What my parents gave me

According to Random Anny, this is a topic going around on blogs these days and I thought it interesting, so I decided to contribute. This is only a list of financial contributions so you won't see things like "fear of abandonment" or "obsession with weight" on this list.

Essentially, my parents paid for all my needs until I was 16 and got a job. From then on, I bought my toiletries, paid for going out with friends/entertainment, etc. Often, I'd buy myself clothing, but my mom would also take me shopping pretty regularly. She kept some food stocked in the house that I was welcome to eat, but she didn't cook dinner, so I either went out with friends, which I paid for or ate something frozen or canned that my mom bought. Sometimes, probably about once a week, my mom would take me out for dinner. She also paid for major expenses like prom dresses and medical issues, etc.

My father bought me a car when I was 16 with an agreement with my mother that she would pay for my insurance until I graduated from college (which was later revised when I dropped out of school), so I got a free car from them and I paid for the gas, oil changes and repairs.

I had a scholarship for my first quarter of college and my mom paid for my other school expenses such as my dorm fees, etc. Then, I dropped out of college and moved back home. My mom stopped paying for anything at that point, but allowed me to live with her rent free without paying utilities or anything and I also started paying for my car insurance at this point.

Then, I moved out and got a roommate and at this point, I was pretty much on my own in terms of living expenses. I also went back to college around this time and paid for everything myself, including tuition, but I mostly put it on credit cards.

About two years into this scenario, I totaled my car and couldn't get to work or school, so I called my father and asked him for financial help and found out that he'd been sending my mom child support for me the entire two years that I'd been living on my own. At this point, he took pity on me and gave me his wife's car and bought her a new one and he also began to send me the "child support" directly. When I confronted my mom, after some initial denial and justifications, she agreed to make monthly payments to me to pay me back for the money that she had taken from my dad. So, I was doing pretty good there for a while and I was able to pay off much of my credit card debt and trade up for a better car. Eventually, my mom paid me off and shortly after, my father passed away. He left me about $15,000, which was a small life insurance policy provided by his employer to which I was the beneficiary (apparently he made this designation before he remarried and I was his youngest child) and my share of his "estate," which divided by the 8 people who had a claim on it, ended up not being very much. I paid off the rest of my debt with this money, and used the rest as the downpayment for our house 4 years after my father died and I was 25. I continued to pay for my education myself and used my inheritance as an emergency fund, but knew that I wanted to save it to use to by a house someday, which I did.

Overall, with the obvious exception of when my mom was stealing from me, I feel like my parents were really generous with me. Sure, it would have been nice not to pay for college, but I could have had a scholarship which I blew, so I can understand why they wouldn't pay, although they did pay for my siblings, so at the time, I felt really slighted, but in retrospect, I learned to budget and live frugally during those times which are excellent skills to have!

When I got married, my mom gave me $1000 towards the wedding. When my oldest sister got married, my parents paid for the entire wedding and when my other sister got married, my parents were divorced and they each gave her $1000. These are the disadvantages on being the youngest. By the time I came along, my mom did not care one bit about my wedding (she cared very much about the marriage, but not about the actual wedding).

My mom continues to do small things for me occassionally, like take me out to lunch or give me pajama pants or something like that. Something that she saw a good deal on and thought that I'd like. She took me out to lunch on Friday.

Kinkomonics

Here's an interesting freelance opportunity that I will not be persuing.

"Though dominatrix work is considered by many to be the hardest in the sex industry, being able to avoid actual intercourse is key to its appeal to “everyday” women who are just looking to pick up a little extra money."

Best of Times, Worst of Times

Things are silmultaneously going terribly and wonderfuly. I got a new client for my freelance writing and a good solid repeat client who keeps coming back . Also, my eBay sales and going GREAT. I'm doing almost daily shipments, but the Etsy business is really slowing down. I haven't sold anything there since December, but I have some new merchandise that I'm going to list next week, so hopefully that will bring some attention to the store. eBay, though, gee whiz. I should have sold all this junk years ago when I could have enjoyed the money, rather than using it to live.

The job hunt plods along. I applied for three positions this week- a government job with a division that I've never heard of, a television job that I'm not really qualified for but would be great at, and one in Savannah that I would love, but the commute would be a bitch. Haha.

