Shevy, Reappearing

Interesting, no?  One minute I'm here, if a little busy with Life.  The next, nothing.  Two months plus of nothing.

And the answer is: I had a little crisis.  I don't quite know how to describe it.  Of confidence.  Of identity.  Of how I see myself.  Of how others see me.

What brought this on?  The silliest thing, something totally innocent.  Praise.

I've known pretty much forever that I'm not great with criticism.  Who knew a casual line of praise could totally undo me?  Well, certainly not my blogging friend who emailed me a short note that included the following line:

"you are so good at staying committed to your goals".

I read it and a voice from deep inside said, "You don't deserve that praise."  And I quietly fell apart.  Couldn't post.  Couldn't hide that truth.  Couldn't speak it aloud.  And, as time went by, things just got worse and worse.

I originally felt unworthy of praise because I'd just come through the whole financial devastation that is Passover.  I'd charged a lot of food, matzo, wine, you name it on the credit card for Passover.  I'd had to pay for Dog to go on his annual Pesach vacation.  And I was starting to fall a little behind on certain things, while trying to pay off Dear Child's dental surgery.  It seemed ludicrous to say that, because I was diverting $50 a pay period into my Tax Free Savings Account or $10 per week into my Baby Emergency Fund, I was staying committed to my goals.  There were so many places where I was bleeding money.

In the interim, things have just gotten worse and worse (as I said).  I bought the laminate flooring for Dear Child's room (and my Son-in-Law installed it!).  More money, but money well spent.  DC's room is finished except for baseboards.  I also bought four new upper cupboards, IKEA ones, about the week before Passover (because I wanted pantry shelves on which to put my food).  I spent about $500.  If they were in and being used, I probably would also consider it money well spent.  They're sitting in their boxes in my foyer.  Apparently, if (at some point) I put them together my Son-in-Law will demo the existing (mostly broken and unusable) cupboards and hang the new ones.

I started having terrible tooth pain and ended up with a major root canal that now needs to be finished off with a crown.  And my husband has just had pretty much the same thing.  Net result, big increase in the credit card balance.

Sigh.

Despite paying off as much as possible pretty much every payday we owe way more than we did in March or April.  I have a spreadsheet that tracks all the additional charges we've made to the card and when I've made each payment (in addition to the $90 per pay period that is our normal payment).

And I have continued to put money into both the Emergency Fund and the TFSA, as well as restarted deposits to my RRSP.  It just seems like such a drop in the bucket compared to the other.

So, that's my story.  I'm going to try to get back to writing here though, because (for all the embarrassment of having to admit all this) I find it valuable.