The Budget Bawl

I just had an overwhelming, overtaking, quick-to-dry, full on cry. It's not a bad day, it's not that I'm in a funk, it's because I had to meticulously go over the budget. Math makes me cry sometimes, I swear. This is probably some weird disorder with a creepy name about math giving you meltdowns, or maybe subconsciously I just felt the weight of everything whilst doing said math, and the frustration popped right on outta my tear ducts.

I've recently had to make amends with the fact that my trauma is starting to play peek-a-boo. It has made some unscheduled cameo appearances, and some of it is weird stuff. When you've lived fight or flight for half a decade just trying not to freak out on a co-worker or cry in public to get through the day, and then you start to heal, shit gets real and really weird.

My budget battles began within my first year of marriage. I thought we'd figured it out and had a good system but we had credit card debt. By the time I was pregnant, I was working 2 jobs to wipe clean the remainder of said debt so we could put down the payment for the midwife program at Tampa General and work slowly to pay that off. We still didn't quite have the hang of it. In fact we were rookies and had really only basic credit card knowledge so, ending up where we are now doesn't surprise me, although we are far, far better off and aware now than 5 years ago.

Realizing you have bad credit and can't have basic things without "paying" for that bad credit in the form of some humiliating punishment is pretty shitty. When I realized how far gone we were while home with my infant and trying not to eat everything and/or cry from watching Glee or a car commercial, it seemed pretty bleak.

"Everything will work out," "It'll all be okay," and "We'll make it work," are my self-soothing mantras to get me through my initial silent screaming freak out that happens with every budget review, time and time again.

Today was something simple and seemingly stupid but it became overwhelming quickly. I'm a very visual person so I've become very obsessive about checking accounts and statements and making sure things are accounted for, balance and well understood. I think this is a product of having your "life savings" stolen from you when you're 13 so all of your babysitting, yard sale and birthday money is just gone one day, and then you truly appreciate having money and knowing where it is.

I idle between being so proud of how far we have come, and struggling with getting back into the red again. I'm not a shopper anymore. Between growing up, budgeting, and parenthood you really learn what you need and what you don't, and you give up many luxuries and niceties to have a lot more security. Now my definition of niceties and luxuries may differ from others, but I hold them close and try to live frugally. 

I wrote earlier about my bad experience with a budget analyst- type guy who made me feel smaller than anyone in "Honey I Shrunk The Kids," and I will say this very anti-feminist thing that may just have some truth to it. It was my personal experience that the male persuasion were not only the "breadwinners," "top money-makers" and household head honchos, but they were actually more intelligent about money matters. It is my personal and recent experience that I may have been slightly misled.

Many men actually know financial stuff well enough to do well enough and then some, but I think the assumption that men "know better," when it comes to money and finances is a whole lotta crap, especially now. If you think about it, it's predominantly men who do stock market type things and women are the ones who are proficient with couponing and being thrifty. Interesting, isn't it? Perhaps that's because we are rarely afforded the kind of money men have to work with - okay that's all for that sentiment. 

Back to the real part of this post, it was this morning that I realized that if any budgeting or mathematical stuff actually makes me feel stupid and unintelligent, I break down. On top of that, in all of my post nanny-ing jobs, my biggest struggle has been my male bosses making me feel intellectually inferior and that is when I do the girly thing and angry cry.

 The first instance happened when I got fired after audibly being frustrated with myself, and my boss' wife and assistant manager decided that I was speaking to her meanly and undermining her every move as if to dethrone her. Also, I picked the wrong day to bring in my nail polish and test colors with my coworker when it was slow and they yelled at us for stinking up the store and doing our nails on the job -- I'll give them THAT one, but the me being some shady underminer and calling the boss' wife stupid? Um, no. 

The second instance was my boss calling me a "bitch" for not coddling the younger employees when they needed to actually do their jobs and because I referred to my close friend, who was hiking the Appalachian at the time, as looking "haggard." I know and fully knew then what haggard means: 

1. looking exhausted and unwell, especially from fatigue, worry, or suffering.,"I trailed on behind, haggard and disheveled",synonyms:careworn, tired, drained, drawn, raddled.

He said that calling my friend that confirmed that I was indeed a bitch with no regard for others. Firstly, if you don't look haggard when you're hiking and living off the land, you're doing it wrong. Secondly, I told her to her face she looked haggard on her trip and she wasn't in the least bit defensive. Yet the man basically calls me an unintelligent bitch for using a word he doesn't seem to fully understand? 

After that, I picked better bosses for 2 jobs then reverted back to placing myself under those that see women as mostly inferior. It was when I got in trouble for a choice my husband made in our personal lives, but at my job left me effectively attempted to be demoted that I left one position abruptly, so as not to let them punish me for "not getting it." Although, being made to feel stupid for trusting in my husband to take care of something struck a pretty deep chord in me, I shall say.

