A Penny for Your Thoughts...

I have a lot of random things running through my head right now, like how noticeably louder I seem to be typing than the other people in the computer lab for example.  Or how, despite it being the summer time, I have yet to have a day where I really slept in.  I love sleep.  Like, ALOT.  So much so, that all my family used to say that I would sleep my life away, but when Im awake, what is there to do?? (that I actually want to do?)  I find myself looking forward alot, and to most people that is a step up from looking backwards I guess, but I rarely ever take the time to focus on right now, except for right now and Im not exactly sure why.  The top five things that have been on my mind the past few days are: money- how I need to save it, but want to spend it. What I want to spend my money on: a macbook pro and a proffesional camera, a new scrapbook, dance lessons, paint for the kitchen, a bookshelf, new tennis shoes and underwear and jeans and dresses for the summer, fall clothes like boots and sweaters and jackets (which I LOVE jackets and boots btw) and HATS! and fingernail polish and the fourth of july and barbeque and camping and tv and new books to read...... yea it goes on and on and on and ON!  and I just love it!  Sometimes just thinking of something and dreaming of it is enough to tide me over until I can actually get it.  The camera that I really want is 700 macarooni's that I do not have, and probably will never have with the job that I have, which brings me to the third top thing on my mind: the job I just put in an application for this past saturday.  It is for a CNA position at a nursing home which would be perfect for me with my school schedule because I could work only weekends and still have 40 hours working double shifts and I would have time to study during the week to go to clinicals whenever I start them, but I dont want to get my hopes up, but its so hard not to think about it.  In this though I did realize something. ( hold your horses its not that profound,  I know you are just clutching the end of your seats!) I didnt know just how broke I was! Its almost funny actually, that I never really took the time to stop and look at ny financial situation long enough to realize the need for a new job.  I have 3 bills, just 3 and all my mnothly expenses, bills and gas equal $1025 of which my husband and I make just barely, and sometimes not even.  And over this year I have planned and talked about saving for the things I mentioned earlier and I realize now that It is just not possible.  At least not where I am now.  And I am not even mad.  Its atcually a relief almost that I dont have to feel bad, or frustrated beacuse it is truely not our faults.  We are not wrong for wanting or needing these things, and its not bad that we dont have the money (well it is kinda bad that our job sucks that much,) but not too bad.  In all of this however, I feel.... happy. Excited!  Hopeful, and elated! Because its NOT us!  Which means that when we do find those better jobs, our responsibility and faithfulness to being deciplined and not racking up debt and living beyond our means will reward us generously, and then we can save and then we can have and can do.  It may be small and minute and incomprehensible, my level of interest and  care into something that seems so small and boring, but it is part of me learning.  Learning myself and the world around me and how the two interact.  I can appreciate myself (and ok, my husband too) for being responsible when it was hard.  We didnt take out loans, or get extra bills we knew we couldnt afford and it was and still is hard! Cashing your paycheck and turning around to make out a money order for the exact amount save for 7 bucks to pay the rent and then figuring out where to get gas money so we can keep going to school and work for the next two weeks to be broke once more.  Wanting to date, but cant.  Wanting to buy a five dollar candle and cant, or a dollar soda. Hating being the friend that always bails on hangouts because your broke on payday.  (okay thinking of all of this makes me sad again...) So, anyway you get the point.  These things are so little.  So little.  But I heard last week that little, is the new BIG! :) it really is, because the little stuff makes a bigger impact than the big.  I guess because you cant see the build up, so you dont prepare for it and make room for the crash.  The less money we have the more time we spend at home, the more time we spend at home, the more tired we get of looking at one another, the more tired we grow of that, the more we pick at each other, and fuss and fight and on and on and on and all we look at is whats wrong at the time (so I guess I do focus on the right now at some point, just in the wrong instance) He's tired of me, and Im tired of him being tired of me, that sums it up.  Im sure there are other things, but I can honestly say that if we had it,- or even when we had it because we didnt start off sick of one another, we could live and spend and save comfortably.  Which brings me to my fourth/fifth major topic on my mind (you thought I forgot! thought I was just rambling with no rhyme or reason! well, yea you are right, I forgot... and then remembered again)  I know that I need to focus on the now.  But there is still value and purpose in preparing for the future.  But I dont live in the future.  It all happens now.  We live and die in the now; and upon realizing that the future never really comes, you lose that idealization that the future once held.  the mystery, the romance, and hope and possibility.  And you recognize that the power lies and always has lied (yea i dont think thats the correct tense, but whatever) in today.  and its not some magical power to turn an empty wallet into a bottomless one (yea, sorry they're still workin on that one) but its a power to find contentment and joy and happiness in the things that you yourself posses, that wont change with the seasons, or the weather or your age or economic status.  We can see that clearly.  Those that were dumb before they are rich... are yet dumb! they are just rich and dumb.  The same goes that may not possess beauty or skill.  Money helps, and it is needed, but im starting to learn that money is just a tool.  some of us have bigger toolboxes than others but we all need the creativity, the drive and the ambition to know how to use it, because it is useless without it, you will end up broke again and in the same spot.  And even those with all the money can still lack the creativity to use it.  You think Oprah gives away all that stuff because she is so nice?? Uh, No! I think she just has too much and no idea what to do with it and the more she gives away, the more she gets! She has houses, but can only sleep in one bed at a time, only occupy one bit of space in the universe at a single time and her money will outlive her.  But who is she.  Not what, or even why, but who.  I believe that who you are is constant.  It is one of the the only things in life we can count on to stay the same.  And I dont mean mannerisms, or bad choices or even personality to a degree, because those can all be formed and altered.  But a persons thoughts and feelings and ways of seeing things in life, their ability to create and destroy and do things on their own are completely unique and consistant throughout life.  Its what makes you, you! Why no two people will react the same in mind body and feeling to the same situation.  To death two women may both cry in body, but one may recluse in mind and the other exert, one experience anger in emotion and the other dispair.  There are thousands of variations or responses to one cause and even in the instances where two people experience like reactions because nothing is impossible, I still think there is a sense of individualism because thier interpretations of the event and themselves or their motives are not the same. Its time to put a leash on my thoughts now.  It was interesting to see where they would naturally run if left unnattended and I think that after some time, they begin to focus in and can be really effective and less all-over-the-place.  So I will pick up here later and continue to explore what i think about personality and how people are and all that.  *Just so you know, I can be and sometimes just as curious about my thoughts as you. I am typing as fast as I can think and as unrestricted as possible which is hard beacuse I get the feeling that I am rambling or becoming repetitive and want to narrow it in, but in the end I am happy, and excited because I can learn and see this for myself, my natural tendancy for my thoughts to sort themselves and in that I can see where I fit into my own theories as I discover what they are.  So thanks for sticking it out and getting to the end, and you are forgiven for the parts that you did skip :) until next time...