You Went Shopping

"You went shopping on the first, the first, the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fourth, the fourth, the fifth, the fifth,the fifth, the fifth," pausing for a breath before continuing her long litany of compulsive spending dates, my hero Gail Vaz-Oxlade, oh so choleric, glared accusingly at the hapless woman who clearly couldn't control her spendthrift ways.

In Til Debt Do Us Part, she helps hyper-consumers get a grip on their wild spending that is plunging them deep and blindly into debt.

She has a new show, Princess, that's really good, it's almost like watching a train wreck.  Seriously, who spends just to spend...and then can't link that profligate behavior to the bankruptcy result?

Oh wait.  It's the lack of cause and effect understanding that has so frustrated me here for decades.

I only spend what has to be spent.  Groceries out the wazoo, gas for my gas guzzling van, the electric bill that is outrageous and no one comprehends why I'm screeching all day long about lights left on for no reason in empty rooms, our cable bill, and TA DA, the dang cell phone bill in which I oh so generously, possibly stupidly, allow for my self-absorbed teenagers to have data plans.

They spend all day texting - while I spend all day working hard.

They, being teenagers, and I hear this is true for birth children as well, thinking the world totally revolves around them at all times, who gives a good cahoot about fellow human beings?

Hello?

Sometimes I feel as if I'm losing my ever-loving stinking mind.

Why did I build such a large house to provide for so many who just don't give a crap?  Why do I wash dishes all day long so that they can leave them dirty on the table or the counter, and if I dare mention, "Put 'em in the sink," I end up with a meltdown - a rabid kid screaming, "STOP YELLING AT ME!" when I'd not raised my voice one iota.

I've watched twenty plus kids grow up and move out, only to bellyache that life's tough, just as I said it'd be for them.  Life's expensive.  No kidding?  Who thinks I've just been baying at the moon?

I don't even wanna answer the phone.

I chart every single penny spent here on a Google Doc Spreadsheet, and I use Quicken plus glance daily at my online checking account.  Intrigued by Vaz-Oxlade's daily chant enumeration, so for the month of June, I'm doing the same, in a notebook, checking my own shopping habits even though I already smugly know how it's gonna turn out for me. I just like to build my own self-confidence and beam at myself in a congratulatory manner, as I sure as heck never hear any compliments around this dump.

I've had major financial setbacks here lately, huge money challenges, and loads of crud to deal with money wise, so now's as good of a time as any to see where I can improve upon this area.

I also have a teenager here on the cusp of hitting independence day at the know-it-all age of 18,  and thinking it's OK to lie as often as possible to me, as if this old bat doesn't deserve to ever hear the truth, as if being attractive is enough to get this one kid by out in the real world.  I don't think so and I hate that you're apparently gonna choose to learn this the hard way.

I know I'm withdrawn emotionally as talking about the issue is only inflammatory, so disengaging is my only option.  Suits me.  Discussing rationally doesn't seem to be an option as Mom doesn't know anything about anything.  These college degrees would beg to differ, but since when has logic been an option?

The Youth Group, back when Sarah was a teenager, sang some song about, "Lord, Please Don't Send Me To Africa," in regards to being saved and of service to someone, tongue in cheek yet serious, I get it, look where He sent me.  I couldn't not adopt after I was called to do so.  This is His will for me that I'd prayed over for so long.

So although I often feel like a bird who flies into a clear glass window, knocked down and stunned, my big feet waving in the air as I flap my wings futilely, this is what I'm supposed to be doing with my time.

This is why Jesus died for our sins.  It isn't the big stuff like murder that's only sin, it's the little stuff too like my anger or blind resentment.  Ok, God, I get it.  Man, am I a slow learner, or what?  Other folks learned this as a kid in Sunday School.

Grown kids calling me, dumping their problems that've been caused by their choices, I can't fix it for them nor participate in enabling behaviors, only make suggestions and my straight arrow thoughts always follow what's best for them, not what's easiest, which isn't what they wanna hear at all.  This character building stuff seemingly for the birds.

So I'm a gonna hit 'publish' and shuffle off to Buffalo, or a least to the kitchen to clean it again.  I can't control their continuous button-pushing behaviors, only my own reactions.  They want me to blow up about the mess so then they'll feel obligated and justified to scream their own inner rage that had nothing to do with the kitchen anyway, but has been simmering ever since they'd been abandoned, neglected or uncared for in the very early childhood before foster care.

I get it.

I'll do the dang dishes and think about a truck I'd admired yesterday, the man telling me he wanted it to go to 400,000 miles, it was a mid 80s Toyota, he told me about another guy who made his last to 450,000.  That impresses me mightily, my 13 year old Nissan is getting close to 200,000.  I love my truck, want it to double it's own shelf life as well.  How cool would it be to get to the half a million miles mark?  The way I treat it?  Not gonna happen.