to have around. I like her friends. I'm not worried about the next four years of her development, as long as all the kids stay their course. I'm ready for the usual challenges. I'm even ready for the catastrophes. I'm fine with the kids and being their mom. So my unhappiness isn't with them.
I've put my Masters in Ed program on hold because I realized that right now I make about 15k more than I would if I were a first-year teacher, and I don't have to struggle with the crap that being an educator brings with it. At work there are often power struggles over who gets to do what, who gets what, who has what task... and I couldn't care less because I just don't want to be involved. MB asked me one day why I wasn't more ambitious -- why I didn't WANT more decision making power. I've learned through the past several years that no one listens to me anyway ... so why bother fighting, kicking and scratching to get my way? I just want to collect a paycheck and go the hell home. I don't know if it is lack of ambition or pure common sense, but I just don't want to be one of the power players. I did that at the State College and was treated like absolute shit most of the time... even though my decisions were the right ones... someone else with a bigger mouth, bigger sack of brass balls, or bigger title always got his or her way. With disastrous results. And I left there and nothing has changed.
My being anywhere in the work world means to me -- a paycheck. My life, my being, my soul and my dreams are not in a brick & mortar. I'm more than happy to help out, to be the sled dog, the work horse, the whipping boy. But I want to walk away at the end of the day and just be done with it. So in my mind, work is not an issue. I get paid and as long as my checks don't bounce, I can put up with the rough weeks (Like last week. This week was a cake walk and reminded me why I love my job), the noisy office, the weird coworkers (not you france) and the commute.
My husband is once again considering an advanced degree, which is all fine and good. Sometimes he's like me and just wants the paycheck and to come home, and other times he exhibits this desire, this drive, to advance and be and do... and then I feel like my life is in flux so I worry and am unhappy. I'm good, giving and game when it comes to him making the life choices for himself, and plan on supporting them until he comes up with something that is just way too fucked up and stupid (Hey! Let's uproot the family and move to Iceland!).
My husband frustrates me but only in the normal way spouses get under the skin. He's a great man, and hell -- he wins father of the year for the fishing derby this past spring and I will never ever forget that. He's a good man... a little to cerebral and not fix-er-upper enough sometimes, but he stays home, loves camping with us, makes me laugh, and is a hell of a great cook. After 14 years of marriage, I'm not tired of him. I love him with the deepest depths of my soul. So I know my happiness is insured there.
I am kind of disgruntled with my neighbors, my neighborhood, the traffic and my tenants. When we bought this house in 1996, this was a busy street but it wasn't THAT busy. Now it is a major trucking route for some damn dump and construction vehicles. They start rumbling through at 7am and that shit doesn't stop until after 8pm.
I'm wanting to move. I'm wanting 11 acres of land and a house set far back from the street so I don't need to hear the goddamn traffic.
Is that all that is bothering me? Would I be happier somewhere else? New Hampshire, Michigan, Arizona? Or would I feel like I have the same redneck neighbors and same bullshit from the school district no matter where I am.
Meh.
Ever since I was pregnant with Geoff I've been superstitious about wishing for things to happen. For instance, I kept telling my doctor that I wanted Geoff to be born in late December so I could get the tax write off. We joked about inducing me.
And I had pre-term labor November 22nd, and he was almost born 2 months early and I spent a month on my back in a hospital. And he was still born the following year, so I had all that crap and no tax write off, and now I have a little boy with some problems and issues which may or may not be associated with genetics, may or may not be associated with his precipitous delivery, may or may not be associated with the pre-term difficulties he and I went through.
Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it.
Wishes come answered in packages of snakes. You get your wish, but it comes out all wrong and venomous.
Part of me wishes for money to fall from the sky. A cash windfall which then puts us in a position where one of us won't have to work. One would, just to get insurance, because I'm so not paying out of pocket for that crap.
In order for money to fall from the sky though, in our situation, someone has to pass away and leave it to us. That would suck. There isn't anyone I want to have pass away from our lives. And the one person who would be leaving us money would also be leaving a family battle for the money where we'll probably end up shafted anyway, so we'd lose her loving presence, and watch as the rest of the family ate itself alive fighting over things.
Money would make it so we could buy something elsewhere, fix this up nice, sell it (while living somewhere else) and just take that natural next step in the homeowning process. This being a "starter" home, I feel we've started the hell out of it and can and should progress to the next place that culturally we're expected to go.
But we don't NEED to. We're fine here. ""Is it hard to make arrangements with your self when you're old enough to repaint but young enough to sell?"
Yes, Neil, it is.
Anyway. The men went to vacuum the truck. I'm supposed to be cleaning the dishes. It feels good to just kind of sit and write. Thanks for listening to my bitchfest. No matter where I am, here's where I live. And you're my neighbors. Now get your dog out of my yard and clean up his crap, wouldya?
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