the struggle

Today I am struggling.

On Monday, I went to a bankruptcy hearing. I'm bankrupt. My creditors have 60 days to dispute the bankruptcy and then...I'm just a woman who went bankrupt. And I'll have ten years of saying "I went bankrupt in 2012" when I try to purchase a car or take out a loan or maybe even when I apply for credit cards, who knows?

This is a mar on my brain. Bankruptcy. I went out to dinner with some friends the night of my hearing and I cut up my credit cards at the table at BJ's. A friend whisked the pieces away and said she would make a necklace of them.

So far, the worst part of bankruptcy isn't anything that happened in court, or anything that happened on paper, it's what happened in my head. I gave up. I believe in the struggle. I don't believe in walking away from obligations. I wanted to overcome. Promises are made to be kept.

You don't go bankrupt. It's shameful. I am ashamed.

They say that my job now is to learn from the experience. Pay down balances, don't buy anything you can't afford, don't borrow. It's true. And sometimes I'm struck because I've realized that $40,000 I used to owe to the banks is gone now. That I make money and spend the money I make, and there are no cards, I don't owe anyone except the mortgage company and the government (student loans).

I wasn't addicted to shopping. I didn't accumulate these bills because I went on crazy shopping sprees, buying shoes or jewelry or purses. I just didn't make enough money, and my partner has always been unhappy about that, and it's a conflict  in our relationship still. And when something needed to be bought, I just bought it. Groceries. Gas. Whatever.

When it came time to move to California, I bought first and deferred payment to later. And then it got to where I could only afford the minimum payments on my cards, and I was literally going to have debt for the rest of my life but still, I was ok until last fall, when the company that I wrote freelance for made a major overhaul to their policies, and my second income dried up. By the time my writing income came back, I was already behind on my bills and owed thousands of dollars just to catch up, and my credit was ruined already. And I talked to those debt management companies. The charge was going to be something like $800 per month just to pay off the cards, I didn't have that.

So there was this choice to make. No, there wasn't even a choice. There was no money to pay the card companies. My system for the last several years had been to pay the minimum balance on every card every month, thereby freeing up a small amount of space on that card, and then using that available credit to buy my groceries and food. Without room on my credit cards to pay for groceries, I had no money to pay the minimum balance due on the cards. It was a stupid cycle to have gotten into, but it happened and then once it had happened, there was just no way out.

So I went bankrupt. After years and years of paying credit card companies, I threw up my hands and went bankrupt. And I'm trying to learn from the experience. I've been told by the lawyers to get a credit card and pay down the balance every month, to build back my credit.

Today I'm not feeling the relief of being debt free, I'm feeling sad. I want to have another baby. I want to earn enough money to have a baby and then go back to work and pay for childcare, yet there's not enough. We need money for child care, and I have almost no savings, and probably $800 worth of repair to do on my car, and I've just gone to a bankruptcy hearing. I'm almost 32 years old now.

I'm a secretary. My second job, freelance writing, doesn't pay enough. My third job has never gotten off the ground--partially because I can't even decide what that is. Illustration? Portrait painting? children's book writing?

There's not enough time. Never enough time. Working full time and working a second job just to supplement my pathetic income leaves me with no time to spend on a third job. And without a third job, how will we ever have another baby?

I was cleaning up the garage last night. It's full of Curly Sue's toys. She almost never gets the chance to play with toys because she spends so much time either in trouble, or struggling through homework. Curly Sue is at sleep away camp right now, and seeing her toys made me miss her. And, with so many disused toys in the garage, I started to think about all the time CS doesn't spend playing with them, and I started to feel this terrible sense of doom. I want the best for her but don't always feel as if I can do well for her. She should play more. Life should be happy for her. But our time at home so often comes to an argument. I'm also worried about her work ethic. Hell, I'm worried about my work ethic. There are so many people I let down. So many things I can't seem to do. So many ways I disappoint myself. I didn't buy my mom or dad a gift on mother's day or father's day. I haven't talked to some of my friends in weeks or months. I was given an award at work recently and I'm worried I've squandered what could have been a financial leg up by not making my writing quota this July. 

God, I'm getting all worked up now. These things are all circling my mind. I am debt free. I am ashamed. my career is flat. I want a baby. I want the best for my daughter. I am afraid. I am sad.

I should probably go take 15 minutes to calm down. In my favorite spot.

I'm so lost.