Backdated for January

I have a tradition in the current job of working through the December holidays and then taking the week of MLK day off. The celebration of the local hero is such in Atlanta that not much work gets done that week anyway, with kid having the day off school and free public service projects being performed. This year the planned time off backfired on me, as the week coincided with my annual bout of sinusitis, through which there’s nothing I can much do but lay about the house and nurse myself through headaches and gross drainage. The sinusitis was especially worse this year as it not only isolated me during a week when I had hoped to do things outside the house, but that it coincided with a spike in COVID transmissions in the city.

Although I know it’s irrational and magical thinking, I panicked about having sinusitis and hearing the COVID news. After all, this is how it happened four years ago: I got a sinus infection that took me out of my routines of swimming and social interactions, and by the time I was well again the city was shut down, and the cascade of events that ruined my finances began. That’s not going to happen this time, and even if it does, I’m not living in a fixer-upper house that will crush me. The upside to owning absolutely nothing of value means that I have almost nothing to lose.

The job search continues, despite an emergency cost of living increase at my current job, because I have seen the real cost of college for my daughters now. I want everything for both of them, and it would be selfish to say they can’t have the opportunities they’ve earned in school because I want to keep a job I like despite criminally low pay. We had planned to give them both about 60k, but the youngest spent her college savings account on a private middle school, and my savings for the oldest flew out the window when her dad was unemployed or underemployed for eighteen months. She's applying to scholarships like mad, and even getting some of those, but nothing seems like it will be enough, even as I know we’ll muddle through somehow. I just have to get another job, and that’s all there is to it.

Expenses seem still to increase, even though the news says things are leveling off. My beloved rental eBikes doubled in cost to ride. I don’t feel like I’m making headway on the debt. And that was January, swimming as hard as I could just to keep my head above water. Maybe February, with the slight emergency increase in income and the tax return money at the end will be less stressful.