Money is the root of all evil

I hate money and I hate not having enough of it. I made some pretty irresponsible decisions when I was younger. Unfortunately, it takes a while to pay them off.

I have not a few bills to pay. I am working on paying them down. Some are done - yeah for me. But still, having to pay upwards of $2000 for grad school in the space of six months is NOT easy. I work a lot and I work hard for my money. Not only am I having to pay for school, I am also desperately trying to pay down whatever bills I can in preparation for my student teaching semester. When I will have NO job whatsoever and be flat broke. I've already had to push that off by a semester. I am freaked out every time I think about it because I honestly do not see how I can pull this off. I can't fill out a FAFSA form - - they don't take into account the fact that I won't have a job at that time. All they see is that I have a job NOW.

And now my mom is wanting to retire because she hates her job. I wish she could, but I don't see how it's going to work. She's barely making ends meet even with me living with her and paying for half the shit. She's like "oh, social security". Yeah, that's barely enough to wipe your ass with. Okay, so she's also got her work pension. Don't know how much that is. "Oh, I'll get a part time job." Fine. What about HEALTH INSURANCE?! See, here in the great fucking US of A, we have no fucking affordable health care insurance. I'm sorry, I don't care what the government or pharma companies (and I work for one) say - there just isn't. Health insurance alone would cost, at least, her entire monthly social security check. And then what about her medications? My mom had breast cancer a few years ago. She has to go in for routine check ups - more often than someone who never had cancer. She has medication she has to continue to take - tamoxifen I think. She's had reoccuring Bell's Palsy. Also requires visits to the doctor. The health care situation alone just fucks it all to bits.

And then she complains (rightly) about how high the property tax is. And then she also tosses the money she doesn't have to the goddamn fucking Catholic Church. (That's a whole other rant.) And she wants me to pay an extra $30/week to save towards the property tax. It doesn't sound like a lot, but believe me, it is right now. She gets all accusatory: "What bills do YOU have?! You don't have a car payment or a mortgage!"

No, I don't have either of those, but jesus fucking christ. I have a ridiculous Citibank CC (a bad stupid decision in my youth), Banana Republic CC, Target CC (which I seriously need to just cut up), Apple computer payment (ye gods, almost paid off), MBNA loan (that was one of those stupid mistakes), the townhome association monthly payment, SBC phone and DSL, Comcast cable, GRAD SCHOOL, TWO student loans in deferment (while I'm in school), mobile phone payment. Is that it (ha ha, is that "it"?). Oh, and let's toss in car maintenance, which I DO pay for. I am in debt up to my eyeballs, realistically speaking.

Looking at this, the last thing I should probably be doing is going on another trip overseas, but goddamnit. At some point, for my own mental health, I need to be able to enjoy SOMETHING. I work fucking HARD. If I can scrounge up the money to go on a trip, then damnit, why can't I? (And damnit, a lot of the money for this new trip is just because I stopped going to Starbucks...) I do fucking pay 80% of the bills in this household, I'd say. And whose money was it that bought all the fucking paint and supplies to do the downstairs? Yeah, that was ME, too.

I'm just frustrated and scared and unhappy. It doesn't take a lot at this point to understand why people kill themselves and others over this stupid shit.

There is just going to be no way for me to do the student teaching semester. I just don't know how. I don't. And I'm going to feel like a failure if I come all this way for nothing. I want to cry.