More Dubious Than Desperate

I was savouring Laura Kipnis’s snarky book review until I read this:

"Over dinner recently, an acquaintance (single and approaching a certain age) returned repeatedly to the theme of not wanting to be coupled. She wondered why people kept insisting she get coupled, and proleptically bemoaned how much narrower her life would be were she coupled. What I heard was someone desperate to couple.”

Oh shit, are my musings about whether I really want to be in a relationship a sign that I am secretly yearning for one?  Doth this lady protest too much?

After confronting that possibility and considering it from various angles, I think not.  Questioning the merit of another LTR is genuine, based on my particular life experiences.  And I mean my experiences since birth, not just my own LTRs:  Our expectations for relationships are formed by observing our parents.  Looking at my parents and grandparents, I don’t have good models.  Amongst my contemporaries, few of my friends are happily coupled.  From my personal experience, the two LTRs in my adult life were object lessons in disappointment, exercises in lowering expectations, adjusting to the miserable reality that was forged by our individual shortcomings.  In entering the dating scene again, looking for a potential third LTR, I would have to be singularly unintrospective not to question whether I wanted another LTR and, if so, why and what for.

I have been earnest in considering whether I value certain features of relationships, like love and intimacy, that are taken for granted as desirable.  My motivation has been the distasteful undertaking of goal-oriented online dating.  Because I must stay focused on finding someone with money, who wants kids right away, I know I will have to compromise in other areas.  That naturally leads to consideration of what my deal-breakers are and what I'd be looking for if money and the biological clock weren’t overriding concerns.  Would I be looking for anyone at all or are practical needs my only motivation for dating?  It would have been myopic not to wonder and I think one is allowed a certain amount of navel-gazing after the demise of two LTRs that together comprise most of my adult life.

Most alarming to me is that it was my partner in both cases who ended the relationship despite the fact that I was miserable in both LTRs once it became undeniable that my partners were too fucked up to engage in any type of adult relationship at all.  I was prepared to grit my teeth and stick it out each time.  That’s disturbing.  In both cases, I should have left years earlier.  In fact, I should have heeded warning signs from the beginning and never let them become such serious long-term entanglements.  What the hell does that say about me?  Nothing good, that’s for sure.  I need to be careful not to do that again.  Yet how to avoid it if my main motivation is financial stability?  So you see, I have to give this relationship business some honest thought.  Neither partner was capable of intimacy and I was evidently prepared to live without that.  So, can I honestly claim that intimacy is something that I need from my next relationship?  Can I even state unequivocally that it is something I am capable of myself?

Likewise love: I never loved City Boy, which made me sad at the time (it’s not something you can force - believe me, I tried) but it was also a safeguard, a protection from future pain.  (I have taken to heart the scene in one of my favourite movies when the protagonist announces her engagement and her mother asks if she loves him.  When she replies in the negative, her mother says “good”.  When City Boy left, my mother scoffed that she'd never been in love nor depended on any man and it served me right for being stupid enough to depend, emotionally or financially, on a male.  She was right.)  Yet, not loving him didn’t stop me from going through hell when he left.  (In the same film, when the fiancé-she-doesn’t-love breaks their engagement, he says, “In time you will see that this is the best thing,” which is true, but her reply is priceless: "In time you'll drop dead and I'll come to your funeral in a red dress.”)

In contrast, I was smitten with Country Boy yet I later realised that I was in love with the person I wanted him to be, not who he was.  So, was that really love?  That question has perturbed me ever since.  Add to this a third variable:  I later loved someone who was unsuitable for a relationship for several insurmountable reasons.  Feelings don't make things work out in the real world, despite what the songs say.  (“The storybooks are bullshit!”  Ok, ok, I’ll stop now but that is the greatest speech.)

Solving for that equation, what do we learn about the importance of love in a LTR?  I didn’t love my partner in my longest relationship and was prepared to stay in it forever anyway.  And it didn’t save me from pain at the demise of the relationship.  I didn’t love the person my prior partner turned out to be, although I figured I'd made my choice and would just live with it anyway.  And love alone doesn’t make someone a suitable partner; practical considerations must always trump feelings in real life.  Add up emotions, subtract misconceptions, divide by reality, and solving for X tells me that love is not a necessary ingredient in a LTR.

