I really didn’t think much of Valentines Day this year. To me it was just another Monday. I was going to follow my usual routine go to work, go to my girlfriend’s house for dinner and then go to a church activity.
But, for some reason as the day progressed and the longer I sat alone at my desk the more depressed I got. It hit me that this was the first time in 7 years that I have a desk and an office that I come to everyday. I know that sounds strange, but for the past 7 years I’ve been working part time doing odd jobs. Prior to that I worked in Corporate America as an Office Manager, where I had my own office and for Valentines Day I always had flowers delivered to me. It was a novelty that I loved. What girl doesn’t love having flowers delivered to her. Those were the days. I miss that life. I miss working in the City, having the huge office looking onto Market Street. I miss having business cards with my name on it, walking down town for lunch, shopping at stores where they wait on you, working out in the fancy gym 2 floors below my office. At the same time I don’t miss the stress and that is why I gave it up, but on Valentines Day and when I realize that I make nothing and am now living from paycheck to paycheck is when I miss that life.
I didn’t really didn’t expect a delivery of flowers on Valentines Day, but in a way I kind of did. Call me a dreamer if you may, but I’d much rather be a hopeful romantic then a hopeless one. Not only did flowers not arrive. I also knew that when I got home there wouldn’t be any chocolate covered strawberries waiting for me. Another harsh reality that my old life is over. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade my new life for my old life, but there are some things that were pretty sweet about my old life and getting a whole tray of hand made chocolate covered strawberries was one of them. I love them when the chocolate is still soft. I’m not too fond of the commercially made ones, the chocolate is all crunchy and falls off the berries when you bite into them.
This really caught me off guard, as I am the one that chose to not keep my Valentine of 9 years. It’s hard to believe that I had the same Valentine for nearly a decade, no wonder I’m so set in my ways. I had gotten used to the traditions we had established. The chocolate covered strawberries and bouquet of flowers every year. It no longer was a romantic gesture, but a tradition of sorts. Something you don’t really give a whole lot of thought to, but you do automatically. So, much so that he followed the same tradition this year and made his new Valentine chocolate covered strawberries. I hope she enjoyed them as much as I did. I am not jealous or upset as I in no way want him back, but I’m just a little sadden that I’m having such a hard time adjusting to my new life.
The disappointment of Valentines Day just tipped the scale. My inability to adjust and adapt to my new life has been slowly coming to a head. I was in a meeting on Sunday when I burst into tears. It was then that I realized that I’m totally stuck in my ways and creating stress in my life because I refuse to make adjustments in my life.
I met with the Relief Society President to talk about my Visiting Teaching last night. When I got my Visiting Teaching route in Jan I was so excited. I love Visiting Teaching. I have a real testimony of it. I was one of those people who used to do it faithfully every month. For the past 7 years I have worked part time and would do my Visiting Teaching in the morning before I went off to work. It was wonderful. I loved our visits and looked forward to them. I loved the women I visit taught. Well, now that I’m working full time, Visiting Teaching just isn’t fitting in. I now have to be to work at 8 am to get all my hours in for the week. For the past month I keep thinking that next week will be different. Maybe I can visit them at 8 or 9 and then go to work, but the reality is I really need the hours. I hate this part of my new life. I hate having to count the hours I work and this whole concept of living paycheck to paycheck is killing me. This is something I’ve never done before and I just don’t like it. I know I can always visit them at night after work, but I am just don’t want to. For one I never know when I’m getting off, other then it will be after 6pm, but the other thing is I am just set on wanting to do it during the day. And I just can’t figure out how to change my way of thinking to think that it’s ok to go after work.
This whole working from 8-6 is killing me. It’s a combination of long hours and early hours. For years I worked part time and mostly evenings so getting up and having to be to work at 8am is a while new thing for me. The last time I had to be at work at 8 was back in my Corporate America days 8 years ago.
Over the past 7 years I had gotten into a routine of getting up leisurely in the morning, exercising; then: sewing, blogging, writing, cooking, cleaning, gardening, taking the dogs for a walk, rollerblading, etc, then going off to work around noon. To add to it when my boss was on vacation or out of town I would also take the time off. I also worked from home a lot. Now he wants me to work at the office, which is good. It gets me out of my PJ’s and gives me somewhere to go everyday.
