Introspectrus, part 4

I never did do the last Introspectrus that I’d originally planned, and I can’t even remember now where I was going with it. So, I think I’ll just keep this going with whatever musings/thinkings/worries/deep thoughts/etc that occur to me at the time.

I have recently been thinking about indulgence, needs, wants, compromise, dreams, and sacrifices. Choices. I think some of this is coming with the change in season, some is coming with the changes at the house. Some is coming from my back-to-the-grindstone weight loss plan as of October 1. Some is of course due to the change in my job and all the paperwork I need to fill out for that. That part has been a PITA. Some things are something else altogether. So, I’ll cover them here one by one.

Seasonal: Our garden was huge this year, and now it is starting to draw to a close. We still have some crops in, yes, but most of them are done, need to be cleaned up, and I haven’t had time to get around to it yet. Some of it can wait until spring. It is a natural life/death change that comes with winter. I didn’t have much help with the planting and harvesting, and it looks like I’m not going to have much help with the clean up, etc, either, but I know he’s busy with the garage teardown, too, and that is a trade-off: help getting some garden stuff done, or nothing getting done on the garage teardown/rebuild. It is an acceptable trade-off to me. So I’d best get a move on if I’m going to get the garden put to sleep. This kind of trade-off is something I have a hard time remembering and realizing. Learning compromise, all over again.

House: I’ve been waiting for 8 years for this damn garage to come down and finally…FINALLY… it is happening. I cannot TELL you how happy that makes me. Sure, it is going to be an imposition, as any teardown/rebuild can be. Sure, it won’t happen like we want it and we’ll have to readjust our plans. I’m prepared for that. Sure, we probably won’t have it under roof before the cold weather really hits. Well, we might. I’ll be really surprised if we do.

Once it’s done, though, we will have much more space to move things from the house. Storage. A canning kitchen, so I’ll have a cooler space to work since the garage is built into a hill. Matt will have a workshop out there. Etc, etc. I’ll have some space out there, too. This is a need for both of us, some ME space. A retreat, somewhere to be alone. Right now in our house I cannot be anywhere inside that I cannot hear him doing whatever it is he’s doing (TV, music, computer, etc) or he cannot hear me (say he’s napping and I’m cooking). It’s been an issue. We also will have space to store building supplies out of the weather once we start working on the house, which has also been an issue.

I know Matt has been wanting to get this rolling faster and earlier than October. For some reason, though, none of it got started over the summer. I’m really not sure why. Part of it was Avoidance Of The Building Inspector. But it turns out that wasn’t going to be a problem (see a future post on my garden blog).

Weightloss: Not much to say here. Jody lost weight. Jody plans on losing more weight. Enough said. Sacrifice, need, want.

Change in Job: OMFG, how can someone or a group of people put so much damn work into something just to have it turn out to be….more of the same? No change, nothing new, same idiot manager doing absolutely nothing. Just hurry up and…eh. Nothing new, sorry! What a waste of energy! It is a horrible feeling. It is like sacrifice, but without any benefit.

Deciding how much more money to put towards my retirement funds is another story. I’m actually going to talk numbers sometime soon in another post, which will probably surprise some people. I think this is a topic that is sort of waltzed over by my particular age group, and a lot of people don’t bring up actual numbers and percentages and don’t necessarily know where they stand when compared to other people in my age group (I am NOT asking anyone to tell me their dirty little secrets). 34 is not too young to be planning for this, and as I don’t have kids and don’t plan to, if I play my cards right hopefully we will be able to retire earlier rather than later.

I will talk more about this later, but the long and short of it is that I will be bringing home some more $ per month than I did before, though I’m not entirely sure how much…not good at math, add in taxes and other withholdings and I just can’t figure it out. But I will have some more money coming.

Which is why I’m going to buy a dulcimer. That goes under the heading of ‘indulgence,’ because unless it has been purchased out from under me, I’m probably going to be purchasing this sweet-looking cherry hourglass Folkcraft dulcimer.

Why the hell am I buying a dulcimer? I’ve been asking myself this question, and I’ve talked myself out of it a dozen times in the past 2 months. I used to pseudo-play the guitar, and I did sing in the chorus and concert choir for years. No other instrument experience, though I’ve been told learning the dulcimer is fairly easy. But you know what? I’m going to buy one because I want one. I’m going to buy one because I haven’t had any vacation this summer because I was hoarding my vacation time because I wanted to get paid for it because I wasn’t sure I was going to have a job come 10/1, and because I’ve had a long, hard, stressful summer and dammit I want one. So, yeah, want and indulgence.

And the guy in the video, Bing Futch, has some wonderful instructional videos on Youtube, so he will be my unwitting copilot in the dulcimer journey.

Dreams: I haven’t talked about dreams yet. I have dreams, things I want to do before I die. Matt does, too. Everyone does, some more achievable than others. I don’t know what *it* is for me yet, though, like Jenna does. And I’m coming to terms with that. Slowly, but still. I hate not knowing something, and not knowing something like this really really drives me nuts.

My mother, 67, and my father, 71 (I know, strange names, but they’re easy to spell), have been married for about 36 or so years. I wouldn’t personally use the term ‘wedded bliss’ to describe their relationship, but it seems to work for them.

My mother often talks about a list she has of things she wants to do or buy after my dad dies (assuming that he dies first, of course). She’s had this list for years. It was a running joke at her workplace that someone would look around my father’s funeral and say “Where’s Pat?” and someone else would answer “Oh, she’s at the shelter, adopting cats.” Dad won’t let cats in the house now, and getting cats is top on her list of things to do after he goes.

I always thought that was so sad. I mean, who’s to say you will have money to do what you want to do after he dies? Who’s to say you’ll be healthy enough? But no, she’s not the type to actually tell my father “Suck it, I’m going to do what I want to do!” so she spends her life with a list of things to do after he dies. It makes me so ill to think about….

….then I had lunch with my dad this past week, where he dropped the bombshell (to me) that he’d given up good jobs and the hope for a nice business all his own….because mom would not leave Gettysburg. Bam. I was shocked. I never knew that. Puts another spin on things, doesn’t it? Not everything is so one-sided. I'm not saying either of them is justified in holding the other back, they chose this life. But...it just seems so sad to me to spend your life with someone you love, but at the same time not be able to do something you really want to do.

Compromise? Sacrifice? I’m not sure which I would call these situations. Maybe both? But it really has me thinking about what we give up for those we love, and should we really give up things we want for people we want? Or things we need for people we need? Or things we need for people we want? OR (this is the last variation, don't worry), things we want for people we need? Hmmmm…..