Unsettled

Yesterday had some big victories—namely that Chloe got up really early and drove on I-35 (one of the busy highways here) and went to the social security office in the county north of us. She hadn’t been doing much highway driving, so that was a huge win in terms of her comfort level with driving.

Now I can fully rely on her to get anywhere she needs to go without my help. And I also have the benefit of having another driver in the house.

So that’s all really great news.

But on the other hand, I also feel kinda unsettled. Part of that is because I was going to take a trip down to Austin to protest for abortion rights at the Capitol and I realized that I really can’t afford it. Not only are gas prices really high right now but also I would have to stay overnight Friday because I can’t wake up early enough to get there by the time the protest starts at 11 am. (It’s about 3-3.5 hours away.)

I looked up discounted hotel rooms and realized that I really can’t spend that kind of money right now.

There’s also the fact that I am going to have to call the vet tomorrow about Dyl’s cat. She’s very old and hasn’t been eating well lately and just lies around like she’s in pain. I figured out that at least one of her teeth has to be pulled—it looks really bad.

God only knows how much that will cost but I’m not expecting it to be cheap.

Chloe is going to need a basic work wardrobe for an office job soon, too. As much as I would LOVE to get her a wardrobe (Amy never let me do that for her), I probably can’t afford to do that by myself either.

I’m also going to have to pay $400 for Dylan to take driver’s ed in the next 3 weeks. We are so close to the home stretch where they can start helping me with expenses but first there are costs involved in getting them ready.

I realized last week that I have not adjusted my spending nearly enough to accommodate my circumstances. So I have to write another check against my life insurance money, which makes me feel terrible.

I know that J’s worst fear was that I would blow through his life insurance money and I promised him that I wouldn’t. But it has taken much longer than I thought it would for the kids to be able to help me. And I haven’t said no to them very much (like with all Dyl’s gardening supplies—that has certainly added up quite substantially.)

On top of that, we were continuing to eat out about 3 times a week. I put an immediate stop to that after last week, when a trip to a burger place we don’t normally frequent ended up costing $71 dollars. I was so shocked by how much it cost that I immediately said that’s it, we are only going out once next week.

Part of that is hard though because Dyl’s girlfriend doesn’t like a lot of food and she’s used to getting restaurant food almost every day. It does make it easier to get restaurant takeout when she’s here but it’s just too expensive.

On top of that, I’m also worried about trying to work myself because my freelance work is drying up and I can’t take on any new job until once Dylan gets through driver’s ed.

I don’t know if I’ll lose my disability by taking out student loans, either. I don’t know if I’m better off paying for my classes out of the life insurance money or if I should just go full-time to get it over with and use the life insurance money to support myself.

So much isn’t knowable right now and I hate that. I don’t know how I’m going to be okay; I just have to assume that I will. But it’s honestly kinda terrifying in the meantime.