I am in the process of building up amity between myself and myself – encouraging collaboration, as it were. It’s slow-going, but I guess I’ll get there at some point. For awhile now, I’ve been working at being more mindful, teaching myself to pay attention to my fleeting thoughts and impulses, to discover why I often regard myself with such negativity, and why certain destructive behavior patterns have developed to shape my life. My eventual goal with mindfulness is to be able to practice a larger degree of self-love, while curbing my most troubling behaviors – namely binge eating and excess spending. I started recording my daily thoughts/struggles over on my second blog, 50 x 36, a month ago, and it’s helped me to spot patterns and give extra time to thoughts that would have just skittered away were I not endeavoring to write down the details.

One of the benefits of taking inventory of my life and needs was that I came to the conclusion that, though I needed to move to a larger apartment, I’d never be able to move if I continued life as usual. It’s not a really great thing to realize, but I spent hours working and reworking my budget, and found that there was no way for me to save enough for a deposit on a new place with what I’m making at my primary job. To make it work, I’ve started picking up shifts at a second job, and cut back on every expenditure (except for the splurges I need to make to keep my cats healthy). I’m budgeting every move. No social activities, no spending money on myself (other than $30/week for groceries), and every single penny is going into savings. If I work 70-hour weeks for the next month, I’ll have saved up enough to move to a new place, assuming I can find something in my current range (which is a huge assumption, honestly, but I can only do so much).

After I’m done saving up for the new apartment, if I can keep up the work schedule, I will start applying myself to paying off my credit cards. Once that’s done, I’ll save up to pay off my IRS debt. Once that’s done, I’ll save up to buy a car, braces, and Lasik.

Hopefully, at some point in there, someone will either give me a substantial raise, or a job offer for a something that pays me enough where I won’t have to work quite so hard for so little money. But I’m sure something will come along. Maybe I’ll somehow magically beat the anxiety and I’ll get to go back to being a marketer, or perhaps I’ll figure out a way to put some of that savings towards my last two classes for the copy editing certificate, and open up my own little business. There’s also the chance that the kids’ book that I’m writing will get illustrated and picked up by a publisher. That would be cool, and I’m sure would pay at least enough to pay off a credit card or two, right? I’m not holding my breath for any of these, though. Got to keep moving forward with what I’ve got.

It’s 6 a.m., and time to make coffee for the continental breakfast bar, then put on my office clothes and head to Job #2. Catch y’all on the flip side.