Insomniaaaaaaahhhhhh

Hello Interwebz,

Here I am again. The cat woke me up at 2 AM for food, which is when my body also decided that we were up for the day. I haven’t written a blog specifically for this site in a while. Which is funny, because I vacillate between bliss and a state of anxiety. The bliss is for when I decide to be ignorant that I am operating my life at a $500 per month deficit. The anxiety encapsulates that financial fact and everything else that’s going wrong in my life.

So what has happened to make me attempt to get by on -$500 a month? I am glad you asked. There was the snafu with my ex regarding his retirement–to summarize, he read the divorce decree wrong and was giving me more retirement money than I was actually entitled to per month. So there went approximately $250. Because I trusted that he would not possibly make such a mistake, I took on an extra $90 worth of cell phone bill–before, he was generously paying for it but I thought eh. May as well consolidate, you know. And then there was the issue of paying him back for what he had erroneously given me.

Which brings me to MEDICAL COSTS. To pay the ex back I took on all of my daughter’s medical bills for a period of time. She had a tonsillectomy in that period of time after recurrent strep throat, lucky us. I also spend $350 every three months on psychiatric medication. Which is clearly more than I can reasonably afford.

I have a call center job that doesn’t pay as much as I need it to, though I enjoy my work in helping the deaf and hard-of-hearing. I could drop benefits I suppose and make up some of the difference that way, but with having OCD and bipolar I, that is perhaps not the best solution. I would try to get a different job but this one suits my disability well. As for actual disability, I am (according to the government) not disabled enough to merit it despite the comorbidity of my disorders.

Though I don’t pay pet rent for my two lovely cats, one of them has had unforeseen health complications. Mona Lisa will eventually need surgery before her stomatitis makes her unable to eat. They need special food, and they seem to poop a lot. This has made my pet care bill enormous (though pet insurance helps a great deal).

Also, RENT AIN’T JUST A MUSICAL. I am currently paying over a thousand a month for my apartment. Basically, that plus utilities make up most of what I make at my present job per month. I would have a roommate but well, a roommate situation has not served us well in the recent past. Before this, my daughter and I were living with my mom, grandmother, and my mom’s best friend, which essentially four moms for my daughter and TOO MANY HENS A CLUCKIN’.

And then there are taxes, on which I managed to underreport my income because I forgot about the spousal support I was receiving for a few months. Egregious error but also entirely innocent, it came through an allotment and I just forgot about it. My amended tax bill, with preparation: $900, most of which is being sent back to the government. Ouch.

Oh, and to make matters worse, the student loan has reared its ugly head again. ACK.

TAH-DAH. the reasons for my present situation. The reason I am up. Am I going to renew my lease for another year? Nope. I cannot. Am I going to move back in with mom? Well, I would but I have trouble establishing boundaries. And I like having my STUFF (that I lived without for nearly two years post-separation from the now-ex).

So my daughter and I are going to be moving in with my boyfriend across town. I just moved a year ago with my friend Michele’s generous help (she had her whole fam help me move, for reals. She is the best). Do I feel like moving again? Well, no. I just got everything arranged the way I would like it. And I feel like this whole “on my own” experiment has come to a premature end. So the OCD part of me is guilting myself and telling me that I am BAD AND A FAILURE.

Would moving be financially and emotionally beneficial? Uh-huh. My boyfriend is the nicest person I know. And Violet would have a yard to help with and play in. And we would have the scratch to actually afford to say, go out and eat or buy groceries without using a pesky credit card.

I am very stressed out right now, but I am unbelievably lucky that we have a great place to move into.

And with that, I am going to make some coffee and plan out the move in my head. Anxiety. It’s a trip.