It seems heretical to say that intimacy and love aren't required, just money and willing sperm.  Temperamentally, I'm the last woman on earth who is a suitable candidate to be a trophy wife, and I'm reaching the outer limits of fuckability agewise, so the whole enterprise just seems absurd and humiliating.  I'm a realist—I'm never going to earn enough money to buy my own horse farm or have a child on my own—but I am also a feminist who has never had a penny of support from a man.  My OCD would be a challenge for someone to live with and I'm also introverted to the point of needing to spend most of my time alone.  My motto is "I'd rather be right than liked", which has never gone over well in the in-law dept.  I'm hornier than my partners can keep up with, which, snickering aside, is a more significant issue than you might imagine.  Not to mention that I deeply resented, in both LTRs, doing all of the housework, shopping, cooking, etc., despite paying over half the expenses. 

Given all that, it would be odd, as I vet candidates, if I didn't query the value of relationships.  I don’t see how I could reenter the dating market without asking these kinds of questions.  I suppose one could bumble along brightly with a “third time’s the charm” optimism but I seem to be more Wednesday Addams than Pollyanna.

Tires or Testicles (Part I)

Ain't that the truth.

 Tires

The day before I left on a road trip to farmsit for a friend several states away, I asked my garage if they'd listen to an abnormal noise my car was making.  I expected that I was being overly cautious, that they'd tell me it was nothing.

Well, "nothing" turned out to be a dying water pump that would have left me stranded roadside, undoubtedly halfway between Shartersville and Outer Bumfuck.  With no loaner car available, I was stuck waiting for 4 hours and left $400 poorer.  But at least my 26-year-old car was content with its new water pump and made the long trip stoically.

On Friday, for the first time, I made the 500 mile round trip to see Silas in one day.  My friend who boards him for me is willing to let me spend the night but I don't like to put her out and I can't afford to take that much time every visit.  I used to have a friend who lived about halfway but she moved in November.  I also used to be able to stay with City Boy's relatives.  So, it's now harder to see my baby.  This was an experiment to see if I could handle the drive in one day.

Saturday was shearing day at the farm where I have a sheep share.  I'm not that fussed about seeing the shearing itself, to be honest, although I do like examining the fleeces and learning about quality and variations in the wool.  But mainly it's an excuse to see the lambs.  However cute and cuddly you imagine newborn lambs to be, I assure you they are cuter and cuddlier.  They are also some of the gentlest, happiest, and most carefree little creatures on earth.  Watching them leap and gambol and rest in the sun is soothing to my chronically anxious soul.  They are peacefulness personified.  Also, after the shearing is done, everyone celebrates maple syrup season with lunch at a local sugaring house's restaurant.  (I skipped lunch and went straight for the maple ice cream.)

Baah, baah, fat sheep.  This sheep hasn't been missing any meals.

Baah, baah, black—yes, dammit, we'll have plenty of wool.

Finding the sunny spot. 

The sheep farm isn't that long a journey from my house—up the Interstate, across a state highway, and along some country lanes.  But it's about 60 miles round trip, a significant enough distance.  So, I was amazed at my luck:  When the exhaust system fell out of the car, it happened as I turned onto my own street.  It was only attached by the gasket at the tailpipe but I was able to get down the block and into my driveway with it dragging on the ground and making an obnoxious racket.

I'd had it spot-welded a few times as the salted winter roads had taken rusty nibbles here and there, and I could hear that it was getting louder.  I knew it would reach the point where it had to be replaced soon but I was hoping to make it at least through next winter.

Car is obviously not driveable so I will have to get it towed to the garage, when I can afford the repair.

The silver lining (or perhaps aluminium, under all that rust) is that by some stroke of luck, despite all these road trips, it somehow broke down within sight of my house.  What are the odds?  Also, I had a ticket to the monthly burlesque show for Saturday night.  I was leery of biking such a long distance in the dark and the cold but I was able to persuade an acquaintance to go.  I'd been trying to get her to come to the burlesque since last summer and she loved it.  So, I got a ride and she finally popped her burlesque cherry and can't wait to do it again.

