Okay, something weird happened when I went to post this article.
I was looking for a quote, I had the Chuck Palahniuk stuck in my head “all god does is watch us and kill us when we get boring, we must never, ever be boring.” But that wasn’t it.
I have been boring lately, I admit it. I said ‘I lost my voice’ and someone took it literally. No, I just lost a huge part of myself. I can’t think of anything to say, mostly because I not doing anything.
Anyways, after 19 days of solitude and staying home I went out and did stuff, but we will get to that in a minute.
I was looking for a quote, had the wrong one stuck in my head and decided to google “god and plans” because my theory is that the gods think its funny that when we do make plans, it’s just an open invitation for them to fuck with us. That’s been my experience anyways. (gestures broadly at my life)
So, wow I am rambling…I google the thing and God’s Plan by Drake comes on, which happened to be crazy popular my first few months in Newfoundland and Stompy Magoo, the stripper that made my life miserable used to sing it at the top of her off key lungs at really inopportune times.
In the way that a lot of things become funny years later, I giggled. It is funny. That someone so inconsequential had so much sway on my life for a bit.
She had all the strippers convinced I was an evil witch. Witch yes, evil no.
It got better when I leaned into it. All the girls who were making fun of me started asking me for wishes and spells.
So I watched the video. The beginning is a black screen with the words “The budget for this video was $999 000 and we gave it all away.” I almost cried a couple times, it was really sweet. Also, a million bucks for a music video is insane by the way, but what he did made me feel good.
I am currently in a rocky relationship with money and hope it turns around soon. I wish I had money to throw around like that. I could help so many people.
So anyway, Back to the post I meant to write.
I adulted yesterday and got my taxes done.
I owe money. I don’t recall if that has ever happened before to be honest.
Lil mad, no gonna lie. But I am not surprised.
This year, so far, has been a bit of a financial drain. The first leg of my last trip was budgeted beautifully. But everything since the beginning of January has been one bit of fuckery after another. Broken snow shovel, grocery delivery, crazy phone bill, car fixing, customs on a suitcase of dirty clothes.
No, wait it all started with paying $275 USD for the extra bag on the plane. December 9th, things started getting stoopid.
I was supposed to leave January 9th and stretched it out another 26 days.
That’s on me.
Add the zero income and ya. I need to get my ass to work. I am guessing it will take me this 2 weeks of schedule to get me back to zero, then all gravy moving forward. I am officially breaking this cycle. Money comes easy and frequently.
The last day of my first stretch is a full moon, go big or go home I guess.
The way my current work works is we get booked for one or 2 blocks at a time. A block is 4 days on 3 days off. We stay on premises with the option to leave on our 3 days off. Once the weather gets better I can see myself sticking around. It is a 3 hour drive and it is truly beautiful up there. My lake is there. And the summer shifts are 5 on 2 off. Seems silly to drive home for one Monday just to turn around and go back again.
I am actually really looking forward to this summer now that I think about it.
I left my home town in the 90’s and didn’t go back for 20 years. I do miss it.
Thinking about it prompted a memory which turned into a montage of memories of me leaving places to start over other places. I do this a lot.
I have been sitting here making imaginary budgets in my head. Imaginary because the particular county where I am currently employed is in yellow and could easily slip back to red, I have no idea when surgery is and there are 1000 other reasons why I can’t really plan anything.
I know what not to do which is get involved with a mediocre dude and go live somewhere expensive. I have done that way too many times now.
My grandmother passed away the year before my friend Greg died and she left me a bit of money. $7000 to a minimum wage 19 year old kid seemed like a million dollars, and I used that money to leave my home town and move up north.
I felt that Greg’s death and the events that surrounded it coupled with the sudden boon was a sign to leave, and mayhap it was.
A year later I was pregnant on a greyhound bus moving to Toronto and I love my kid more than anything, so sure, let’s call it fate.
I enjoyed living in Toronto too. It was mostly a fun decade. Especially after 24. I wouldn’t go back now, but it served me well. I left to move to the farm 14 years ago?
Moving to the farm put me in debt and trapped me there after I had been doing quite nicely on my own for a while. I miss the apartment (and job) I left at the behest of ex hubby. It was a beautiful spot. Well, I made it beautiful and I think he was shocked I paid for it just fine on my own after he left. Lord save me from men who need to be needed.
And my last pilgrimage east, well, let’s just say the money I made on a two week stint as a new girl in the fall was about as much as I made in 2 months in the dead of perpetual spring. I was reliant on a piggy bank stuffed with $2 coins and $5 bills. Just getting there was expensive. The moving, the storage etc. I did not plan that so great but it all worked out eventually. Somewhere around the end of March Tina 2 Chainz and I landed a whale in the VIP and suddenly all my bills were paid and there was food in the fridge again. I had a lot of $1000 nights after that first one.
Something in me decided that if I ever do another leap of faith, I want to have x amount of dollars and this and that and the other fucking thing.
I realized this morning, that isn’t a leap of faith, it is a life maneuver of preparedness.
Who am I?
When I did my budget in December to move where I wanted, I had 6 or 12 months rent put away and/or paid before I left my current house, in my head. The plan now is different, but I am chuckling at myself for being so pre-prepared.
I know from 30 years of anecdotal experience you can think you have all your bases covered and think you know what’s coming and the hand of god will come down and flick you into a different direction entirely.
I used to pay big city rent, feed myself and my son on minimum wage. $229 a week. I used to feed 4 people at the farm for that same amount every couple of weeks. Like I do know how to do this. My second grocery order of $90 was a stupid splurge, add the indian food take out and that could have been my food budget for the month. I have become spoiled somehow.
Most of my exes sponged off me, so the last 7 years of being single I have had more money than I am used to. I am no longer looking after adult children that I didn’t give birth to. This is a good thing. I have traveled, had adventures, bought (and left behind) some beautiful furniture, lived in lovely places and never gone hungry or without anything really.
And I keep saying it, because I cannot afford to forget it, 9 years ago I could have started building my tiny empire but instead I moved back to Toronto because my crappy boyfriend at the time wanted it and then we struggled for a year and a half. But at least he got to get beer and wings at the pub 5 times a week.
Not repeating that cycle, I refuse. No man is cute or sexy enough for that shit. Yes, my vagina is yodeling her song of starvation and loneliness, but this too shall pass.
And in the immortal words of Aerosmith “can’t say baby where I’ll be in a year.”
I can’t, I do not have the slightest clue.
But right now I am warm and safe and tomorrow I go to work and I think it is going to be good for me on 57 levels.
I need out of my house and out of my head. I need some structure and discipline. And the money will be nice too.
