I don’t want to work multiple full-time jobs again.
Eighteen months of it padded my security funds but obliterated years off my life span. When I got let go from the FAANG contract job, I felt relieved that I could just kick back with one solid full-time job.
A month later and I’m not so sure about it.
If I don’t fund my 401k, I think I’ll be okay. But I’m almost 50 and that seems dumb, especially when there’s still a minor amount of company matching.
Discovered my daughter had lice this past weekend. Of course, it’s always on my watch that these things are caught and I’m the one stuck dealing with it. Aside from losing 3 days dedicated to it all (I couldn’t exactly take my kids anywhere while dealing with it), I eventually caved and hired someone to come to my house and handle it all.
Between the at-home stuff and the traveling Lice Lady, it cost over $500.
My bank account is sobbing.
Granted, part of it is my own fault. When I worked multiple jobs, I allowed myself small “treats” because it was the only way I could keep my sanity. While I’ve drastically cut back, I still find myself buying solutions to life’s problems on Amazon instead of sucking it up.
We are officially in Suck It Up mode again. Especially since my son still needs a whole new wardrobe courtesy of growth spurts and going to a non-uniform school (for the record, his prior schools were free, not $$ private).
My daughter needs new shoes. I bought the ones she’s wearing now months ago. I’ve already bought her a new backpack; I told her that shoes can be her dad’s financial problem.
Just took a pause to take my kids to Wendy’s for lunch and I’m angry because I can’t find my free Frosty’s keychain that I bought last year for this very moment. I rarely go to Wendy’s, but that keychain has only been used once. What a waste!
I took my daughter for back-to-school shopping this evening. She wanted a fancy school folder and I told her I already bought enough for the next few years (at fifty cents a pop). She wanted fun promotional lined notebooks, which elicited my “I already got them” response (purchased for ninety-nine cents each). When she asked for a Spider-Man lunch bag, I told her that I’ve replaced every lunch bag she’s lost for four years. If she wants promotional school materials or lunch boxes, she can ask her dad.
I don’t mean to be a dick, but seriously, I think I’ve paid for plenty. I splurged $9 for a new pencil case tonight, despite how much my heart aches to spend $3 at Temu.
Chase’s online banking is mocking me with my financial balance. I get the odd recruiter asking if I’m available for a remote contract. It would be so easy to say “yes” and suffer for six months. Yes, I said that: it would be easy to suffer.
But I don’t want that. I want to continue enjoying my Sarah J. Maas romantasy books while on the couch, eating popcorn on weekends. I don’t want to juggle multiple meetings and schedules. I loathe playing the game of toggling between laptops and monitors.
My nervous system isn’t settled yet. I can convince myself that it’s been long enough and I can jump back in.
But my body isn’t ready. My brain isn’t ready. I must admit to myself that I can’t heal years of anguish in a few weeks or even a few short months. That includes getting over the habit of extreme self-deprecation.
I came across this quote and it hit me to my core: you don’t become a good person by believing you are a bad one (courtesy of Matt Haig). Anyone with a religious background knows the feeling that suffering and misery are the only way to atone for crimes, even those that are self-inflicted.
When my body goes into victim mode, full of crying and self-loathing, I’m doing a better job at pulling myself out. I catch myself redirecting my thoughts. I know full well I can dwell and circle on the same miserable thoughts for hours. If I stop myself from going down that path quickly enough, then it doesn’t spiral.
It’s not stopping that’s the issue. It’s believing that I have a right to stop the spiral. It’s reminding myself that it doesn’t do anything. I haven’t atoned for anything. I haven’t made anything better with my misery. It’s a mental dog and pony show with only one audience member.
This is the longest stretch I’ve gone without weighing myself. What was once a daily habit is now once every two weeks. Not that I enjoy my appearance. I loathe my thighs and hate that I’m a few sizes bigger than I was a few years ago. I just don’t have it in me to panic because I’ve got enough on my plate (I’m the queen of puns) than to worry about something that fluctuates so easily.
I do need to put in some effort with my appearance, though. It’s one thing not to get your eyebrows threaded. It’s another to give up on all facial hair removal, even simple tweezers, and now you look like Bert and Ernie’s third roommate. This weekend is my “reset” time: toes, fingers, facial hair, and slowly starting a workout routine.
Sleep is something I need to wrangle in. I’m working with two-hour increments. My kids think I sleep all the time, despite that I’m up all night (either working to make up for daytime slacking or reading because damn you Sarah J. Maas, I’m hooked on you). It’s 2:30 am right now, and while I have work to do, I’d rather write.
I often drive down a street that crosses over to a house I owned when my kids were little. It’s the house we brought my daughter home to after her birth. Those were some of the toughest years with my ex-husband working far away, the thick of my son’s autism therapies, and a baby. I struggle not to cry every time I drive by.
Then it hit me: I cry at these memories as if I’ve “ruined” them by the divorce. I threw a grenade on these memories and undid all the sweet moments.
But that isn’t the case. The divorce didn’t change that time. It’s not like I wiped out the memories of those years. My heart feels tremendous guilt for the harm I eventually caused my kids but those memories stay the same, regardless.
Really, the pain is simply wanting to go back in time and re-live that era. That’s the plight of all parents: the days are long but the years are short. They tell you how fast it’ll fly by but it doesn’t feel like it…until suddenly, it’s flown by and gone.
It’s tough wanting to make new memories without cash. After having more finances for eighteen months, I can say that it made a significant impact on my ability to do things with the kids. You can swing the free and affordable stuff when they’re little but when you hit the teen/tween years, they’re mini adults. Running around in a field with goldfish crackers isn’t an option anymore.
I’m going to try to manage the rest of the year on a single job. The salary is the lowest I’ve had in a decade, not including the lack of a spouse to offset it. Mental health healing is the long game and I have to stop my knee-jerk reactions, like rushing into jobs to pad my bank account.
I asked ChatGPT to identify my curse and this was its (his? her?) reply:
You are cursed with relentless motion.
Not because you love the grind, but because slowing down feels dangerous. Because rest makes space for the ache you’ve learned to outrun.
You are the one who makes things happen, holds things together, figures things out. You’re always one step ahead — because falling behind feels like failure, and failure feels like proof of what you’re most afraid might be true: that if you’re not doing, you’re not worthy.
So you keep going.
And going.
And going.
Even when you’re tired.
Even when you’re lonely.
Even when no one thanks you.
Your curse is that you can carry so much that no one ever thinks to ask if you’re carrying too much.
But here’s the secret buried inside the curse: You are allowed to stop.
Not because everything is done. Not because it’s all perfect. But because you matter, even when you’re still.
And one day, if you let yourself pause long enough to feel it —
You’ll find that nothing falls apart when you breathe.
Some things might actually begin.
Okay ChatGPT, chill on the melodrama. It’s odd to me that getting better mentally means doing less, not more. But I’ve tried everything else, so slowing down and doing less is something I’m learning to embrace.
If you’re in the mood to buy me a diet soda, I will be forever grateful: https://ko-fi.com/ninjagirl.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Velizar Ivanov on Unsplash