Hoarding

I'm currently watching a show about hoarding on television. I am not a hoarder. I love getting rid of things. I hate knick knacks and trinkets, etc. A "collection" of something, does not appeal to me. Not to say that I don't have things that I like... I do! Particularly mid-century modern things, but most things that I buy, I sell (at my fabulous online vintage store Bad White Trash Memories). My mom, on the other hand, is a hoarder. Her living room area is pretty clear. Her bedroom has stacks in the corners, but it's still functional, but then she has two back bedrooms that are full of junk and she additionally built a shed in the back of her house that is also full of junk. She recently asked me to promise that I wouldn't throw out her things after she dies. I kind of changed the topic.

Amazingly, none of the children inherited my mother's hoarding tendencies. I have about 5 storage boxes full of stuff from high school, college, young adulthood etc. Some of this stuff I could sort though and throw out, it's just a matter of doing it, not a matter of being psychologically unable to let go. Some things I'll always keep- like notes between me and my girlfriends in high school or photographs of old boyfriends, but there are some things that I have been holding on to that I need to let go.

Here it is... my hoarding confession. I've kept every single greeting card, shower invitation, Christmas card, etc that I've ever received. It's ridiculous. I NEVER go through them. It's not like I enjoy going through them or anything. I just feel guilty about throwing them out. Especially if they are HANDMADE. I mean, someone thought of me. How can I just throw their thoughts and well-wishes in the trash? And what about if they die? I have a birthday card from my father, for my 20th birthday. It's a Far Side comic. The one where the guy is only a head. As in he's missing his body. And it's his birthday and all his gifts are hats. The card represents everything that was good about my father. That he sometimes remembered me and his sense of humor. He was in the hospital by my 21st birthday and dead by my 22nd. What if I'd thrown that card away?

I think that the answer is to throw things that you have a tendency to have emotional attachment to away immediately. If I'd thrown that card from my dad away immediately, I wouldn't ever remember it now most likely. But that thought also makes me sad. Stupid greeting cards! My secret shame.

Looks like Michael Phelps knows what I'm talking about...

Weeds

Saturday, my friend Sarah and I started watching Weeds on DVD. On Saturday and Suday, we watched the whole first season. I rented the second season on Monday and finished it up last night. It's a fun show, if you're not sensitive. It's definitly not for the conservative crowed. It's an easy watch with no real complications or mysteries in the plot. The characters are pretty surface, but Mary Louise Parker really brings life into her character.

Sarah lives in a neighborhood similar to Weed's Agrestic and she jokingly said that the show makes her want to start selling pot to all her neighbors. Neither of us are really considering a life of crime, but it does make you wonder how prevelant marajuana use really is. Is everybody smoking weed and just not telling me? I'm certainly no goody goody, but if I was smoking pot regularly, who would I let know? I definitly wouldn't write about it on my blog, that's for sure. My husband would know, of course. I probably wouldn't tell any of my friends. Certianly not my family or co-workers, which means that if I apply those secrecy standards to other people, it's entirely possible that everyone I know is smoking pot, as Weeds would have me believe.

So, sorry if you find me sniffing you in coming weeks. I'm going to conduct some research and if you want, leave an anonymous comment confessing your habit. I won't judge. :)

Teenage Suicide. Don't do it.

A very close friend of mine committed suicide when we were 18. If he were alive, he would have turned 31 today and none of the things that mattered to him them would matter now. He'd probably be living in New York, maybe as a working artist. He'd be funny and charming and talented and women would be falling in love with him, but he'd probably be gay. He most certainly wouldn't be buried in a graveyard next to the Hooters in Jonesboro.

Maybe we'd still keep in touch. We'd be "friends" on myspace and I'd send him occasional emails when I was feeling nostalgic and we'd commiserate about growing up together in suburban Georgia and how far we'd come. About how we used to be so sad, but about what?

If he were alive, where would I be? Maybe I would have graduated from Georgia Tech, instead of plummeting into a horrible depression that lasted for at least five years, which rendered me completely useless in matters of calculus and chemistry. I certainly would have never met my husband and if I had, I would have never understood him.

I suppose, eventually, I would have lost my innocence nonetheless, maybe when my father died. Maybe, if I hadn't spent five years of my life grieving for the loss of my friend, I would still have some grief left for my father.

Death is like a stone thrown into a lake. Some of us get caught in the ripples, and pulled from the current of our lives. We get caught up and sucked under, but if you manage to escape the undertow, you emerge born again. A new person.

When he was alive, I defined myself by our friendship and after his death, I defined myself by my grief. And while I'm sure the immature 18-year-old version of him would appreciate my grief, I have to believe that the adult version, the person that never existed, would want me to finally, after 12 years of grief, learn to define myself by who I want to be, and not by the circumstances of other people's lives.

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, but I won't be in Punxsutawney waiting for a rodent to tell me that spring is coming early this year.