2024 Check ins. What. The. Actual F.

Lately it would seem that anytime I try to restart, reset, or pick myself up life laughs, and pushes me down again. I feel like I’m in this perpetual state of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like if I have several okay days in a row without complaint… then the bigger the drop that is coming is going to be.

When we successfully get over one hurdle it seems the next few are lined up and waiting. In 2023, I moved in with my mom, took time off of school, lost Hazel, bought a house, almost lost my mom… again. I moved into said new home, starting the endless DIY projects to improve the house and make it mine. I returned to school. I quit my job. And I had too many break downs to count.

Fast forward to 2024. We’re not quite 2 months in and already it’s been an adventure. I took my mom and Mark to Grenada to spread Hazel’s ashes. But life wasn’t done screwing with us. Mom broke her leg day one into our trip. DAY. FREAKING. ONE. Pair that with inadequate crutches and unsteady gait and she fell. . . A lot. We got her back to the States, she got surgery and is on the mend. So… you guessed it… the next hurdle life gave us was multifactorial.

Upon returning to the States I restarted doing relief jobs at multiple clinics around the area, and outside of it. I was quickly able to sort out work for the next couple of months to help get me back on my feet. But then mom’s job is quickly becoming at risk. And with full time employment goes her health insurance. Given that she has too many health problems to wait until Medicare can cover her health expenses, I’ll step in to prevent her from losing her coverage. I refuse for her to lose coverage over money. Just no.

But while we are discussing this hectic situation… I get a letter from the tax collector stating that my property taxes for my home were paid in error and they just now corrected it… meaning my tax bill from November was unpaid. I’m now in need of paying the tax bill. Hello money I didn’t have set aside… because life likes to surprise me on the daily. But not only that, but I hadn’t sorted out my new budget. I hadn’t sorted out my savings plan, my taxes, nothing. Here I am trying to learn about prepaying my taxes while still filing my normal taxes, while also tracking down my missing property tax payment, and trying to save for mom’s pending cobra health insurance. It’s a lot. Everything is just a lot.

I cancelled my London trip because of a scheduling error with my Bestie… only I feel like life did the scheduling error so that I would cancel said trip in order to make the first 4 months of the year slightly less chaotic. Because chaos is exactly what life feels like. Such an emotional rollercoaster lately. Ugh.

I spent over an hour on the phone with my lender today to track down my missing property tax payment. Turns out that they didn’t send it given that someone else paid it on time… Did you know that mortgage lenders like to operate in the gray area of life? Apparently a due date is optional… In fact, they don’t consider the payment late until it reaches the penalty date deadline. Ummm WHAT?!?!?! By the end of the phone call I at least got that my second installment was going to be paid. Albeit late in my opinion, on time in theirs… semantics.

But alas… my money isn’t missing. It’s just frozen out of reach. And I spent $3k of the money I wasn’t planning to use for that purpose on property taxes in order to prevent late fees from accruing. Sigh. Bye bye money.

In the same timeframe I also received an email from school stating that my tuition payment was past due. Ummm excuse me?! I replied that I literally emailed the department a month prior to confirm that my financial aid documents were received and they would be processed ASAP. So imagine my confusion, shock, frustration, and just utter stress to receive an email stating that I also needed to come up with $6500 along side everything else.

Turns out that I simply should “disregard the email” sent if I am to receive financial aid. Mind you it’s midterms currently. So we’re HALFWAY through the semester and you haven’t sorted out my financial aid? I’m sorry… what?! I don’t even have it in me to check to confirm my aid is pending. I don’t want to know right now.

I just feel like life is really trying to make every year just as crummy as the last… if not worse.

I feel like there is a difference between adulting being hard…and this crap. I also don’t genuinely understand how I make life so freaking hard. I mean what kind of karma do I have that my property tax bill gets messed up? What kind of karma do I have that my mom goes and breaks a leg in a freak accident in a foreign country?!

What kind of poor life decisions am I making that this is what my adult life looks like? The constant stress, fear of shit going sides, and just crisis after crisis erupting. . . They say that if you don’t learn from your life lesson then you are bound to repeat it. When my mom got cancer I did research, I tried to be supportive. When she got sick I tried to be apart of the medical decisions and follow up care. When I got my property tax bill I logged on to make sure it got paid… and initially it was. When it came time to sort out my financial aid, I submitted my paperwork, emailed my intuition to confirm receipt… What the heck am I doing so wrong in life that I can’t catch a freaking break?

Some days I’m just going through the motions. Other days I feel like I’m barely treading water… then there are days like this week where I feel like I’m drowning. Which is fitting given that my front courtyard and my back yard are currently flooding from the rain we keep getting… They don’t thankfully stay flooded, but they are flooding every time there’s a storm. Fun times.

I regret so many things. I have so many life regrets. Maybe my life lesson is to learn to forgive myself. But it’s not that simple. For starters I don’t actually know how to forgive. Myself, or anyone else really. Just as I don’t know how to love… or let myself be loved in return. And since losing Hazel I’m just numb. I’m broken. And I frankly don’t really care to get up and fix what needs fixing.

So here I sit… Watching life pass me by. Not really living, but also it’s not like I’m wasting away. I work. I go to school. I talk to friends. I make plans… albeit a lot of them have changed, been cancelled, or otherwise been adjusted. I would say that most of my current life is wrapped up in this fantasy land in my head where I retreat to with each book I read… and whenever I need to escape from reality. I’ve lost track of the number of books I’ve read, or reread. While it passes the time of insomnia and such. I’m just numb. Dulled to the workings of the world. So this year I’m trying to focus on learning to be happy within and with myself. But being happy is proven to be a challenge with everything this year has already thrown at me… Sigh. Here goes nothing.