My last disaster job that was a necessary gateway to my current job, where I am devoutly respected by my male bosses and never treated as though I am stupid or inferior, left me feeling so low, that I've decided of course I could only move upwards. I blame most of my previous job ills on cultural gaps and the fact that I took on too much during a rough personal period. Although any job where I am made to feel dumb, hasn't exactly worked out after this short review, it seems.

We all have our moments where we feel stupid, inferior or dumb, and depending on the circumstances they than make you break down. I get very very oversensitive to when I am made to feel stupid by the opposite sex. Some moms have made me feel kinda dumb, but in general I feel like as women we really champion each other's intelligence and try to grow our knowledge as a whole.

My husband rarely rarely rarely makes me feel dumb. He usually makes me feel intelligent and respected but today in the budget squabble he seemed to have it down and I was left to mull it over and break it down so I just felt defeated and left behind in understanding.

I took my deep breath and stepped back and dissected the issue, which is definitely resolved today, but I don't say it wasn't a set back mentally for a bit. I will say I was going to blog about something completely different and then this happened and I'm happy it did.

Maybe you don't bawl over silly things, or maybe you do. Maybe something else is your budget bawl, but sometimes we have these things that we need extra patience with that just make us feel inferior, and that sucks! There's no way around how much that sucks. The important thing is to know we all have those moments where it just doesn't click and it gets frustrating. My daughter has them regularly and I now fully commiserate with the outbursts!  

The Cry-O-Meter of Mom-ness

Mothering is exhausting, grueling, rewarding and difficult. Being a mom is an intense experience, period. Sometimes I feel like my mom-ness is off from others and one of those ways is the crying factor.

I'm an angry frustrated crier. Anger comes out of my eyeballs in water form and when I'm infuriated it's almost like a full tantrum. But I don't cry much for other things like first days of school, last days of school, awards and new horizons.

Don't get me wrong, my daughter is my everything and I know I was put on this earth to be her mother, but it's not always a cupcakes and rainbows job. Let's face it, she's probably my only child at this rate, and I work hard to just enjoy every phase with her, but my cry-o-meter seems to be off from other moms.

I don't know if it's because we've had a rough 6 years but I don't cry when I drop her at school on the first day. I may well up a bit, or just feel "Wow, what an incredible milestone," but I'm not weeping with joy and love. Ew, that's not me. I'm not gushy in that way.

I cried when she was being tortured in the hospital for failure to thrive with stomach tubes and blood draws and not being allowed to take her home to heal. I cried after the car accident that she was bruised and cut, bloodied and whining while I looked at the wreckage. I cried when they found out her legs were broken and she kept yelling at the nurses, "leave me alone! Ow! I want my mommy!" I cried when I had to sleep train her and she destroyed my doll house and I had to clean up everything alone but had to stand my ground. That's my mom crying.

I've been up nights crying hoping I could care for her on my own if I needed. I've cried when she has come to comfort me telling me I would be okay or we would be okay. I cried during Irma when we were sleeping in a huge pile of uncertainty ready to face the storm. But no, I didn't cry on her last day of school.

School stuff is cute and cuddly, for sure, but she's still so little. She's not on some path to Harvard. She's just being a kid. I want to let her be as much of a kid as she can. I also work full time and have all kinds of mental health things to work out, a husband to support in more ways than one, and a household to run so volunteering to pass out juice in class isn't a priority.

I don't buy her "first day" outfits. I don't perfectly manicure pictures of her much. I let her be herself as much as possible because she is growing up fast and sometimes I just want to sit back and watch. I don't want to fight over homework or projects, I just want to sit back in awe of her becoming a grown person and know that I helped make that happen.

Any moms that make time to be very hands on are my heroes, but it just ain't me. I'm not the mom that will make fantastic snacks and set up elaborately constructed play dates. I'm not the mom that keeps her in style and up with the cool trends. 

I'm the mom that feels the overwhelming emotion when I see her have a thoughtful reaction to a friend or loved one in need. I'm the mom that wells up when she decides to unload the dishwasher without being asked, because she wants to let mommy rest. I'm the mom that snuggles and does face masks and makes popcorn and lets her do what she wants (within reason).

I'm not sure where that all fits on the Cry-O-Meter for motherhood but it definitely triggers some interesting feelings. When I have other moms ask if I've cried or not I just try to play it off kindly because at this stage in my life, I'm just so happy with how far we've come and so consumed with keeping positive momentum, that I don't have time to cry over how fast time is going, rather I just want to enjoy the fact that I get to be in her life.

This isn't to say that moms that cry out of missing their babies be babies are some how inferior or "wussy" or "soft" in any way! I'm always there to hug you and hand you the tissues! I just don't get hit that way and props to you for letting it all come out!

I think we all have weird Cry-O-Meter dials and some days are better than others. I think all moms feel like they fail regularly, sometimes even daily, but what's important is that we are moms! We just have to mother the crap out of them no matter how many tears! And with those thoughts, I usher in the summer before I have a first grader. Here we go!