I got the call today that my first day of work for the job I interviewed for last week is this Sunday. An 8-hour orientation. I approach this new start with very cautious optimism. After all, I did have a one-day job in a place where I thought that I could thrive. Now, I’m hoping that this new opportunity will be a pleasant surprise that I never thought it could be. My biggest concern is on how my hubby and I will now live on a severely reduced budget. I’ll be making less than a third per hour of what I had been when I worked for the library. Yes, I know, humbling. I’ll admit that I feel somewhat ashamed and embarrassed. It’s been very hard, being human again.

So, I am excited about the new opportunity but afraid of how the financial strain will take its toll on my life. Everyone knows that money woes causes relationships to crumble and moods to change. Until yesterday, for several days I had to deal with our suite’s over 90-degree temperature. I told my father as he installed a window unit air conditioner that it’s either being fat or being hot, I can’t handle them both. My mood was horrific. My family knows me, they get that I am typically a moody person. I’m very particular. I’ve always been that way. However, as the rooms got hotter, I became more lethargic and wallowed in my more annoyed sense of self. I was upset because I had things I should be doing and upset further because I had no self-motivation to do them.

Have you ever noticed that when you don’t have any money that those are the times that you spend even more? Better yet, you spend money the way you used to prior to your circumstances having changed. We’ve done that. And again I am disappointed in myself for allowing it to happen. I know that I’m my biggest critic and that I can be harder on myself than is necessary, however, for someone who is a whiz at creating and even maintaining other people’s budgets, I allow life stress to cause havoc on my own sensibilities. I keep telling myself after each episode that I’ll be better the next time. There was even a point when I actually looked forward to making less. I convinced myself that with less money I would be better about having a more limited cash flow. Rather, I became more depressed and like a child gave in to retail therapy.

Here I am, thirty-three years old and am feeling as though I’m having some sort of midlife crisis. I’ve actually just finished a career and am embarking on an entirely new one. Since I devoted myself to the library profession for well over a decade, and having started it at twenty years old, I’m now, in my thirties, doing a professional about-face. I honestly thought that I knew what it was that I wanted to do with this new phase but I’m now unsure. I was used to the routine of my old life. I wasn’t happy or truly fulfilled in it but I was accustomed to the routine. We all get so comfortably apathetic about certain things in our lives that when it changes we feel a bit lost.

I know that I now have to become accustomed to a lot less money, a lot less normalcy and in general, a lot less. I traded my past life for a new beginning. A new town, a new everything. I still wouldn’t go back to my old life. I just have to, as my ex-husband would often say, suck it up and drive on.

Tonight’s poem I actually remember sharing on my podcast series with my BFF. The funny thing is that now, in addition to reading People.com I am just as likely to be reading an actual book (actually, an e-book as I prefer to read on my iPad Mini). So, enjoy Reality vs. Fiction.

Lastly, out of curiosity…