catch 26

jesse left me alone with his computer for the afternoon, which was very nice. we have separate computers, but mine has problems, or one might say "computer cancer", and i have been in the process of cleaning it out for quite awhile now. hopefully in a year or two i will be able to get a new one since sharing is so hard to do sometimes.

anyway, i decided i needed an afternoon just to myself to use the computer to job hunt, etc. but of course, all i've really accomplished so far is balancing my checkbook, checking my email, and updating my blog.

one of the emails i got was a facebook notification that i had received a message from an old college friend. i read on and apparently it was a mass message sent to tell us about a side business this person had started. she was advertising her own website, and is currently using her writing and photography skills to make and sell creative gifts & projects.

thus the pity party begins. here i am, 26 years old, and have no clue what to do with my life, mostly because i have no financial stability to go out on a limb and try to figure it out. here she is, restoring old photos and making crafts to sell, and here i am, sitting in a cubicle, day in and day out, just trying to make ends meet. and i have been for as long as i can remember.

i'll admit most of this is feeling sorry for myself, but also, literally paying for my past mistakes. i've been in a debt management program for over a year now and its literally sucking the life out of me. any fun i might have, i feel completely guilty about because i feel like i shouldn't be spending money. but at the sometime, i don't want to just "get by", i don't want to be depressed and miserable and just sit at home like a lump.

after all, i go shopping a lot less than i used to on a regular basis, and only when i have extra money to do so with, (e.g. christmas, birthday, income taxes, etc.) i haven't paid to get my hair cut since last july. i never get manicures, or tans, or other unnecessary expenditures, and i haven't eaten out for lunch during the work week for 3 months. i even stopped buying popcorn at the movies, which for me, is a huge sacrifice.

i have made changes in my lifestyle, and even though i like things, i don't spend extravagently. the catch 22 here is, that i am the wisest i've ever been in my life when it comes to budgeting, but i'm suffering the most because i can't just run to grab my credit cards anymore to bail me out. i can only spend what i have. and its good, but it totally sucks.

and even though i have been able to see the tangible difference it has made, the fact that i've only held temporary jobs in the past 3 years and that i've been let go twice in the past 2, has seriously hurt me.

one of the things that bothers me the most is that i'm cutting corners around things that matter- like grocery shopping. yes, there are healthy choices one can make on a budget, but really, it all boils down to the fact that i have to use lots of coupons, buy what's on sale/what i can afford, this week or that.

so why am i spilling the secrets of my life on a blog post? because its all i can think about- 24/7.

i was recently at someone's apt. with a small gathering of people, and was chatting with someone i hadn't seen in awhile. there was the ususal small talk, and i of course, talked about my current job. the fact that i sit in a tiny cubicle with a headset and on the phones all day long. her curt yet polite response, was that she could never work a job where she would have to sit in a cubicle.

and i wasn't offended, but it still hurt. because i used to have the exact same response. back when i was in college, and apparently had the world of opportunities at my doorstep, i never saw myself doing what i'm doing now.

but since the end is not yet in sight, it has to somehow justify the means.

and i know that someday, hopefully soon, and hopefully before i'm 30, i will be out of this mess. and hopefully someday I will be sending a mass email to my friends, telling them about my new business, along with the link to my website. i really, really hope so.

as for now, i'll just keep looking for other jobs and praying i can keep my sanity until someday comes...