Tuesday, March 06, 2018

Ugh, just everything

Warning: my allergies are flaring and I suspect some of this is pms*

(*I am nearly 50 and things aren't always as predictable any more, so I can't tell).

But - nearly everything is conspiring to make me cry. I am hoping a decent lunch and a cup of hot tea at home in the quiet will help.

The biggest thing: student issues.

I had someone approach me the other day and do that hushed-voice, "I really need to talk to you" thing, which always makes my stomach drop into my feet, because the few really BAD things I've had to deal with have been prefaced with that.

This time it was: sports player, has missed a lot of class, "yes I understand that's a problem but our schedule has been brutal," needs to catch up, needs to make up exam.

So I sighed, and said: I have office hours tomorrow, and also if you come AS SOON AS class lets out (that is: 12:15) you could take it then.

Student didn't show up for class.

Student didn't show up at 12:15. Or at 12:20. Or at 12:30.

I had told them I have an appointment today at 3 (the tax prep person). So they knew I wasn't gonna sit there forever. But no call, no e-mail, nothing.

I finally left at 12:40 because I was hungry and upset and had to get my tax junk together and have other errands to run but I am bracing for a "But I was ONLY a LITTLE BIT late! And I showed up and you were GONE" recrimination (it has happened before) and this is what makes me so tired and frustrated: I am genuinely no longer able to do the calculus of "what is being reasonable in accommodations to a person vs. what is excessively putting myself out" and also is it better do deal with my own sadness/needs going unmet rather than having to sooth the (possibly unjustifiably) hurt feelings of another?

I almost always, these days, come down on the side of "my own needs go unmet" so I can avoid conflict in my life, and that is why I am so nuts, I think.

So anyway. Am bracing for either an e-mail or an in-person visit tomorrow about "BUT YOU WEREN'T THERE WHEN I SHOWED UP" and the thing that pushes my buttons THE VERY MOST is the implication that I am somehow unreasonable or, even more, irresponsible.

***

I also realized: If I am doing a Roth IRA contribution this year, I must do it NOW (before the taxes go in). And then I realized: where will I find $4000? Given some expenses I foresee, my checking account as it is now won't handle it. And I hate taking out of savings which I see as more of an "emergency" account (e.g.: what if a windstorm brought a tree down on the house and I had to find alternative lodging for a few weeks and insurance wouldn't cover everything). And I don't know. So I have the Hobson's choice of: don't put money in (and maybe eat cat food in retirement) or take the money out of the "emergency fund" and maybe have a big emergency and I DON'T KNOW and yes I am now berating myself for going out and spending $120 on yarn this weekend and also why am I not living on dry beans and what I can forage out in the woods?

I also have to find the paperwork somewhere to send in a deposit; I haven't had any for a while. Sigh. (I might have figured a way I can swing the money)

(And yes, I realize the level of privilege inherent in what I am saying but I also figure I can't count on any "outside" help in retirement, so....)

And yes, I do worry excessively about my future, but - I am the only one here. I have no spouse to help me, no children to support me in my old age. I don't trust that my state's pension fund will still exist or that social security will still exist in 16 years when I hit 65 (or that they'll have pulled some stunt about raising the age of first withdrawal to 80 or something). So I figure what I can put away is all I will have.

And yes, I know, I have a terrible "scarcity"* mindset sometimes. But I was a broke grad student for far too long, and I also grew up in the era of "turn down the thermostat and put on a sweater" and eating generic food and staycations-before-they-were-called-that.

I suspect the older Gen-Xers, the ones who remember the mid-70s, will be like a new Depression babies generation: saving pieces of string because "it might come in handy" and at risk of becoming hoarders later in life. (I already notice such tendencies in myself, they got worse when I first lived here and you couldn't even get hoisin sauce locally, so I'd buy huge quantities of unusual foods when I was in Sherman, because- especially that first busy year - who knows when I'll get back there?)

(*Scarcity could be a Discorded version of Rarity, where her generosity disappears because she's suddenly fearful about not having enough)

But yeah. I do worry about how I will keep myself. And I know, I know: consider the lilies and all that jazz, but also there's the old Russian proverb about "Trust God, but keep rowing toward shore" so I never know where to balance "God will provide' vs. "He who does not work shall not eat."

(ETA: I think I figured out a way to afford it without totally depleting checking or doing too much damage to my emergency fund. And I found the form I need to fill in. And two more records of charitable giving I can take to the tax person. So I feel a little better about that)

***

And I also got into a small argument (well, I snapped back at someone) elsewhere and it's possible they were joking but it's a really, really sensitive spot for me and I may not have seen that. Or, whatever, I don't know.

when I say something stupid somewhere, I never want to go back. I wish I could stop being stupid some times.

then again, it was one of those things that people should have realized was a sore spot with me and not poked at it. But then again, some people love to poke like that, some people love upsetting other people and I don't understand that mindset because (see topic #1) I'd rather crawl naked over broken glass than deal with someone who was upset with me.

***

The warm bath last night helped the hives, but not much else. I still slept badly, still had jumbled unpleasant dreams, still have muscle tension everywhere.

***

I feel these days like I'm constantly running but never quite keep up. I have to write an exam for NEXT week and I realized I won't have any time to work Saturday because of all the funeral stuff. (And I'll be too emotional afterward, I think). Already there are issues because next week is Texas' (and some Oklahoma public school's) Spring Break week and people have told me they will be gone and I understand being a parent and wanting to take your kids on a trip and I spent too many spring breaks as a kid sitting VERY QUIETLY at home as my dad worked on taxes, so I don't want to be the stick in the mud about being angry with the parents for being gone, but: really, university? Could you have maybe coordinated things a little better?

So I have that other level of arranging-for-make-ups on my mind and it's just....my level of organization is so fragile these days that one added thing like having to remember when the five people making up the exam will come in (five different times) is more than I can deal with....

I wish I had a minder or a Jeeves or something. Someone who would remember stuff for me and would do the little junk like remembering to turn the dishwasher on when it needs it or stuff like that.

***

Edited to add: Something I realized while making lunch: I mentioned before that the house I live in now belonged to Steve's mother for a while? (I actually first met him at the closing on the house). She had taped up stuff inside the cabinet doors - mostly some of those really bad, really unhealthful "quick weight loss diet plan" things. I had just left them there because inertia is often strong with me.

I looked at them again today and thought, "I should just take these down."

And then I thought: the paint's probably really scarred up under the tape now, and you don't have time to repaint the cabinets and you have zero moneys to hire anyone to.

But maybe I take them down and put up funny animal pictures instead? Maybe I print off a bunch of cute kittens from the internet (I even have photo paper that came free with my last ink order) and when they fade (as I know they will), I just replace them? I don't know. Or maybe I solicit a bunch of pretty postcards and hang them up there. But I think it's time for the bad diet plans to go.

1 comment:

purlewe said...

I can send you pretty postacrds!!