Putting my head down and getting on with it

It’s that time of the year when the days get short, it’s dark at 5pm and I feel like… I don’t know. I question whether I’m depressed, or if I’m lonely, or if I’m turning in for the winter and it’s all totally normal and biological?

Some things I’m contemplating.

1. The future of the PSLF student loan program. I honestly don’t know what I’ll do if this goes away after nearly a decade of counting on it, paying the exact way they dictated (which is a terrible strategy for paying it off, yet the one they require if you work in a public service career AND have only Fed Direct loans AND pay 120 payments).

2. Where in the world I’m going to travel next summer. I want to rent my house out again, but my home away from home on another continent has gotten pretty complicated. My current daydreams are telling me that it’s maybe here:

Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park  on the border between South Africa and Botswana

Or maybe down even farther south a ways?

Tauranga, New Zealand on the North Island

They both look beautiful!  And though my heart is in Africa, I sometimes wonder what other wonders of the world I’m missing out on by being so dedicated to one magical continent.

 

3. The Jane documentary

Speaking of Africa capturing my heart, it is all because of this woman and her indescribably amazing freedom, insight and bravery.  She’s such a hero, I wonder so much what it must be like to be an old lady and still so active, so outspoken and free, insightful and brave. I absolutely love her, idolize her and am so thankful she exists as she is.

4. The new Philip Pullman novel La Belle Sauvage  The first Book of Dust.

It’s been years since I had my heart lifted, broken and lifted again in Lyra’s Oxford! La Belle Sauvage was a comforting, slow moving, gentle revisit to a world in which Lyra was newly born and already in peril, her daemon a shape shifting imperiled baby as well.

I don’t think there’s a human on Earth who could read the novels without wondering what their daemon would have settled as when they hit puberty. I went back and forth imagining a cat, another cat, a different cat and then perhaps a mountain lion to really mix things up. So naturally upon finding myself with time to kill, a quick online test tells me that my daemon would ultimately have settled as….

A Stoat!

Your daemon is a stoat! So what does that suggest about you?

Oh, stoaty. What are you like? You’ve heard those words before, haven’t you? You’re always late and in a creased shirt. You hate deadlines and either get everything in at the last minute or miss them completely. You lose things. But you’re also loyal and funny and smart. You do things for people when they really need it – when the chips are down, you’re extremely reliable, often to the surprise of those around you. Lots of people find you annoying, but they are the worst people. All the people that matter want to be your friend

I can so live with that.

Finance and FIRE for single moms part II

Finance and FIRE for single moms part I

Here’s my post-paying-for-kids-college financial status.

• Consumer debt (car/house/credit cards):  $0
• Education debt (student loan @ 1.9% interest):  [$61,500]*
• Emergency fund (4 months living expenses @ 1.5% savings account):  $10,000
• Taxable stock (randomly bought AAPL during the recession): $5,900
• 401k rollover (from old job): $49,000
• 403b (from current job, just started): $6,800
• 457b (government): $0
• 401k in TIAA (from current job): $41,000
• Roth: $0

This is how I’m starting out now at age 42.

*My student loan debt is allegedly supposed to be forgiven in anywhere from 2 -5 years in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which may or may not survive, and may or may not fulfill any of the obligations that both sides (me and the government) agreed to when I signed up for the program. It therefore falls outside my current circle of influence and for right now I’m going to stick to my side of the agreement and see what happens.

I am perfectly happy with my emergency fund and my lack of debt, but clearly there are some categories that I need to dive right into.

Finance and FIRE for single moms part I

I always thought one of the hardest parts of single parenting (real single parenting, with no weekend parent, no child support, no second adult anywhere to be seen) was always having to be “on” emotionally. I’m not made that way. I have a lot of love, a lot of attention, a medium amount of sympathy, a huge amount of understanding, a tiny amount of patience, and an innate sense of ‘live and let live’ hands-off acceptance.  And all of those things (except the tiny patience) are great for parenting. But in the really big, panned-out picture, there would ideally be another set of emotional skills that take over when my patience and sympathy weaknesses were nevertheless absolutely necessary. But there was  no other set of emotional skills available. So when I was faced with a child who needed sympathy and patience over problem solving, I generally failed to administer good parenting. These moments happened ALL THE TIME as the little one was growing up. I never came up with a solution. I just worried, felt guilty, stayed up nights with a stomach ache and lived with a lot of regret. These feelings would dissipate somewhat in later moments when my real skills were needed, and then I’d get to spend a few hours feeling like I was maybe an okay parent after all. Then those positive feelings too would pass.

The second real stressor was money money money. We rarely had any extra, and most of the things I considered “luxuries” in grad school (the possession of a sofa, a lack of noises coming from under the car) I could easily forgo if a good travel deal to Ecuador popped up and our family of two could spend a week anywhere but at home.

Time flies!

After writing for a while on another blog, I remembered this one and the word “kiota” made me smile all over again. I think I want to live here for a while. Reading back over the last post gave me another kick! Whoa. I could equally write this same thing today!

