|
Freaking I�m freaking out. Not just about one specific thing, that would be too easy, I�m freaking about everything at once: money, school, what to do with my life �Bear and I have now committed ourselves to almost $6,000 worth of wedding. Six thousand dollars!!! Granted, we have a lot done: I have a dress, we have an officiant, a church, a hall, a caterer, a DJ, and soon we will be booked for pre-marital counselling. But still, that is a bloody lot of money. That, in fact, is pretty close to our entire budget. I guess it�s time to tighten our belts and our purse strings (if either of us had a purse). I�m worried that we�ll have to slash our guest list, which makes me sad; having people join us to celebrate shouldn�t be restricted by money. I have to keep reminding myself that although it seems like a ton of money to spend on one day (or really three), it�s actually paying for a year of fun in planning, which I am enjoying overall, and many years of happy memories (I hope!). I suppose it doesn�t help that I took Stanley in for winterizing and the mechanics found a cracked carb bowl and warped cap, and multiple oil leaks; apparently Stanley has been bleeding for a while. I have scheduled his surgery with Dr. Sandy Lane for next Thursday and I�m sure that getting him patched up is going to cost me a pretty penny. Bear�s Jurrasic Truck is in bad shape too, with no real diagnosis in sight. I�ve been working under the assumption that I�m applying to grad school for next fall, that�s why I�m taking this Biology course. I came to a realization last week that made me fairly depressed. I was thinking about where I am in my life, my age, getting married, and I realized that if Bear and I are going to have kids (which we plan on) and I do my Master�s degree first, the timeline does not work out at all. I would start grad school in Sept 2005 and finish in roughly April 2007, when I�m almost 32 years old. If we want to have two kids before I�m 35, we would have to start immediately after I finish school. I want to do field research; that�s the whole point, that�s what I�m excited about. Doing field work while being pregnant and/or caring for small children is not possible, it�s just not. Therefore there would be no point in doing grad studies, and no point in even completing the course I�m currently taking. I�m going to finish my class, don�t get me wrong, but it�s really hard to stay motivated now. I�m officially back in my �what-the-hell-do-I-do-with-my-life� rut. After being in it for nearly 3 years I had hauled myself out by deciding that I should just get off my ass and do grad school. Well, here I am, back in my former ass-print in the depths of the rut. I just want some giant to pick me up and shake me (gently!) and tell me, �This is what you are meant to do. This is how you go about getting there. Now go do it!� Seriously, if you have ANY suggestion please let me know. I promise to think about it. (Unless you tell me to be a porn star, because then I promise to laugh in your internet face.) I�m also scared of getting sick again. Okay, so you guys out there in internet land didn�t know that I was sick. Well, I was. I got way worse shortly after getting engaged and before wrecking my ankle. I apparently have a condition that is aggravated by stress. I got more stressed out: I got sicker. Then I got stressed out about being sicker which made me even sicker (vicious cycle). I was scared to eat and scared to leave my apartment. It took a while, but I finally realized that I just couldn�t live like that anymore. By the time I went to see my doctor I had lost over 20 pounds and was living on chicken, rice, and brown bread with butter or peanut butter. I now have one prescription for my unhappy innards, and one for my heartburn and possibly an ulcer. I�m working on a modified diet; I�ve eliminated tons of foods that were making me worse. I�ve made some lifestyle changes too: I�m staying in more and doing relaxing things like watching TV and reading once in a while. I�m not happy about how I lost weight but I�m happy it�s gone and I�m going to keep it that way. The only direction my weight in going is downwards, hopefully at a healthy rate. I�ll just say that I�m lucky to not be plagued with fears about marrying Bear (once we both got past the fear that we would go to pre-marital counselling and that we would FAIL and they would tell us that we couldn�t get married.) I�m upset that we�re paying the equivalent of a down payment on a small house in order to get married, but I�m not worried about the marriage itself. Not a single person has expressed any doubt about us, and our friends and family have been nothing but supportive so far. We�ve been able to come to comfortable compromises on almost every issue that we have faced and our communication has definitely improved. It would be nice if we could find time to relax together instead of running errands all the time, but that will come. I find that sometimes just putting my fears into writing, telling someone about them, helps me to get past the panic to the point where I can start dealing with some of them. So get at it, Canoegirl, deal! 2004-11-26 || 2:52 p.m. |
