Another Place to Fall

My anxiety is like an avanlanche.

 I know it's such a cliche way to describe it but until I can find a better analogy that suffices...my anxiety these days is like an avalanche.

Lately I've been trying to get my fiances in some sort of order and because I am not a person who truly understands money or what I am supposed to do with, the idea of now managing funds is stressing me out.

A couple of weeks ago Kat told me that she sometimes thinks about getting a part time job at Le Sad Store because she misses working there. I generally I remain mum when Kat brings up Le Sad Store because she does it often enough that I just white noise the conversation. She misses working with friends, she misses laughing at work, she misses being able to listen to music and dance and behave silly, she missed dressing up for cute boy, she misses free books.

She does not in fact miss the actual work, or the annoying managers or the terrible customers and the long hours or the shit pay. She does not miss the phantom customer who used to smear poop on the windows or the teenagers who would make out in the children's department. She just misses the accessibility to friends which to me is no reason to ever want to go back to Le Sad Store. Ever.

And I told her this, because despite the really great time I had at Le Sad Store and the amazing people I worked with,  I made less than $9 an hour and towards the end of my tenure there was only working around 10 hours a week. Save yourself from doing the math, cause i'll lay it out for you: I once made $70 for a weeks work of pay. I am not sure how I paid rent or ate or had a social life because I was pretty poor. Like very poor. The University job helped a lot but, i had to work two jobs just to stay head above water and honestly I don't ever want to be in that position again.

So yea, in an ideal world I wish I had a job that I loved, working with interesting and diverse people, making a comfortable amount of money but that just isn't the case yet. Until it is, I'd much rather be gainfully employed at a job that guarantees 40 hours a week with a stable paycheck. I am too afraid of returning the alternative.

But now that I have settled on this course, i am struck by how little I had in my previous life as a bookseller, especially now as I try and create more financially stability. I must admit that I avoided and ignored some things in the past just so I could have a home and eat a little. I cut corners and duck and dove and scrounged as best as I could to survive, which definitely attests to my resourcefulness but maybe not to my maintainability. Post holidays, i've been trying to get my finances in order (how lame does that sound) so i can buy a car and visit Canada this summer...because i am able to all of a sudden. But now that means I have to save and put money away and make conscious decisions about money so that i can have money. It's all very bizarre and foreign to me.

The other day I impulsively ordered a bench from target, because I love where I live and until I am at a point where I want to lease an apartment instead of renting a studio, I want to make this home as homey as possible. When I first moved in, I had only a mattress and an old desk a friend gave me. Slowly, i've been able to purchase legit furniture and have created what can only be described as my first real home, in the first real town I've ever really liked.

But for the first time after hitting the glorious purchase button, I felt guilty because I could afford to buy the bench and yet also could have equally used the money for something else.  Do i really need anther piece of furniture in my place? I am supposed to be saving money, not spending money. I could have used that money towards my car or some other erroneous house expense. Speaking of... why do I all of a sudden have expenses? Did I always have a grocery expense, and a commuting expense and a life expense. And if all this money is supposedly going somewhere why do I feel so broke even though I have more money in my account than I have ever had. Am i adulting right? Does me even asking this question mean that I am an adult!

This circular thinking went on for the rest of the fucking day. So much so that the damn bench hasn't even arrived yet and I already hate it (and secretly love it). I am not used to feeling such anxiety over things not boy or people related and even that has given me anxiety. I told you, it's like an avalanche. It's crescendo of snow billowing towards me until I am smothered whole.

Anyway, the weekend is here and outside of a hair appointment I have in the city, I plan on spending the rest of it indoors and reading. I used to write and read all the time but over the last few years i've done so less and less. I have this crazy idea to read all of Annie Proulx's books because it was Marie's favorite author and I hope I will be able to find her in the pages. It's dumb but it's just this journey I want to go on to stay close to her some how. Depending on how long this hair appointment runs i might hit up the library this weekend, grab some books, flirt with the uber nerdy but cute librarian and chill at home.

And make space for this damn lovely bench i spent a bunch of money on