Deep Breathing before Buying Nothing

So I’m a few days away from June, not many really, and I’m staring at the small pile of money to get me through the next 2 weeks and I feel that familiar tightness in my chest. This reminds me why we’re cutting the cord next month, and why even though it might suck sometimes, something will be awesome.

My goal here is to feel good about money again.

I never learned to save. Call it the consequence of the nuclear family, the 50′s household, but my mother did ALL the housekeeping. The cooking, the cleaning, the bill paying. My father received a certain amount each week for cigarettes and coffee and that was it. He didn’t worry about it. She was his keeper. He didn’t worry about the gas bill being paid, he just made most of the money to pay it.

And then she died, and suddenly, he had a pile of bills, access to the bank account, and no real clue how to manage it all. And around this time, I came of age, and started handling money. These two incidents do not a budget friendly tightwad make. (Perhaps they could, but not in my narrative they didn’t)

Being more than a little screwed up, I adopted the lazy person’s view of the world. Why save for tomorrow when I might die today?!

This is not helpful. While it means that today you get a snazzy pair of shoes or a nice new tattoo, it also means you get to experience to truly awful pain of anal rape via interest rate. I do not recommend, nor does my credit score.

I have shied away from this problem for years. I have been terrified to try and take it in hand, worried that I just couldn’t, which is ridiculous. I’m a smart, capable and adaptable woman-why can’t I get my finances under control? What am I so worried about? Being more poor? I don’t even know if that’s possible. (It is. Trust me it is.)

Sure, a part of me wishes I had a keeper like my father did, wishes I never had to deal with it. And in my marriage, it was kinda like that but without the real partnership aspect. There was no sense of a household budget, no pooling of money. Just two people paying random pieces. No goals, no focus.

I have a focus now.

I want to get some very particular things out of the next month, and possibly longer.

• I want to catch up on all my bills as much as possible. Looking at my potential incoming dollars, I should be able to be in the green on all but one bill.
• I want to start setting more money aside. I had started a little savings account via my workplace, but after stepping on someone’s iTouch, after dropping mine in a bathtub, there goes that money. So I start fresh, but I also want to know what it’s like to leave money IN my bank account for something other than paying off bank fees.
• Completely paying off the overdraft would be nice as well.
• I need NEED to start seriously working on this house. Which means I need to be able to set money aside for maintenance. Even if it’s just buying drywall compound or a new baseboard heater for the bathroom, it needs to be done, and needs to be made a priority.

My long term focus is to make not spending money a habit. I know people who can do this, and I envy their self control. And when I get right down to it, THAT is what I want and so desperately need. Self Control. I’ve never had it, but it’s about time to get some.

And so you know, I actually did a meal plan tonight for the next two weeks. Potato Pesto Pasta, Zucchini Black Bean Enchiladas, Bean Burritos, Chili, and Chick Pea and Swiss Chard Curry. I figure I can get at least 2-3 meals from each, depending on what the girls might eat. And most of these meals will barely cost more than 5 dollars, with minimal cooking. I’d like to see just how cheap I can get the grocery bill down to as well. I know I spend too much on crap. (And yes, I DO like beans that much. I don’t follow a real vegetarian diet, but I certainly don’t eat much flesh in a normal week.)

I hope you’ll follow me, and hell, possibly even join in this month. My goal is to post every day, the challenges, and the inevitable annoyances. Just like when I quit smoking, I’m looking at this as my breaking years of habits. It won’t come easy. But it will come.

Thanks for coming with me.

My Buy Nothing Month

I spend too much money.

Well, I consider it too much money. I don’t have much money to spend, after the mortgage and the groceries, hydro, the internet and phone bills. Child support pretty much all goes to child care.

When I do the math though, there should be more. I shouldn’t get to the end of the month having a freaking panic attack about where I’ll shuffle the money from to pay the hydro bill. I should be able to save a bit here and there so if I want a weekend away, it isn’t a huge stress.

I’m fairly confident that there are a few hundred dollars in a month that I’m flittering away stupidly. Coffee and trips to the thrift store and ill-advised KFC lunches. Crap. Junk I don’t need, food that isn’t good for me, things I could do at home. You know, all the stuff they tell us not to do.

I’m a single mom. Money doesn’t grow on trees. My ex-husband is great about paying support, but that’s eaten in child care, and I can only do so much to earn extra. The money only stretches so far. Food costs more. Doing anything costs more.

