As I sat on the train this afternoon, I happened to be looking back at a post from February called, oddly enough, “Looking Back” which was about my decision not to refinance my mortgage to pay off my credit cards. I was going to strap on a pair and pay them off with discipline and hard work. Well, I worked very hard to get that debt higher than it’s ever been! Needless to say, things didn’t work out exactly as I planned, and I finally had to admit the only way I’ll ever get out of debt is to refinance. I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I may have sold my Big Girl Panties for a couple of extra bucks. I’m a little scared I’ll do this dance over and over until my mortgage is higher than my apartment is worth and I’ll have to go live in a cardboard box. My husband is convinced we’ll be back in debt within the year. I closed on my refi this afternoon. It was the first time since I bought the apartment 14 years ago that I did it without my Dad. When he died, the apartment became mine. I know wherever he is, he is furious with me about my credit card debt, and although he’s been keeping mum about it, I still feel like a foolish 12 year old. But I’m not. I’m an adult. And while it would be easy to play both the fool and the 12-year old, I am neither. I understand that I made the best decision I could given the choices I made and the circumstances I am now in. All I can do from here is grow up.

Fall or Fly carynjune

The gentleman who runs the little market I frequent near my office happened to catch a glimpse of my drivers license while I was rooting around for change. “Wow, ” he said. “How long? 10 years? More! You were so young!” What the…?!?!! I was crushed! I’ve always been the one who didn’t look my age. What the hell is going on here? Granted the picture is 20 years old but I haven’t changed that much, have I??!!! Well…HAVE I?!!!. Shit. Shit. Shit! My young, funky, sense of style aside, I ain’t getting any younger. Damn it! Ok, take a breath. I could take this moment to point out that the Japanese have an art form called Kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with gold or silver lacquer, thus rendering it more beautiful for having broken….Nope, not feelin’ it. I’ve got no soul-searching or self-awareness. No wit or wisdom. No prose or pith. Pissed, however I’ve got. I’m pissed. Old and pissed.

Bite Me carynjune

So last night I had one of my famous meltdowns. Well, actually only famous if you happen to live in the same house with me. Or read this blog. I get my train ticket and metro card in the mail every month and I always put it in the same place in the kitchen until the previous month expires. So I go into the kitchen and it’s not there. “What the…but I always put it in the same place!”. Famous last words. I look, I take all the bills and sift through them. Nothing. Now my first thought is when I was cleaning up for my cleaning lady, (oh, you know you all do it…), I threw out a lot if #%}^*. Oh no, what if I threw it out, I’m so screwed! And I start to cry. My husband comes in and starts to help me look, trying to calm me down, but I am inconsolable. I empty my purse, I look through my desk in the bedroom. We’re emptying garbage and recycling all over the floor and I am sobbing, snot all over my face, “what am I gonna dooooooo?” I am practically prostrate with doom. My husband then goes through a pile on my desk that I have already looked through, “it’s not theeeeerrreeee…” And pulls out the envelope with my ticket. Now, I’m hugging him and crying because he’s the best husband in the world. And I’m feeling a little ridiculous. “But I always put it in the same place!!!” Guess what, no I don’t. Or I do, but it gets mixed in with something that goes in a different place. He almost always finds it, whatever “it” is. Because he is patient, and knows there’s always a solution if you look for it. And sometimes, it’s just lost. But there’s still a solution. My go to place is brouhaha and the end of the world. Like a child who has not yet learned to use his words and his brain, if I throw a big enough tantrum, the universe will give me what I want. It doesn’t usually work for children, and it definitely doesn’t work for me. I’m not, by nature, a particularly patient person. I lose interest, I’m not good enough at something, move on! It’s too much work to stop and figure out a solution, to perfect a skill, to find the lost. So much easier to stay a child, to stomp and cry and let someone else do all the work. I am lucky my husband is patient and kind and loves me anyway. But even he doesn’t want to raise a 56 year old baby. Time to put on my Big Girl Panties, Wait! What the %#}^* ??! Where are my Big Girl Panties????!!! I always put them in the same place!

Namaste carynjune

I learned recently that a dear friend from college lost her husband after 35 years of marriage. I never knew her when they weren’t married. When I heard I was understandably struck with sadness for her. But what is less definable is the low grade terror I’ve been walking around with since then. $)%# happens. And as we get older, the chances of scary, $)%#-y things happening increases. Our parents die, we lose our jobs, our health declines, our spouses die. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. How do we balance the joy and adventure and life we still have yet to live with the scary, $)%#-y, inevitable stuff of getting older? We just do. We just hold out our arms and keep our balance as best we can. And have faith that if we fall, someone or something will be there to catch us.

On the Fence carynjune

As my very wise cousin said to me recently, “if you keep one foot in the past and one in the future, you’ll pee on today.” This was profound. I’d be hard-pressed to say whether I spend more time regretting the past or fearing the future. Exhausting! And then I wonder why I don’t remember huge chunks of my past. I wasn’t there!!! I was too busy either beating myself up about what I said or did or holding imaginary conversations about what I was gonna say or do that I didn’t really say or do anything! Well, maybe I did, but I don’t remember…..and I really regret that. Yep. Its a vicious cycle. And it’s a heavy burden. I know we can’t change the past and we can’t predict the future. And quite frankly sometimes the present stinks. But it’s all we’ve got. And if we keep one foot in the past, we get depressed, and one foot in the future, we’re anxious, and either way, we can’t see today under all that pee.

Baggage carynjune

Hi. My name is Caryn and I am an addict. Drugs? Not interested. Alcohol? I do love me some tequila, but no. Smoking, sex, gambling? Done that, like it as much as the next guy, does Candy crush count? No, I find myself caught up in a weird whirlwind of vacation planning. It usually starts about a year ahead of time and consists of hours on travel websites figuring out when we’re going, where we’ll stay, how many cities we can fit into the time we’ve got and how much time will be spent on the bus getting around. I love this. I will book and rebook hotels endlessly. It’s almost as good as the vacation itself. And of course, while I’m on vacation, I’m allowed not to worry about money or how fattening anything is. I’m in this world of suspended reality, where I can do whatever I want and deal with the consequences later. While I plan and travel and eat and spend, I feel like I’m having this big, full life! But later never actually comes. At 56, I should never be woken by the ding of an incoming text from Chase telling me my account is overdrawn. This feels bad. So I move money from my credit cards to my bank account and feel ashamed and scared. This feels bad. And I sit and plan the next vacation while I work my way through a box of Weight Watchers ice cream bars. This feels…surprisingly great! Until it doesn’t. What’s the investment? What’s the allure of the perpetual shame and fear? Maybe it’s the someday. As long as I have plans to get my shit together someday, I can’t die. I’ll live forever! But my somedays grow smaller and my debts grow bigger. My waistline expands. And I mutter “someday…someday!” like a talisman to ward off the monsters, while I keep running. Not letting the monsters get me.

The Monster Under the Bed carynjune