A New Year

*Finally hitting publish on a year old draft*

Only a few close friends and family know the struggle we clawed our way through these last two years. It started out innocently enough. In 2012 I found myself pregnant and ready to take on the coveted role of stay at home mom, to my soon to be born, precious son. Like the planner I am,  I spent the previous 9 months leading to his birth stashing every penny of my income into a savings account to be sure we'd always have enough to get by should my husband's business get slow. We also tested the waters for those months, making sure we could survive as a single income household. We thrived. Which is why it came as such a surprise to me that only a few months after my son's first birthday I went to the bank to withdraw the last thousand dollars I'd stashed in a CD for an eventual trip to Europe. Except we weren't going to Europe, we were using it to pay our mortgage.

What followed for the next two years, isn't a blur for me but more like a trudge, through quicksand, wearing combat boots. The harder we pulled to right ourselves, the further we got dragged under.

Let me paint a picture for you, of what once felt like the most humiliating day of my life. It was a cold day in February, as I gathered the last few documents needed by our social worker, loaded my one and a half year old into the car and drove the thirty minute drive out to the welfare office. Our case worker was so kind and Abel played with toys on the floor left in the office to help occupy kids, while we went over the details. Approved. For $400 a month in groceries and I was so grateful and humbled and about a million other emotions but mostly eager to hightail it out of there and get home before anyone saw me because this was just temporary, remember! Little did I know that this was just a splash of the humility I would receive in full on tsunami waves over the next two years. Like the wave that day my EBT card didn't work at the grocery store and I finally caved and used my checking account knowing full well the funds weren't there. I couldn't escape that store quick enough after. Like the wave the day I sold my son's old highchair on Craigslist for $15 just so I could have enough gas money to get me to my next destination. I don't know who said "money can't buy happiness" but they were wrong and obviously not poor. Money might not buy happiness but it buys you so many other things that equate to an easier life. I'll never forget the struggles we endured and they were minor in comparison to most. Aside for some credit card debt we were lucky. We kept our house and our cars because my husband lucked into a great job just in the nick of time. But wow, if my entire view of the world isn't a little bit different. Life seems jokingly easy now that that automatic deposit hits our account every two weeks but I'm no fool to think we're above it. That we're not all ridiculously close to wandering down that road again in a turn of bad events. Remember that next time you start to feel entitled. You're not, you're mostly just lucky. We're all mostly just lucky.

So now that we're not painfully broke and are starting to right ourselves again I can kind of focus on myself. It's strange how being financially stressed takes away from your creative life. All you think about is money and how to get more of it. It's like a twisting, mind bending maze that goes on and on forever. All you can think about is getting out but every time you turn a corner you've hit a wall. By the time you do actually make it out, you're too afraid to rejoice for fear it might just be a mirage. It's been 4 months and I'm still afraid to get excited but I think it's finally safe. I'm ready for some self evaluation, which is why for the first time in my adult life I've set resolutions for myself this year. For the first time in a long time I've got all kinds of hope for an amazing year and I'm going to help facilitate that. So it's simple. In this new year I'm working on 3 categories of self growth.

Mental growth in the form of reading more and spending much less mindless time in front of screens (Aka, fakebook, as my mom likes to call it). Creative growth, in the form of writing and creating art regularly. Lastly, physical growth in the form of getting my body back into fantastic shape, which will lead me to a long time goal of running a half marathon for my 30th birthday in 2017.