solvency | Keeping Sane

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My single-employee photography business (me) continues to struggle. I never have enough money. I have allowed my parents to pay for my daughter’s guitar lessons, my health insurance and many other things that were beyond my reach. They, as well as my older sisters, have been there when I have come up short. And, that makes me feel diminished, a not-quite adult. I am blocked about how to make money. I have no problem working hard, giving my all to every job I’ve had—to the point that in her first year, I was often getting up at 4 a.m. to load my work equipment into my 4-Runner, then getting my daughter packed up and ready to drive her to a friends’ nanny, so I could work a 12-to-14 hour day before picking her up in the evening at my friends. Thankfully, I was able to find 9-5 employment (as her father worked long days when he could find work), and she appeared to adapt well to full-time daycare at the age of one and a half (and, so I keep telling myself).

I am stumped. Insufficient income and insolvency creates stress and I am not as good a mother as I want to be. My patience flags; it’s hard to stay in the moment and have quality time with my daughter—my mind is almost always half elsewhere. I look at my friends who married and are now stay-at-home moms and I envy them. Crazy envy. (How gross is that?) I don’t regret my ex-husband because he’s a great dad and the love we experienced was intense, wonderful and it produced our daughter, but I loathe (loathe!) the bone-aching, stomach-bubbling, constant worry about money.

I can’t manage to keep money in my savings account. There is no retirement fund. No college fund. I am at a loss. Everyday, I try to figure out the correct path, to see what I have not been seeing that will lead to financial success. How delicious to have a small house with a yard for the dog my daughter wants so badly (I want a black lab puppy). I would love to take her to Europe where I extensively traveled in my youth or Down Under where I backpacked for a year. I want to feel the thrill of a foreign land again, and, hopefully, infect my girl with the travel bug and the endless wonders of our world. But, I have to steal from Peter to pay Paul, and now Peter’s constantly broke and refuses to have anything to do with me.

So, I fail. Every day. And I work, every day, to rebuild my spirit, my belief in myself, in my talent, and in my ability to succeed and provide for my daughter. Copious amounts of energy is exerted trying not to lose hope, not succumb to the spirit-paralyzing reality that this may be the best I can do. I try to shake it off, but with each passing year and the same financial distress, it’s harder to revive Hope. The road ahead seems truncated, paths of opportunity hidden by granite walls and malicious thorns. Have I got blinders on?

My first black hole of depression began in the 7th grade and lasted until my 17th year and a soul-reviving three months in Europe, exemplified by a Sunday afternoon sitting by the lakeside in Lausanne, Switzerland. I felt content. And, I knew that all was not lost. In subsequent years, I have often tapped into the way I felt in that moment and, somewhere inside (and it can be buried really, really deep), I know that whatever the current struggles, I emerged once, and I can again.

Part III, next post

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written in 2008

I was 37 years old. It was late at night. The usually constant Hollywood sirens and traffic in my neighborhood had silenced. I was lying in my bed in my closet-sized bedroom which is cozy during our L.A. “winter,” but, with its negligible eastern-facing window, stifling in summer. I was experiencing an anxiety attack. Now, I had dropped out of college when I was in the middle of my junior year because my “issues” had so mushroomed and overwhelmed me that I couldn’t concentrate. I felt thoroughly disconnected from simple everyday life. I thought I could be losing my mind. I went to counseling determined to understand and overcome my depression and corral my anxiety. For the most part, I succeeded. Until this night, sixteen years later.

My husband of the time had stated rather matter-of-factly that he was pretty much over me and had moved in with a woman he’d recently met. I heard his words, wasn’t particularly surprised, thought I could handle it, and moved on with my life. Then, I began experiencing loss of focus, hours of inertia, a vacuum of motivation, and increasing moments of panic. The normally lovely ground was shifting beneath me. Hold the bedposts! (I have no bedposts!)

Then, I remembered my baby. A year old. Sleeping just down the hall in her crib. She needed me. She needed me to be her mother. To be a grown-up. To be able to nurture and love her, attend to her every need and raise her to be the best human being she could be. I had to be THE ONE.

I actually spoke aloud. You can’t have an anxiety attack. You can’t become disabled. This is simply not acceptable. And, with that, my symptoms disappeared. What, no wallowing? No falling into disarray and flailing for help? With those few words, that simple command—to myself—I snapped back into shape. In a Guiness-Book-of-Word-Records time. I couldn’t quite believe it, actually. I was impressed. I felt like an adult. I laughed out loud, then fell right to sleep.

It’s eleven years later, and I believe I’m a good mother. I feel confident in my ability to connect with my daughter and still be the parent who draws boundaries. We can get very silly; we feed off of each other’s goofiness and I get to laughing so much that my eyes are watering, I can hardly breathe and previously unheard noises erupt from my mouth so that I have to pull the car to the side of the road. We also get angry with each other, then sit, talk and hug our way back. I can remain silent because she wants to only vent (I visualize a nail through my lips holding them shut), yet when requested or when I feel very strongly, I can offer suggestions (max. 3) on how she might approach and resolve an issue. I tell her what option I would prefer that she choose, but say that she is now of the age where she must reflect and decide for herself. She must think about what type of person she wants to be. Toddlers and babies are reactionary and purely emotional beings; now, she must accept the task of actually thinking before she acts and it is up to her (not me) to start making decisions about how she is going to behave.

Part II, next post

Keeping Sane : while trying to parent, write, indie publish, follow politics, and remain a N.Y. Jets fan

Archive for the ‘solvency’ Tag

Will I Ever Be a Bona Fide Grown-Up? Part II 1 comment

Will I Ever Be a Bona Fide Grown-Up? Part I 1 comment

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