Next instalment: Testicles.

Location, Location, Location

Today’s Sunday Magazine cover story, “Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?”, includes the line, “Studies show you shouldn’t move for location, since what you do is more important than where you do it.”  I’d like to know what studies these are, and who the respondents were, because I take issue with this supposed result.  Where I live is much more important to me than what I do for a living.  That clearly is not true for everyone but I can’t believe that the majority tend to the other extreme.

Work should take up, (for the sort of people who would be facing this job vs. location dilemma, i.e. mid-to-upper-level white collar), as few hours of one’s life as possible —40 hours per week, maybe more in busy periods with overtime.  Most of one’s life is lived outside of work.  Work provides the money to do the things we love—play sports, pursue hobbies, own property, raise a family, travel, etc.  Most people, if they won the lottery, would quit their jobs and move–to the coast, to the mountains, to whatever aesthetic environment appeals to them.  I know a guy who works in finance, for example, who lives to snowboard.  He has an MBA and a 6-figure salary, so you’d think he’d be about as career-oriented as anyone, but his main criterion for location is that fresh powder is within commuting distance.  This is not someone who would be happy with a great job in Florida. 

Speaking of Florida, I have known several people who moved there for jobs and found that, yes, Florida was just as tacky as they feared it would be.  They have all moved at the first opportunity, work not being enough to hold them in a location without any redeeming qualities, (okay, except TWWOHP, but you can't go there every day), not to mention cockroaches the size of Volkswagons.

I realise that some people would take any job to get as far away as possible from their families, and with good reason, but just as many others would be miserable living too far from their close-knit clans.  No job would make up for that.

Speaking of family, people with children tend to prioritise good schools and safe neighbourhoods.  Of course, they have to make a living to support their families, which often means moving for jobs, but location is still particularly important to them.  Most people I know wouldn’t consider raising a child south of the Mason-Dixon line, nor in any red state, with good reason.  When jobs take parents to an undesirable location they often endure unreasonable commutes for the sake of living in a better area for their children.  These long commutes can be both miserable and unhealthy.  Are they worth it for the job?  Almost never.

For myself, I am aesthetically married to New England.  I love the four distinct seasons and I live for fall foliage.  No job could be worth living in the South or PNW and missing out on the seasons each year.  I love the flora and fauna of New England, the historic architecture, the colonial history, the traditions and foods of the area.  I wouldn’t exchange maple syrup and pumpkins and cider and colonial farms and lilacs and autumn leaves for the foods and architecture and traditions of another region that don't resonate with me.

And I haven’t even mentioned politics. What job could be worth living in a red state?  What career move could outweigh being stuck in a place without organic food and coffeehouses?  There are still places in America where they’ll scratch their heads and offer you fish when you tell them you are a vegetarian, where they think that Fair Trade coffee means you want to barter for your cuppa.  I can see visiting such places (provided you are not contributing money to bigots by patronising their businesses) and coming home with some scary stories about how backward, sexist, racist, and ignorant they are, but living there?  Putting down roots and buying property and raising your children there?  What job could be worth that kind of sacrifice?

One of the (many) reasons I haven’t found a job in my field is because I am not willing to move to Outerbumblefuck, Kansas.  I know myself; I know that aesthetics are the most important thing in the world to me.  I don’t live to work, I work to live.  The things I love to do are not lucrative so I just want to make as much money as possible in as few hours as possible so I can devote as much time as possible to doing the things I love.  Giving up everything I love in life for a stupid job sounds like the worst trade-off in the world, especially given how insecure employment is.  If somebody told me that, if I could suck it up & live somewhere I didn't like for 10 years, I could earn enough to buy the farm of my dreams back in New England, of course I’d do it.  The short-term sacrifice, with the guaranteed pay-off, would be well worth it.  It would be an adventure.  But packing up my farm & leaving everything I love for a job that could end in a year, leaving me with no money, no farm, no roots, no money (worth mentioning twice), just adrift in a place I hate and no way to get a situation as good as the one I left?  That would be idiotic.  Moving for a job is a huge risk because nothing today is more unstable than the job market.  You move alone, away from family and friends and support networks and then you get laid off in 6 months and wind up homeless.  Yeah, job over location, smart move.

