Life, Work & Wonder

Tag: adulthood

  • High School Was The Most Secure Time Of My Personal Life

    Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.

    I’ll never forget the last week of eighth grade.

    I skipped (with my parents’ permission) all the eighth grade ceremonies. It was an incredibly sunny week. And I just felt so much relief that I never had to go to junior high school again.

    I think most Americans look back on middle school with less-than-warm-and-fuzzy feelings. For me, it was an especially hellacious time of life. I was a late bloomer, meaning I was the smallest kid in the class, which overall I didn’t mind except I played sports and although I was more coordinated than most kids I was always battling for playing time against coaches who preferred bigger kids. Being a late bloomer also meant I looked like a 4th grader in a sea of kids who had overdeveloped bodies, which made the social circle kind of tough. And I was also an extremely hyperactive and talkative kid, which basically meant all my teachers despised me. It was two years from hell, actually.

    When that last week of junior high school hit, I swore that high school would be a different experience for me. That I’d try to find a way to blend in more.

    Whether it was because kids were more mature in high school, or I’d figured out how to blend in more, my high school experience was a much better experience.

    I got decent grades. Had my fair share of playing time in sports. And kids more or less left me alone. I was just a regular kid who went to school for seven hours, did the bare minimum of homework to get Bs, and then really really enjoyed my after school hours.

    I read a lot of books (ironically, rarely ones assigned for school). Played a lot of games. Played a lot of basketball. And spent a LOT of time laughing with (not at) classmates and friends.

    Although my time in actual class bored the heck out of me, I loved those years. I had extra spending money from part-time jobs. I had my friends. And I didn’t have a lot of responsibility, not like in the adult years when life is mostly drudgery for anyone who is wholly devoted to their family.

    With the exception of maybe a year or two in college, I’d never again know a life like this. It was a wonderful time. And at graduation — when most of my friends were celebrating — I remember feeling pretty mixed, because I knew (from watching my parents’ burdens) that a good time of my life was closing.

    Life is amazing. And there are always pockets of joy within any phase of life. But it was actually difficult to say goodbye to that time of my life that included high school.

  • If I Want To Live Forever, I Need Only Attend Corporate Presentations From Hell

    What bores you?

    There is the saying that only boring people are bored. But is that true?

    I’ve found in life that I’m rarely bored when left to my own devices. There is sooooooo much to do in life!!!! So many books to read, magazines to peruse, films to watch, exercises to do, hikes to take, places to explore. If I lived a thousand years, I couldn’t begin to cross everything off my list that I’d like to do. So for me, the problem isn’t boredom but sometimes of feeling overwhelmed.

    For me, the only time I feel bored is when I’m trapped. When I was a kid, that meant sitting in class with teachers who dictated what we had to do, or sitting in a class (e.g. shop class) where I had no interest. As an adult, it’s corporate mandated trainings and meetings. Life is an ETERNITY when I sit in these meetings. I feel so bored. So trapped. I feel like if I want to live forever, I should just spend every day in a Corporate Presentation. But who wants to live forever in that way? That’s like an eternity in hell.

    Have I ever left a corporate presentation Zoom call or a training or a meeting where I thought, that was worth my time? Not that I can think of. But I do feel like time has slowed down and that the day was 10 years long.

    So I’m rarely bored when left to my own devices. It’s when I’m forced to waste my time in meetings where I feel trapped and bored. If I want to live forever, I’ll just spend the rest of my life going to corporate meetings.

  • Budgeting: A Tale Of Two Lives (Then and Now)

    Write about your approach to budgeting.

    Over the decades and over the years, my approach to budgeting has changed.

    Partly because of the times, but mostly because of the circumstances.

    Time was I had to budget to the penny every single month.

    Part of this was because my mom was a CPA and budgeted to the penny every month so that was normal for me. But mostly it was because I was broke.

    I was in graduate school with rent to pay, then I was a lowly-paid teacher with a mortgage to pay, and every single month money was tight. Exceptionally tight.

    At the time, I used a chart on graph paper to keep track of every necessary bill (mortgage, electricity) and reconciled the checkbook to the penny, and if a bill didn’t arrive on time I called to ask how much it was so I could pay it and not worry about it showing up unexpectedly. Every month was down to the dollar, and more often than not the last week of the month was a reliance on broccoli soup since broccoli was cheap. I remember joining a mail-order coffee club because they gave a free coffee machine, and that was the only way I could afford a coffee machine. Adding to that was the city of Seattle, of course, which had exceptionally high license renewal fees/taxes each year for car renewals despite the fact I was driving a very basic and aging car, so every August when that was due I’d moonlight a second or third job to cover that expense so I didn’t have to fret about it.

    But overall it was hell.

    Today budgeting is easier.

    I have some money in savings, I am steadily building my retirement savings for 10 or 15 years down the road, and we’re good about not living beyond our means, and all my financial obligations except credit card* are on autopay, and my daily expenses go on credit card, so I don’t have to hyper manage my budget anymore. In fact, although I religiously check every expenditure that goes out, I don’t budget per se, and I don’t fret per se, although if we have a big expense coming up (trip to see family, house repair) I’ll put the money for it aside in a separate account.

    It’s hard to be poor. It’s exhausting to be poor. It’s stressful to be poor. There is absolutely no margin for error to be poor. So for me when I was part of the working poor (much of my adult life, actually, given that I gave my 20s and part of my 30s to teaching) I relied heavily on a budget, had no room for extras, and kept track of every single penny.

    I’m grateful that in recent years I can be more re-active and less stringently uptight. It makes life more enjoyable. And it also gives me compassion for the people who are part of the working poor like I was.

    NOTES

    (*) Not having credit card on autopay forces me to go through the bill each month in a timely manner to comb for errors and/or fraudulent charges while also keeping an eye out on my spending habits for the month so I can adjust if necessary.