I already buy most if not all clothes used, 90% of books and toys are the same. I occasionally treat myself to new books (like Homesteading and Backyard Ballistics) but even those books have a point-feeding my household and living a lower impact life, and keeping the kids occupied while terrifying my neighbours. We don’t eat high on the hog, I don’t smoke, I rarely drink, I don’t even go to the freaking movies anymore. I cut off my cable. I have a cheap cell phone plan, reduced my internet level.

And still I feel like I can’t catch up.

So in June, I’m gonna stop it for a bit. I don’t do well with budgets, and frankly need a keeper to give me an allowance. But since that isn’t going to happen, I’m committing to this instead.

In the month of June, there will be NO non-essential spending.

I will consider the following essential

• Standard bills-my mortgage, hydro, sewer, and cable bills (this holds my phone bills as well)
• Food. I will reduce and attempt to plan meals so I am spending less, but honestly, I’m mostly as low as I can go without eating liver everyday as it is.
• Garden supplies. If I’m putting in a garden in order to save on food this summer/fall, this will matter long-term.
• Medical expenses, if any.
• Household repair, if needed.

Everything else at this point, is gravy.

I know there isn’t a lot of wiggle room in my budget. Frankly, selling my house would open up more money, but then that just gives me an entirely new set of problems and doesn’t figure into possible long-term plans right now. I have to face it-I’m poor.

But part of facing that is understanding that 2.50 on a coffee each day just isn’t feasible. Not when I cringe to spend 3.99 on a box of tea I love. It doesn’t make much sense does it?I think that along with my extremely fucked up way of dealing with eating-i.e. as a source of emotional comfort, money is a crutch. I didn’t have much as a child, and when my mother died, I had open access to two things for awhile when we were hurting-food and money. All I got for this was a fat ass and an inability to handle money.

Frankly, I’m tired of it. I’m too old for it, and I want to change. And just like smoking, I think I need to do it cold turkey. Cut the cord. Get the spending under control, and hopefully the eating will follow.

I want change. The person I want to be isn’t the person who wastes money on crappy food or shoes she doesn’t need. So for June, I will be documenting daily how it goes. I’m not comfortable disclosing dollar amounts, but what I want to do is explore the WHY. Why I want to spend. Why I feel that blind urge to spend money, even knowing that it won’t make me feel better for fix any problems.

Any advice, any guidance is welcome. But remember, I’m not handling a 6 figure income here. I’m barely hanging on some months, and it sucks, but I can do better. I want to do better.

Falling

I am driving in a car, sitting quietly beside the driver. I’ve never liked driving, always had a tightness at the back of my throat about it. It’s better now than it was, now I’m able to sit in a car without white knuckling it the entire way home or having a panic attack. But I still hate it.

In this dream I’m abnormally calm, until I look up to notice that the car is being driven on the edge of something, one set of wheels on pavement, the other floating almost in the air above water. The edge of the lot is corraled by a large bump, striped with multiple colors as a warning. The warning is not being heeded by this driver. We veer to the right, towards the water and I realize I need to get out. The water is dark and choppy, winter water, cold and dormant. I need to go, and now.

I open the door and step into the air as the car is falling, throw myself from the car as I urge the driver, comically slow and muddled, to do the same. I hit the water with a snap, and come up to see the car bobbing on the surface. I’m calm but paniced, unable or unwilling to go under to try and pry the door open. I know I can’t. I know it won’t help. I’m not strong enough.

Swimmers are gathered from a nearby beach, and one looks to me as I scream and dives down. There are terrible grey seconds and then finally, he rises with the driver and feel peace again. It is safe. He is safe.

We stagger to the beach together, and say nothing of it.

I wake and remember the cool surrender of falling, and the strange terror of calm.

“Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.”

It will not stop raining.

Literally. It has rained for what seems like weeks. Coming off 3 straight months of blankets of snow, (no joke-look up Moncton snowfall for this year and you’ll see), enough snow to collapse roofs of sheds and garages, the rain is a sick sad joke, a curse sent upon us. Just enough to make everything green and sweet, but leave it wet enough so my lawn grows like the Nile. I don’t dare mow it, worried I’ll destroy yet another mower.

I’m about ready to buy myself a goat, tether it to the front lawn. Might keep away pesky kids with flyers and Jehovah’s I think.