Within reason, figure out where you want to live, where you would be happiest, and then find a job there.  If you are in a highly specialized field, you don’t have that option, but this survey was clearly not aimed at such people.  Someone who wants to be an actor has to live in LA or NYC; someone who wants to be an astronaut has to live near NASA in Houston.  But I can’t imagine anyone that career-focused cares much where they live, and such driven folk are a tiny minority.  Also, if you are at the top of your profession, you can maintain two homes: one near work, one wherever you want to live.  But that lucky scenario doesn’t apply to most people.  For most people, their company transfers them to Cleveland and they either move or they lose their job.  They are not choosing job over location; they are stuck.

Another common situation would be this:  Let’s say you studied all your life to be a trumpet player.  After you graduate from Julliard, you audition for orchestras.  There are only so many with openings at a given time, so you cannot be choosy about location if you want a job in your field.  You get hired by the Seattle Symphony, but you hate rain.  Does having your dream job, one you literally worked since childhood to achieve, trump living in a place that depresses you?  I cannot imagine that it does but then I cannot imagine having a “career” rather than a “job.”  I cannot imagine caring more about what I do during working hours than what I do outside of them.  I wish I could get inside the head of someone who lives to work, just for a day, to experience that kind of drive and singlemindedness and energy.  I’ve never felt it and cannot fathom it.  I have goals about which I am passionate, but when it comes to making sacrifices or taking risks or working hard to achieve them, they take a backseat to comfort in the present.  That's why location is so important to me:  I cannot imagine being so engaged by a job that I could ignore living in an ugly, tacky, aesthetically-repugnant place.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

No new post today.  I had insomnia last night & didn't get to sleep until after 5:30am.  The sun was up. I was awakened by the sound of the weed whacker outside my window at 10:30am and of course couldn't go back to sleep that late in the morning.  So, I got less than 5 hours sleep.  I need 8 but I can function on 7.  I cannot function on less than 7, under any circumstances.  So, that means this entire day is shot.  I won't be able to tackle anything on my "to do" list today, which is frustrating.  Even worse is that I was intending to go to yoga at 7:30am and of course could not do that.  If I try to exercise or really do much of anything without a bare minimum of 7 hours sleep, it makes me ill and aggravates my arrhythmia.  I should be doing so many things, not the least of which is applying for jobs, so, I am not in a good mood today.

Worst insomnia ever.  I know the root cause is anxiety about money and it may have been exacerbated by the weather.  I love hot weather; heat doesn't bother me but, supposedly, our bodies sleep better in cool rooms and it was 99F yesterday and didn't cool down much overnight.  My house usually remains cool all summer—too cool, in fact, as I have had to put the heat on occasionally in cold, damp summers past—but I still wouldn't have an air conditioner even if it didn't.  I hate them.  I'd much rather be hot than cold, although apparently my sleep is affected even if I prefer being warm.

To add insult to injury, the landlady's grandson ran over some of my flowers when he mowed the lawn.  I had carefully nurtured nasturtiums from seed, protected them from the local rabbits, kept them watered during the current drought, and he mowed them down right to the soil.  They had just started to bud yesterday.  He knew I was angry but I couldn't say anything as I can't afford to pay my rent.  Besides, he is the landlady's grandson.  It's not like I dare rip him a new one in any situation.