This leads to my exercise dilemma. I was really hoping to join a gym, but I just haven’t figured out when I’m going to go. So far I have a stair stepper in my apartment and I’ve been trying to use that in the morning before work, but that just isn’t working. I’m just not motivated to get out of bed earlier enough and when I do get my butt out of bed early enough. Last week I tried something different. I tried to get on the stair stepper after work. That sort of works, but the problem with that is I’m trying to have a social life so I have things scheduled after work. It’s a total catch-22.
My other dilemma is cooking, eating and grocery shopping. I may have been fed up due to my ex’s analness when it came to food. Food was a big issue in the end of our marriage. Everything was hunky dory in the beginning. I was the main cook and he loved my cooking. Then my boss got diagnosed with pre-diabetes and I did tons of research on that and started cooking more diabetic friendly meals as I started bringing them to work to share with my boss. At this time my ex just had a hernia operation and was home from work. During his time off he exclusively ate my cooking, lost a ton of weight. He started going to the gym and became really fit. The bad thing is he became over zealous and took healthy eating to an extreme and would give me dirty looks if I strayed from his diet, but the good thing is he ran me out of the kitchen. Which has it’s pros and cons. It did annoy me, but how can really complain when you aren’t allowed to cook.
After being kicked out of the kitchen for so long, it’s been hard for me to get back into the swing of things. I feel like one of those bachelors that I used to totally laugh at. My fridge is totally empty with the exception of condiments. It’s not like I don’t have any food in the house. My cupboards are chuck full of food and my freezer has food. Last month I did some cooking and froze many individually portion meals. But, overall eating, making time or having the motivation to cook and shop for food just hasn’t been there.
To add to my gloom and doom of my life I got my application returned to me in the mail yesterday for the Energy Assistance program. It took me 5 months to apply for it as I hate asking for help and I got my paperwork kicked back. Apparently I need more proof that I don’t make anything. Well then I read that I could turn in my taxes so I called my ex and asked him if I could submit my own taxes this yr instead of doing it joint as I had agreed to on our settlement agreement. He said yes, which was nice of him, but then I realized that still wouldn’t help because I need 2009 taxes not 2010. Great, now I have to do my own taxes. That just sent me into a burst of tears, because the whole reason I wanted to file jointly was so I wouldn’t have to pay the self-employment tax, but he’d pay it for me. Well, now I have to file my own taxes, pay an unseen amount in taxes and I still don’t have the proof I need to qualify for the program. Last night just wasn’t my night. Well after spending a good three hours crying and feeling sorry for myself. I finally held up the white flag and surrendered. I hate asking for help, but I'm at the end of my rope. I e-mailed my girlfriend that is a tax preparer and asked her for her help with my taxes. Hopefully she can figure out how I can get out of paying taxes and/or we can figure out a way to get my boss to pay for it. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m going over to her house tomorrow morning so I know the facts and stop stressing about the unknown.
Feel free to call me stubborn and set in my ways, because apparently that’s me. I’m working on changing my way of thinking and I thank my friends that are helping me with it. Thanks to all of you that keep me laughing and distracting me from having a pity party. I, like many hate change, but I know it’s necessary. I will be happier when I do. So, I ask of my friends to be patient and to stick with me. It’s not going to be an overnight transformation that I had hoped for, but with time I will evolve. And when that happens I know I will be a much happier person. The thing is I’m a very logical person and I got the theory down, but putting it into practice seems to be the challenge. I seem to be stumped at time. For some reason everything is so much easier said then done, so please stick with me, I’ll get it one day. I’m hoping sooner then later.
End Note: Just in case you were wondering. Valentines ended well. At the end of the day a friend of mine asked me out and we had an amazing date. He got me to forgot about all my worries for the day. When I showed up to work the next day I was surprised to remember that before I left work the previous day I was totally stressed. I’m happy to say I solved the mystery to my problem in minutes the following day.
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