Thursday, July 24, 2008

Despondency

What's a girl to do when she's down?

Yesterday was a nightmare of bad mood to the nth degree. I received an email that should have done nothing but bring a smile to my face and yet it angered me.

Angered me, people.

I was scolding my children, storming around my house, being generally irritated and I asked myself, what is this all about?

And the answer came to me immediately. Envy. Bitter envy. And it doesn't even make sense. I don't want this person's life. I don't want what this person has. I even want them to have it. It is great stuff. A great person. I person I treasure.

So, of course, I confessed to Hubs. Who, of course, took it as a personal insult. On top of the insurance adjustment check that is also apparently a personal insult. As are the termites. All of which I am apparently still supposed to handle on my own. Even though he is also personally insulted that our emergency fund will be spent so I should figure out how to spend well over three grand out of my daily budget.

So I think my personal despondency is because I've taken on Hub's personal despondency. Because surely if I had bought fewer mocha frapuccinos or fewer half gallons of Blue Bell ice cream, we'd have twenty-eight billion dollars in the account and he wouldn't have to figure out how to pay the roofer, the bug guy and the taxes all out of the same piddly emergency fund. (Which is large enough, mind you, to pay all those people, but leaves it at zero again. Apparently thus negating all his hard work and making him wonder why he bothers.)

The thing is, I feel the same way. Why work so stinking hard to get out of debt and stay out of debt if getting out of debt means all heck breaks loose?

I know it is backward thinking to suppose that we didn't have termites when we were in hock up to our eyeballs so we should go back into debt so that nothing else breaks. I know we should be thankful that God withheld the hail and the bugs and the boils until we had the resources to cover them, but dang if it doesn't feel suspicious.

Meanwhile I'm still reading The Cost of Discipleship which talks of laying it all down and holding everything loosely and, and, and...and I should be encouraged and all I want to do right now is go get a pedicure and a haircut at a real salon and forget that money isn't cheap.

1 comment:

Mr. and Mrs. Nurse Boy said...

Hail damage and termites are actually home owner emergencies. That is why insurance addresses them. So it is a huge blessing and good preperation that you have an emergency fund. Now don't get me wrong, I would be very depressed to see my emergency fund get eaten up. Oh wait, it has, and I am still a bit bitter. But remember, you live in one of the richest counties in the country, certainly the richest county in the state. You own your own home. You HAD an emergency fund. At least that is what I keep telling myself. I need some ice cream.