I hate not having my own farm!  I need my own place, where I can have as many animals as I want, and plant whatever I want, where I want, and restore everything with the best quality materials available.  Neither of my parents has ever owned property so you'd think I'd be used to rentals but I am not the renting type.  I crave control and I am extremely picky about taste and quality and historic preservation and environmental responsibility.  I spend a fair amount of time for a broke person with no house of my own looking at top-of-the-line appliances, retro-styled of course, and countertops and jetted tubs and natural-filtration pools and fantasizing about everything I am going to put in my house when money is no longer an object.  I just wish that day would come yesterday.  I am tired of renting and waiting to be rich.  I don't want a job; I just want money.  If I had money, I'd be too busy to work.  I would be working on my farm and breeding and training my horses, traveling, raising a family, growing my own food.  I'd even learn to sew and make my own clothes if I were rich enough.  I'd write fiction and cookbooks and design knitting patterns, because I'd never be distracted by worries about money.  I'd finish my PhD and publish in my discipline because I wouldn't be too run down from work to focus on it.  I'd study voice again and finally have the leisure to practice and really try to make it as an opera singer, see how far my talents and accelerated study of vocal technique would take me.  I should have been born into a wealthy family, then I could have done all this by now.  Aristocratic and titled would be ideal.  I'd love to be "Lady" or "Her Royal Highness."  Well, wouldn't you?  C'mon.

I think I made a mistake when I was younger.  I vowed never to get married, never to have children, never to be financially dependent upon anyone, and to be with someone only for love.  What I should have realized is that financial stability is the most important thing in life and that someday, when it was too late, I would want a family of my own.  I should have found the richest guy available and married him, regardless of considerations like love or compatibility.  Then I'd have my horse farm, my friesians, my animal rescue, my restored historic house, and even children, perhaps.  Thinking I could earn enough to purchase these things on my own (er, not the children) was foolhardy, naïve in the extreme.  My mother struggled to raise me as a single mom, working long hours at a job she hated to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table by herself.  She always warned me never to become financially dependent upon anyone and never to have children since they are such a financial burden.  I took that message to heart and I still don't believe it is ever a good idea to be financially dependent upon someone else, but the missing piece is that you can't make it on your own.  The world is simply too expensive.  You can't start out poor and claw your way up to being rich on your own.  You need family money to help you start or you need to marry money.  Or you need to get very lucky, making it big in some lucrative field, but that is a fairy tale for a fortunate few.  No, for most of us, to make money you have to start out with money, and lots of it.  The farm I dream of will cost a bundle, and it isn't possible for me to earn enough money to buy it.  I don't think winning the lottery is a good financial plan so, what to do?  All I want is money.  When you don't have it, nothing else matters.

This is not my desired style of house; it just amuses me that the horse is in the dining room.

Quitting the Rat Race Too Soon

Unsurprisingly, for some years now I have been obsessed with stories of city people who decide one day to ditch the rat race and move to the country.  I love the stories of the culture shock and the mistakes they make as they learn farming and animal husbandry.  Two of my favourites are "Fifty Acres and a Poodle" and "It Takes a Village Idiot".  I also enjoyed "Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn".

These stories all share some common traits.  The protagonist is fed up with running the rat race in the concrete jungle.  Tired of being consumers, they want to be producers, to make the necessities of life for themselves instead of working for someone else to obtain the money to buy them.  They want space and tranquility, a view, a slower pace of life.  They don't want to work less hard, just differently.  They would rather get up at dawn to see the frost on the fields than to beat rush hour traffic on the Interstate.

For me, this same decision was not a lightning bolt revelation but a slower process.  Having grown up in a city apartment, with the world at my doorstep, I was worried that I would feel bored and isolated in the country.  I had no connection to the earth, to growing things, to seeing stars at night, to country sights, sounds, and smells, to fresh-picked fruits and vegetables, to local food, to planting and weeding, fertilizing and canning.  Farm machinery scared me (it still does, to be honest).  One of the most daunting aspects of country life was the fact that I didn't even have a driver's license.  You can't keep a car in the city unless you are filthy rich, so my mother didn't have one.  I grew up a block away from a main station for buses and trains, so who needed a car anyway?  People who lived in the suburbs had cars, and that soulless Metro Land repelled me.  I associated the 'burbs with bourgeois conformity and mind-numbing consumerism.  Actually, I still do, but I understand the compromise that people who work in the city but want a little green space, a few stars, a rose bush or two, make by living in the suburbs.  It ain't the country, but they have grass and trees and they can still have their Habitrail connection to their rat race job.