The rain, the incessant rain, the only words we can speak “Will it stop raining soon? When will the sun come out? Had enough rain?” So typically Canadian, this focus on the weather. It’s the common divider, the soft reasoning in public, the cushion. The weather is safety, out of our hands but not political. Just, rain.

So we talk about it more. I talk about it, and I blame it for my anger, my sadness, my irritation, my complete and utter lack of motivation unless food is somehow involved. My house stands messy and slightly odor ridden and I just don’t care. I haven’t the effort, or the will. And the rain I blame, the grey, the messy sigh out the window I give.

There are decisions to be made, decisions deferred, and I’m waiting for the sun to find me before I make them. I spend the weekend in another city, full of rain, full of grey, but feel at home. I see whales, fins of minke whales from a distance and I glow at my lover, amazed. I spend the weekend glowing. Wet and slightly chilled because I insist on wearing shorts or skirts, but in a constant state of wonder and calm. A place where I feel at home. A place that fits.

It’s not just the rain. It’s this place. It’s 10 years of a place I feel outside in. Ever had a pair of pants that fit, technically, that look ok you suppose, that almost make your butt look good, but they just don’t work? You can’t explain it, if it’s the darts or the fabric or the cuffs but there’s something about them you cannot stand. They keep you warm and covered, they do what pants essentially should, but they don’t make you feel beautiful. They don’t hug your curves or make you feel womanly.

Those pants are the city I live in, have lived in, have tried to give the college try, have attempted to love. But it’s empty, and seemingly cursed like the sky. A perpetual motion machine when all I crave is silence and stillness and some sort of age. I crave a land that knows its name and age, that remembers where it’s been and loves itself more for it. A place judged on merits other than having an Old Navy and baby boomer bands once a year.

I want a place that greets my heart and soul, and this isn’t it. It never was. It’s a lot of things. It’s where my children were born. It’s where my marriage slowly floundered, a dull descent into its own hell. It’s where I went to hell and back, needlessly.

But it’s not home. It’s never, ever been home.

And I want home.

***

I hate some cities. Ottawa. I absolutely despise Ottawa. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up nearby and harbour opinions about the city because I was dragged there every.single.year in winter to freeze my ass off skate on the canal or if the sheer number of government workers makes me twitchy but I cannot deal with the city. Same from Brampton. Just, too weird. But I love Kingston where I was born, nestled near Lake Ontario, privy to the Thousand Islands. I love Nashville.

Hated Houston. Apathetic about Toronto.

I need a city to inspire me, a place. Small towns with age hold me rapt because they transport me, let me feel and smell the people who have come before me, walk with them. Imagine their children bawling in the dark air. The world should be full of magic, even the everyday type, not full of anger and rage and stuff. The sheer volume of “stuff” and its resultant worries in this city is like a sore I cannot heal. I’ve said it of other places, and I’ll say it of this place.

There is no poetry here.

***

Is there poetry where you live, beauty? Does it matter to you what’s outside your door, or is it home that you crave, behind your own doors?

Lately

I buy them toys to asuage my guilt, a peace offering, a token. My love, made real, given purpose.

It’s not just guilt. I take time to pick out their wants, one of these for Vivian, to be built in 3 minutes flat. Some of these, to play with the almost forgotten Lite Brite (new from the thrift store, 3.00. Perfect find. I wanted one badly enough to taste it as a child. Never got one.)

The shining light in their eyes, the speed with which they run to the table, the “thank you!”, the hugs, the joy in their intent faces, I know it’s not just stuff as I fear. It does mean something, being able to provide, knowing that stuff, along with their mother, means something. The fact that I spent 20 minutes deciding what little thing would be best, they don’t need to know that.

Viv turns to me and says “The lite-brite stuff for Ros? That’s perfect for her. Thank you Mom.”  She puts the little robot man together, takes him apart, together, apart, over and over. “He can hang out with my Bionicle” and they do.

It’s stuff. It’s 15 or so dollars, less than an hour’s wage for me, but sometimes, I know it’s more. I remember the time my mother bought those stupid expensive popsicles, because things were stressed and weird and I just needed to know what sometimes the magic things could show up at home. And sometimes they did.