How am I doing with these resolutions:

• Prep more for work each week, rather than spending the hour before lecture furiously downloading last year’s slides and vaguely remembering all the changes I thought I’d make before teaching this particular lecture again. Make mental notes to change it before Spring semester, and arrive in the lecture hall 5 minutes late with cords flying.

Yeah… no. Just last weekend saw me laying in bed half the day, ruminating about a guy I was in a completely solo emotional struggle over, putting off my daily run until the evening and drinking some beer – rather than prepping in any meaningful way for the next week. Therefore, STILL spent the hour before lecture downloading slides and vaguely remembering the changes I’d wanted, but failed, to make before the semester. Still late, cords still flying.

• Cook in bulk each weekend, rather than leaving the house in time to skate in to the parking lot on 2 wheels with a bag of 2 avocados and a Diet Dr. Pepper to last me from 7am – 9pm, necessitating braving the $10 salmonella sandwich from the food cart.

Nope. I think I did the bulk cooking thing for a short while, then it just got to be so tedious! I’m a really, really bad cook and all the Instant Pot community facebook boards in the world will never change that. I know it’s cheaper, healthier, better from a time management perspective, better in every other way – I just can’t seem to actually do it. My food all tastes the same. And I literally brought two avocados and a diet dr pepper to work yesterday, parking illegally as I rushed in late once again. Jeez, what’s wrong with me?

• Get out of bed and run before I’m fully awake, rather than dithering around with reddit and facebook and checking to see if any of my Amazon shopping cart items have reduced in price, then scrambling up when I realize I’ve surfed all my free time away.

Nope, dithered my morning away every single day up to and including this morning.

• Schedule doctors appointments, haircut and dentist and brow waxing regularly, add to calendar. Buy travel tickets in advance. Call ahead to the national parks to reserve camp sites. Generally be prepared for normal life stuff.

Eh, sort of? I really need to schedule a brow wax, and “hair cut” has been on my list since September. I have been to the dentist twice, both scheduled. I’m generally still not prepared.

Well, good reminder anyway.

Wednesday

I may be the last person to watch Stranger Things, but man I loved the old school Stephen King feel to it! Kids fighting monsters, everyone in unfortunate 80’s haircuts, a cool soundtrack and something to look forward to if they make Season 2. I love those rascally kids. Netflix totally kicks ass and I’m glad they exist.

I’m currently putting off acknowledging that the upcoming semester exists. My job is kick ass, but starting my job after months “off” living in my dream location on the other side of the world… transitions suck.

Speaking of which, I restarted my formerly militant gym schedule (well, I’ve been once, but did a solid arm routine) and the three days before that I ran 3 miles each day. I like to pretend I’ve lost a lot of muscle tone over the summer and baby myself back into my regular routine. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to work fitness into my nightmare of a Fall schedule, but those thoughts always send me to much nicer thoughts of how I can streamline and pare down every other obligation to make room for it. This is where those thoughts generally go:

• Prep more for work each week, rather than spending the hour before lecture furiously downloading last year’s slides and vaguely remembering all the changes I thought I’d make before teaching this particular lecture again. Make mental notes to change it before Spring semester, and arrive in the lecture hall 5 minutes late with cords flying.

• Cook in bulk each weekend, rather than leaving the house in time to skate in to the parking lot on 2 wheels with a bag of 2 avocados and a Diet Dr. Pepper to last me from 7am – 9pm, necessitating braving the $10 salmonella sandwich from the food cart.

• Get out of bed and run before I’m fully awake, rather than dithering around with reddit and facebook and checking to see if any of my Amazon shopping cart items have reduced in price, then scrambling up when I realize I’ve surfed all my free time away.
• Schedule doctors appointments, haircut and dentist and brow waxing regularly, add to calendar. Buy travel tickets in advance. Call ahead to the national parks to reserve camp sites. Generally be prepared for normal life stuff.

My name is Emma and I am….

… after way too long sitting and thinking about the end of the sentence, I’m still not really sure how it’s supposed to go.  I’m an inventor. An explorer. A mother. An ungrateful daughter. I struggle to be a sister, sometimes. I’m a hard worker. A sometimes distant friend. I’d say “a runner” but that brings to mind a completely different visual image than the reality. I fight between periods of near immobility in my bed, reading and staring into space thinking, feeling painful guilt for being useless and unproductive – and periods of super high energy when I crush my job and my responsibilities in a way that makes me feel like the bed ridden person barely existed. I don’t know what all of those things add up to.

I like to focus myself on the explorer/adventurer part though, because those are the highlights of my life and the ones that bring the most excitement and happiness when they happen, and the memories that carry me along the fastest paths.

I also like to think about my financial future and constantly scanning for ways to work smarter and invest and automate, because I feel like the explorer/adventurer in me will stick around until I’m an old lady and as a single woman, all of the funding of the future issues are completely on me. I’m fine with that, and so I take a lot of pleasure in dumping money into investment accounts and wondering what kind of adventures the funds will bring me.

So: single mom, empty nester, explorer, saver, occasional hard worker, currently found propped up in bed with a snoring cat and hot peppermint mocha.