But the suburbs were never for me because I have always loved horses.  It was horses that ignited my country dream.  I always wanted a horse farm of my own, with lots of acreage for pastures, a cross-country course, indoor and outdoor arenas, paddocks and barns.  Horseback riding as a child involved a series of bus rides from the city out into the suburbs and then a long walk or bike ride into a rural area beyond the reach of public transportation.  There were a few barns left in the city and suburbs (now long gone), but they were prohibitively expensive, offering riding instruction only for the children of the very well-to-do.  So, I had a horse farm dream before I had a country dream per se.  It was more that I needed to be in the country to have the horse farm than that I wanted to live in the country to grow my own food and retain my sanity.  Obviously, my thinking evolved.  As I became more familiar with the rewards of country living—got a driver's license and a car, planted a garden, got chickens, bought local foods in season, etc., my appreciation for country life grew.  I began to dread my visits to the city, to find my former habitat claustrophobic, crowded, and stressful.  And the country lifestyle jibes with my environmental views.  Not to mention the fact that I knew I wanted my future children to grow up in the country,  not the city.  Having experienced both worlds, there was no question which one was healthier, mentally and physically.

The question is how to make it work financially.  You see, there is one more common feature to all of those stories about city people bumbling into country life:  They all had money.  When they took off their little numbered rat jerseys and stepped off the rat race track, they took the proceeds from the sale of their city apartments, their savings, their retirement plans and family money, and bought themselves a farm of their own.  They renovated and restored their farms, bought farm equipment and animals.  Money seems to flow like water in these stories, with no mention of the well ever running dry.  I, on the other hand, have no money.  Not only can't I buy my own farm, I can't even afford the one I am renting.  Some of these protagonists were able to keep their city jobs, at least at first, by telecommuting. Technology is making the country life more feasible that way.  Telecommuting is my goal but I have not succeeded yet in part because employers usually want to establish a relationship before they allow the corporate tether to stretch so far.  I cannot afford to rent an apartment in the city, close to a well-paying city job, so I need a situation where I can telecommute from the start.  I have an excellent home office, with a view of the sugar maples in the front yard.  I can breathe here but I can also work here.

Another difference is that these stories never mention any preexisting debt.  Homesteading guides gleefully detail how you can live on a fraction of your city income when you grow your own food and make your own clothes, when you cook from scratch instead of eating out and play musical instruments and board games with your family instead of going to movies or paying for cable TV.  That's all well and good but what if you are starting country life with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that does not include a mortgage?  I have not one, not two, but three graduate degrees.  I have no job to show for them but I do have over $300K in federal student loans.  I have also been underemployed for so much of my life that I have mostly lived on credit, which has to be paid back, with interest.  I also have a lot of deferred household and personal purchases and maintenance that need attending to asap, not to mention deferred travel to see friends and family in far off places.

In order to leave the rat race, you have to have paid your dues as a rat.   These people who said "so long" to the other rats and left to go raise sheep somewhere in outerbumblefuck had a rat's nest to sell, and a rat's hoard of savings to live on.  If I had no debt and no major purchases to make, I could live on a low-paying local job but I am in the unique position of needing city wages in the country.  I am placing my hopes on getting a telecommuting gig but if that fails I don't know what I'll do.

An Anniversary Not Worth Celebrating

As of today, I have been unemployed for a year.  Prior to a year ago, I was long-term under-employed, so it has been awhile since I have had enough money to cover my basic monthly expenses, let alone had any extra money for horseback riding, travel, savings, or paying down debt.  It has been nearly 4 years since my checking account was in the black; I have been living at the bottom of my overdraft.  It has been longer since my credit card was paid off.  It is charged to the limit, and all I can do is pay the minimum.  It has been a decade since I have had any savings.  It has been a year since I have paid my rent on time.  It has been 4 years since I went abroad on holiday.  It has been too long since I could donate to animal rescue, buy holiday gifts for friends and family, horseback ride, buy clothes, maintain my automobile, pay for yoga, and buy furnishings for my home.  Everything in my life is on hold—including my federal student loans, which are in forbearance.