This is what matters to me as a mother, as a parent. Being able to stretch out my fingers and make a rough week better. I don’t always have time, I don’t always have money. But sometimes I do, and the mess across the table just means my kids are doing what they should-being my kids.

My kids.

***

I’ve been writing lately, and the words have been pouring from me, the story flowing outside my fingers, another child, this one growing on it’s own, growing like a weed, over taking my brain. It leaves me spacey and distracted, caught up in what if’s and maybe’s and how long her hair might be and why she might kill him and get away with it. The world builds itself in my head, the greens verdant, the sunlight flowing like rum.

It’s amazing after so long of nothing, of false starts, to feel like this time, it means it. This time the writing is real. it’s left me dry for most other things, the false starts of open browser windows or emails, emptied it seems. And perhaps that’s how it should be, all energies devoted to that one child, this one voice, this latent memory of future.

However it’s happening, it’s sweet like a plum and I’m savouring each bite.

“God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.”

On the day she died, around the time they would have just pronounced her dead in 1989, I was standing in a thrift store, damp with icy April rain, selecting jigsaw puzzles.

I have waited a long time for the space and quiet for these puzzles, the desk, the time, the light. When my mother would receive chemotherapy or radiation, I would sit in the lounge with the old men, eating cookies as I searched for the edge pieces, or perhaps the snowy mountain peak or Ottawa’s tulips, vivid and alive. I was a bridge then, between illness and health, youth and death. I was hope eternal on knobby legs. I was truth and beauty. I was a reason, her reason, a reminder of theirs perhaps, a glimpse into who they were, who she was. The breath of youth. Wasted on the young as it is.

I never knew their names, in their polyester pants, brimmed hats. I counted only their wrinkles, their winks, their stories. The saved the oreo’s for me, gently refrained from asking why I was there, smiled indulgently when my mother would make her way back to me, unable to hurry but wanting to, knowing the time between treatment and nausea was brief, and not always longer than the drive home. Those old men were safe, a certain thing in that hospital. They didn’t try to explain. They didn’t ask me how I felt, they didn’t look at me with pity or sadness or even anger.

They just asked me to work on my corner of the puzzle.

***

I’ve been thinking about my mother lately, as I sit in the quiet of my empty house, as I clean her old things, as I purge more and more of my own, craving the stillness of less. I’ve been thinking about love, and her hands. How her hands were so full of life, so simply beautiful, like tiny wrens. Expressive, they could flutter, they could sting, they could harangue.

And lo, how they could love.

A few weeks ago I missed my daughters, truly missed them for the first time ever. Missed them like I thought my heart would explode and I with it. In the shadows in the corner of my room I could feel her there, whispering, nodding with her eyebrows cocked as she said

yes darling. That’s it right there. That’s how it felt all along for me, forever.

and I thought my heart would dissolve just then as I understood, more than I ever thought possible, what it meant for my mother to die.

They say our children are our hearts walking outside our bodies. I say, it’s our mother’s too.

***

Every year I stop in April to think of her. Today I made my yearly mea culpa to her of washing her tea cups. Into two of them I dropped, to remain invisible, her rosary and a piece of her jewelry, two of the few things that were hers that I actually possess. I like that they’re hidden, secrets in the open. A smile of hers tucked away to watch me over my shoulder.

It never really leaves me, that death. No other death will ever hit me as much, excepting the death of a child perhaps, or a partner. None other will be as full of impact or meaning as hers was. I wish I could leave it behind. I know I can’t, it being one of the stilts my life has been built on, whether I like it or not. Her death defined who I was, who I became. I can move past it, I can move through it, but it will never, ever change the fact that I have no mother. I have a ghost mother, a spirit, a whisper who moves me.

Sometimes I think I understand what it all means, and aspire to grace and wisdom. Other days, like tonight, sitting in my house, my daughters tucked haphazard in their beds and snoring, I don’t understand it at all, not anymore at 33 than I did at 11. It’s just not fair. It was never fair. It was always completely and utterly wrong but it will never change the facts. It will never bring her back, and will never change that she’s gone from me forever.

So tonight I hugged my girls a little longer. I told them I loved them, I kissed them, I spoke softly to them. I memorized them, as if to copy. The soft pear of Rosalyn’s cheek. The steely glint to Vivian’s eye. The sound of their laughter echoing around these walls.

I can’t remember my mother’s voice. But I’ll be damned if I will ever forget theirs, or them mine.