Nette Life

As human beings, I think we are naturally hoarders. We tend to hang on to things be they material things or intangible things like relationships. People we love, for instance, we like to keep them close and we like to keep them forever. But, as life is wont to do, it never acts the way you want it to. So ‘things’ happen and we lose our stuff. We lose our friends and people we love. That’s just the way life is.

Life is also how we deal with those loses. Cry our eyes out, sure. Suffer the heart ache, sure. But never, never should our loses stop us. Just as we learn as kids to get up after a fall, we pick ourselves up, dust off our bottoms and dry up our tears and keep going.

There are people who like send offs. You know the type, they love taking people to the airport or bus stations, they love retirement parties and going away parties. Some actually even like funerals, the ultimate good bye party.

Not me. I dread goodbyes and even avoid them when I can. I have two nieces, 4 and 5 years old who will not say good bye. They ignore any attempts to say goodbye because they think that if you don’t give the good bye hug or kiss, the person somehow will not go away. I’m kind of the same way, although my reasons are different, ultimately, I guess they are the same.

For me, goodbyes are awkward. I don’t ever know what to say or I’m afraid I’d get too emotional. So, I make them as lighthearted or as off hand as possible. As in, “I’ll see you soon!” to someone whom I know I won’t be seeing for a very long time. “Drive safe!” when I should say I wish he wasn’t going and I’m going to miss him terribly. “Have a great time!” when what I really want to say is, I wish I was going instead of you or I wish I was going with you.

When you know someone is going away permanently, is there a gracious way to say goodbye? Is there a way to encapsulate the life time of “should have saids” in a moment? No, I can answer that there isn’t a way.

I wish I could have been more forthcoming with how I felt and with my appreciation for every person in my life. Why was it so difficult to just say I love you, I admire you, I appreciate you? Why did it take me so long to learn this and am still having difficulty with expressing my appreciation? What made me this way? I always wonder…

But, there is time to learn and that’s partly what this blog is about. This is just me, thinking out loud.

I  said on my previous post about a simple budget that I will start tracking my expenses. When I wrote that and resolve to track my spending for a month, I thought to myself, I will probably end up cutting back just because I’m consciously thinking of what I’m spending. Well, that was partly true. We went shopping last Saturday and sometimes I thought what I was spending on and went ahead and did it anyway. There were a couple of times though when I refrained from buying a couple of things because I did not really need it and was more of an impulse buy.

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Like most people, I don’t have a budget and I pretty much live paycheck to paycheck. Sometimes I stay within the limit of my income but there are also times (too often) when I do go over what I earn and have to either use credit or dip into savings (and there isn’t much there to dip either). So I know I have a problem and I know I have to solve it. It’s the getting started that is hard.

Today, while reading my feeds, The Simple Dollar has a great article on how to start a simple budget. I am seriously thinking of putting myself on a tighter budget. Because even though I’ve managed to increase my income, I haven’t increased my savings, only my expenses. I am still living paycheck to paycheck, fearing my money will run out before the next one arrives. I want to get out of that.
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