I’ve never really liked putting up dominos. It’s a whole bunch of work for minimal payoff, if you even make it to the place where your cool little track is finished. I am a fairly clumsy person and often knock a domino over and ruin the whole thing prematurely.
A month or so ago I was talking to Gregory and I told him that often times people who are working on being healthy in one area of life (physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, mental, other things that end with-al) are slowly becoming healthier in other areas of life, too. It’s like once you start noticing all the small areas of compromise, you want to clean out ALL of the corners in your life, you know? Even if it’s slowwww baby steps, it’s still something.
But then lately I’ve experienced this weird yang to that ying.
All it takes is one of those areas to start toppling over and the rest come crashing down.
I’ve been struggling with repaying my debt and staying financially healthy. Part of that was that I did Whole 30, which meant I started spending a freaking LOT on groceries – but still, I was more impulsive with purchases than I would have liked to be, and I kept my credit card in my wallet, which meant I kept putting money on it and not always paying it back right away.
and then… I finished one round of Whole 30, and started another… and kind of just slowly fizzled out of that second round. Which makes me feel awful emotionally, like I am a quitter at a lot of things.
It’s easy to just kind of feel defeated. I’ve been feeling defeated for awhile now, honestly. Tired, unenthusiastic, and defeated. and there have been nice little “you can always get back up!” encouragements… but let’s be real.
If you accidentally knock over a domino and it takes down a whole bunch of carefully laid pieces, it SUCKS and takes awhile to rebuild it.
That’s where I’m at. Rebuilding. Always learning how to have grace for myself while not allowing myself to settle and get comfortable in a land I don’t belong in. That land, for me, is my credit card in my wallet and sugar in my day (neither that offer me any long-term benefit, but in the moment… man the rush feels good, amiright?).
What is the land you find yourself settling in? How do you pick up the pieces after you’ve knocked them all over?
I feel like we made some choices in 2014 that just did not work out the way we thought they would so now it is going to take 2015 and 2016 to get things back on track. It is a hard place to be in for sure. We just have to keep at it.
For me it’s money currently. Michael doesn’t have a job here yet, so I have to cover rent and everything for now. But before we left Seattle, we had to go out a few times, right? Well now I’m panicking about money…ahh! I get paid tomorrow, but that plus what’s in my account now has to cover rent and student loans…and anything that comes up in between!
Side note: I looove that picture. And that headband.
I find myself having that same problem a lot. When I get in a spending binge burying myself back into the debt that I’m working so hard to get out of, I catch myself thinking, well, what’s another $40 when I’ve already spent $100. Ugh. So frustrating. We are humans full of failures and imperfect. It is only by recognizing this that we can improve, though.
Debt is hard. Cody and I made a purchase we shouldn’t have. It was impulsive and we didn’t think. Now I feel this month is putting us in debt. Won’t do that again!