If you'd asked me 10 or 20 years ago whether I'd have my own historic horse farm by now, my reply would have been, "of course!"  Instead, I am barely holding onto my rental.  I feel as if so many things I want to do in life—have my own farm, have horses, have sheep, rescue cats & dogs, have children, travel, help my family, help animal rescue, have an orchard, raise organic crops—are on hold.  Yes, ok, I have chickens: that is a start on farm life.  I have some flowers and a small organic veggie and herb garden.  But it is all at the sufferance of my landlord, who does not allow pets.  I can't farm properly on a rental property.  I live in a historic house, built in 1780, but another tenant lives upstairs, and the house is not restored.  In fact, it is covered with vinyl siding.  Hardly my museum-quality historic masterpiece.

I am grateful to have this, and I appreciate the beauty that is here, the opportunities that I do have in this rental.  I love the sugar maples in the front yard, and the really local syrup that comes from them.  I love the porches (it's a big deal for a city girl to have her own adirondack chairs).  Hell, I even have a small bbq grill for s'mores—definitely not something one can have in the city!  I love that when I want blueberries or raspberries for my morning yoghurt, I can go out back and pick them right into the bowl.  I love watching the lilac and winterberry bushes that I planted get bigger every year.  I love seeing the echinacea attract hummingbirds and bees.  I love the bike path, the hills, the local, seasonal organic farmstands, the local ice cream and cheese, the historic houses with plaques stating the year they were built.  I love the hay trucks stacked high with bales rumbling down the street, leaving a wispy trail of hay in their wake.  I love how you can't give away squash around here because everyone has such a prolific crop of their own.  I love picking sweet corn in the back field and carving pumpkins that I have grown myself.  I love collecting fresh eggs for breakfast, still warm from the chicken.  I love my 7 feathery girls, mostly heirloom breeds that I am helping to preserve.  I love picking the first asparagus of spring knowing it was planted decades ago and keeps coming back.  I love seeing up close how tenacious nature is.  I love watching the baby squirrels that live in one of the maple trees venture down to explore their world.  I love noting the weekly growth of the baby bunny whose burrow is under the house.

It isn't MY farm, but it still beats the hell out of a city flat.  I do appreciate that.  I can breathe here and some days that is enough.  But anniversaries are a time for reflection, to consider our goals, how far we have come and what we have yet to accomplish.  Each year for the last decade I have slid back a little - gotten a little fatter, a little more out of shape, a little more worn down by anxiety and depression, a little poorer, a little (ok, a lot) further into debt.  I become less employable, less attractive, less fertile (yes, the biological clock is ticking LOUDLY), less quick and sharp due to stress and fatigue.  Each year, I see my goals sliding further out of sight instead of getting closer, as they should.

Money is the reason that I cannot pursue most of my goals, and money would solve most of my problems.  But I am not even doing the things I can do without money.  I have passions that are inexpensive; I could still sing—I can't afford a voice teacher but singing on my own is free.  I can't buy a Steinway grand at present but I could still play the instruments that I already own.  I could still knit and spin.  (Like most knitters, I could knit from my stash for the next year and have yarn left over.)  I can't afford riding lessons but I could make friends with people who need their horses exercised.  I could garden the hell out of the small space I have.  I could write.  I can't afford to rejoin the gym or yoga studio, but I could run, bike, and do yoga at home.  I could be doing ab work and lift weights all day.  I could be a good friend, even if I can't afford to visit.  I could help my family emotionally, if not financially.

But I haven't been doing any of these things.  Since I am unemployed, you'd think I'd have time on my hands, but my garden is full of weeds and my UFOs sit in my knitting bag with my untouched stash.  My musical instruments have dust on them.  And my endless lists of writing ideas remain lists.  Why?  Why don't I use my time productively?  I think the main reason is depression; it runs in my family.  There is also anxiety/OCD, which makes it hard to concentrate, and my perfectionism.  But everyone has issues.  Absolutely everyone, no exceptions.  And most people get shit done anyway.  So, that is no excuse.

The clichéd, but accurate, definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again & expecting different results.  On what I am calling the 10th anniversary of sliding further from my goals, I need a new strategy to turn things around and start moving towards them again, at an accelerated pace, to make up for lost time.