Confession...

Hi there friends…as usual it’s been a second since I’ve checked in and given an update on life. My absence has been due to me not being so proud of where I currently am in life, and our current culture messaging saying only share the highlights, the good stuff. Yet you know me, I show up when life is hard. When life is a struggle. So here I am showing up. Sharing a hard topic with y’all. I’ve already rewritten this blog twice since I’ve had the idea.

Why?

Because I’m ashamed of what I’m about to tell you. I’m ashamed of where I’m at in my life, and I want to explain it away. I want to plead my case, so I don’t feel as bad about it. So maybe you’ll take pity on me instead of judging me. Yet, I don’t show up here for pity or judgment. I show up to connect. Because I know to some extent, we are all struggling in our own ways, and I like sharing to remind us all…you’re not alone.

So how am I struggling?

I’m struggling financially. Like 8k in credit card debt struggling while working full time, struggling. How could I have gotten this far into debt while working full time. Well it’s an odd equation…but here goes..

1. I work mainly off commission. Thus my 40 hours could pay off to $200/hr if I make a big sale or it could break down to $7.25/hour if I don’t. Major difference.

2. I had an unexpected tax bill pop up from 2018. Thank you, H&R block, for the shitty advice, I will never again use your services.

3. I’ve insisted on taking my 4 jobs I was working 5 months ago and wildling it down to only the one commission-based job.

4. I still bought presents for my family for Christmas with the hope my big sale would come in…I’m still hoping!

5. Oh yes, and a little over a year ago I decided to move to a tourist town. Which I still love dearly, but there is a high price to pay living in paradise.

There you are…it’s really not that hard. I always thought when I was young if you found yourself in credit card debt as an adult, you were some kind of awful irresponsible human because well that’s what my parents taught me to believe, indirectly of course. Yet, I’ve found out over the past 5 months, I’m not that awful or irresponsible, and I’m hardly living above my means.

By hardly living above my means, I literally mean I’m buying groceries, nutrition supplements, and hygiene products. When friends ask to hang out, I either suggest a free option or a low budget option of cooking at home. I haven’t gone out to restaurants. I haven’t been drinking. I’ve literally paid my bills I had to from my bank account…my rent, my car payment, insurance payments, and trainer…the rest of my living has gone on the credit card. I was smart about this and opened a new credit card with 0% APR and transferred my old balance to it. Yes, this is a good option if you think you will pay it all off in a year and not max out the card. When I made this switch, I fully thought no problem I’d never come close to maxing out the card, and easily pay it off in a year.

I’m two months into this plan, and seriously starting to wonder if selling my eggs is still a viable option? Will they take eggs from a 34-year-old?!? Are they too ripe already?!? I think I’m past the cut off, but I need to do some research. Afterall, I have zero plans to use any of them. They might as well go to some use…right?

Jokes aside…this isn’t my first rodeo with being in debt. In 2020, I accumulated 18k in debt over the course of the year. However, then it was a little more understandable. In 2020, everyone was struggling to make ends meet unless you were fortunate enough to have a work from home option. I didn’t. I was making ends meet with odd end jobs and had the rest on 2 different credit cards. I know crazy.

Yet this time feels worse. There is more guilt and shame surrounding this guilt. Maybe because I don’t have a pandemic to blame it one, maybe because it’s the second time in 3 years I’ve gotten to this place…thus somehow, I should’ve learned. I should’ve known better this time, right?

Yet I didn’t. I wound up here. How?

By being so bold as to want to reduce my working life down to a single job. That’s right. I got here because I insisted on only working one job to make ends meet. Five months ago, I was working 4 jobs. Working those 5 jobs was keeping me in the black, so they say. However, working those 5 jobs also had me very stressed and burnt out. Keeping track of a schedule involving 5 jobs is very tiring. Especially when your main hobby (weightlifting and macro dieting), is basically a part time job. Shame on me for wanting to stay healthy. How dare I?

Thus, I got here, by requesting a little more balance in my life. By saying I wasn’t going to live my life solely to survive. So slowly, I took away hours from the 3 other jobs and put them into the one with the highest reward possibility for hours worked. Basically, I hedged the wrong bet. I’m still hedging the wrong bet. Most at this point possibly would’ve left the gallery and gotten a full-time job at a different location. Past me would’ve done the exact same thing. I’m notorious for getting going with the going gets tough. Hints my 6 career changes and moving 5 times over the past 5 years. When the waters look a little choppy, I typically jump ship. Afterall the one thing I’m good at is change itself.

However, I’ve talked myself into something different. I’ve talked myself into staying put. To braving the storm out a little longer in hopes for the rainbow at the end. Currently there is hope this month with my selling. At the moment, I’m only two sales away from blowing my last month out of the water. Which is good news.

The only problem is from time to time, roughly once a week, I get overwhelmed with guilt and shame about where I currently am financially in my life. I get so overwhelmed I waste a day. A day that could be used for much better things…if nothing else for the rest I so desperately craved 5 months ago on the brink of complete burn out. Afterall, worrying about my money troubles doesn’t actually solve them, just makes me feel more and more like a failure.

See that’s the real issue with all this. My debt at 34 years old makes me feel like I’m completely and utterly failing at life. Like everything I do doesn’t matter because I’m failing at this one part of my life. One part that while is very hard, could all be changed in a matter of a month. Most certainty will be changed within a year. In a year, this maybe a distant memory. Yet currently I’m letting it engulf my entire existence. I’m using it as an excuse to break down. I’m using it as an excuse to isolate myself. I’m using it as a reason to punish myself. I’m using it for justification that I’m not good enough. I’m allowing guilt and shame of societal norms get the best of me.

Thus, the reason for this post. I’m hoping by publicly outing myself, I’ll be easier on myself. I hope it’ll lesson the burden of the guilt and shame I’ve put on myself over the past 2 months. I’m hoping to normalize this feeling instead of hiding it away, so it holds less crippling fear over my life.

I’m also sharing this publicly to remind everyone out there, we all got our shit. Big or small, it’s there for us all. It’s easy to look at someone else’s life, make assumptions, and think they’ve got it way better or easier than us. I do this all the time. And since I do live in paradise, I’m dolling out advice like I’ve got it all put together, I wanted to come clean…we all have our shit. I hope that my shit slowly becomes easier and easier to deal with. I hope by this time next month the hope I have has turned into feasible change and I’m reaping the rewards.

Either way…outing myself I know will help. By outing myself, by telling you I feel like a complete and utter failure because of tiny bit of debt I’ve acquired I’ll be able to talk about it more freely and thus lessoning the burden of being found out. Of y’all knowing my secrets. After all, I’ve told my family and close friends. They know how much this affects me. How much I feel like I suck at life right now. If they still love me, I figure what harm could I do by telling y’all?!?

So hopefully this helps. Hopefully, something is hard in your life, but not as hard as my life and this makes you feel a little less alone. Because my goal is always to share with the hope of making even one person feel a little less alone.