Cest La Vie

I have spent the last year or so wishing I was someone else, wishing my circumstances were different, my choices were better, and frankly, that I'd find a thousand bucks. If I had a quarter for every time Shane and I have said "We need...." or "I want...." or, "Someday we will be able to afford....", I wouldn't be saying those things because I would be rolling in it. I'm so tired of money consuming my thought life, leaving me in tears wondering which bills we should pay on time and how we're going to afford an eye infection or clothes for Kynzie. Now, the intention of this post is not at all for sympathy. Our choices have gotten us here, and now we are digging ourselves out of this hole we have created. The first year of our relationship we lived in Shane's grandmother's summer house, paying no rent or utilities. We easily could have been saving hundreds a month. Instead that went toward going out, throwing parties, and getting wasted. We realize we were foolish, and now we have to pay for that. So what do you do when you're so tired of being the one friends offer to pay for, living paycheck to paycheck hoping that at some point you'll get a break, and being unable to save any because not a dime is left over after everything is paid off? I guess you keep on truckin... I'm tired of my fiance' leaving at 6 in the morning and coming home when Makynzie is going to bed. I'm tired of job hunting while my baby is taking her naps. I'm tired of turning friends down for going out even if it's simply driving somewhere because we don't have the gas money. I'm tired of looking around the apartment and trying to figure out what we can sell and do without. And I'm so so tired of crying with Shane and losing sleep over it.

Then I had a reality check. I know it's so cliche', but "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" came on tv the other night and I found myself in tears. A family of 9 had just lost their dad to a sudden heart attack and I can't believe the condition of the home they were living in. Only one burner worked on the stove, there was water damage throughout the entire house, and kids were sleeping on the floor. Wow. I did a self-evaluation. Is my situation really that bad? Sure we struggle to pay rent at times, but for 13 months now, not a single bill has been late. So many times I have turned to Shane crying with less than a hundred bucks in the bank and said, "How are we going to make it til next Friday?" But we have. Time and time again, we have. With the help of family and friends, we are surviving and we have no reason not to be happy. We have a happy, healthy baby who adores us, a roof over our head, and food in our bellies every day. I have no idea how we make it each month, but we do and that's what matters. It's ok that we can't go out with our friends, it's ok that we have to look for food deals, and occassionally ask for an extension on a bill. Because that's where we're at right now. Shane is always saying "Katy it won't always be like this." And I have a really hard time believing that. But I need to have hope and believe that it won't. Being thankful is a conscious choice, and from here on out, that's what I am choosing.