Things are the way they are

My life got really confusing really fast.  And I'm happy, I'm very happy.  My social life has been great. I've been mostly on good terms with my parents.  "Good" meaning that I call them on my way home from work Monday-Friday to see how they're doing.

My job's going great.  The director of operations thanked me for my hard work and told me that I'm doing a great job, which made me feel appreciated.

I just feel like I'm floating though.  "Floating" is the best word I can think of.  And there is something that triggered it.  I work my ass off for one reason:  To meet my goal of paying off all of my loans within the next five years.  I had nearly enough saved up to pay off my car loan this year.

And then I had a bit of a medical emergency.  A cyst was found in my mouth during a CT scan and I had to get a tooth removed.  Nearly $4,000 later and I feel unsafe.  I would not be able to afford another emergency like that without living on ramen noodles and tap water.

Everything was planned out perfectly before this happened.  I could have paid off one of my four loans and moved closer to center city like I initially wanted to.  But now I don't know if I can take the risk of another move with such a small financial safety net.

Life is hard; but I'm lucky.  I was thinking about it today.  I have a good job considering the economy.  I live on my own.  I make my own decisions.  I have my bachelor's degree.  I got a nice brand new shiny vehicle.  I have the best friends a girl could ever ask for.

It's not me, it's the state of the economy that makes my accomplishments seem so much smaller than they are.  Everyone in my age group is struggling and I should be thankful that I can live the way that I do, you know?  Yeah, money is tight.  But I can go out for a drink now and then, buy a subscription to Suicide Girls, and go to Cold Stone for blueberry pomegranate frozen yogurt covered in crushed graham cracker every couple of weeks.

I know some people who are very lucky in life.  People who got amazing paying jobs right out of college.  But that's rare anymore, so I need to stop being so distraught over the fact that I'm not one of them.  If a teaching job was available to me right after college, I probably would have taken it and I'd probably be making $10k more than what I'm making now.

But it wasn't.  And it's not my fault.  And I did the best that I could and I'm making enough to get by on my own.

But it particularly sucks when you blow $4,000 on a medical emergency.  It is what it is.  Or, in my dad's words, "at some point in life, Nikki, you gotta realize that, you know, things are the way they are and there is nothing you can do about it."

I can't change things.  And I should really, if anything, be thankful that I had the $4,000 laying around.  I sue people all day at work who are in debt, probably for similar reasons.  And I should be thankful that some paralegal in Philly isn't filing a lawsuit against me right now.