measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dreaming of vacations As most weeks, my life has been obnoxiously busy this week. Lots of personnel changes at work lately, which means lots of paperwork for me to muddle through. But in all fairness, it's been a pretty good week. Just a bit weird for some reason. Erich and I started having a long discussion last night which started around how I'm always tired. I tried to explain to him that he generally talks to me on IM either 1) first thing in the morning as I'm ingesting coffee, or 2) right after my commute home, which is mind-numbing from the sound of the train rails. He commented how I should mention to my doctor about my poor sleeping habits, and that I'm not getting enough sleep. This then led into a slightly more heated (not an argument, but disagreement) about next year's plans if all goes as it is for the two of us to move in together, and how I know that a vacation is out of the question if that happens. He's trying to convince me that I'm not keeping an open mind, but I think being realistic right now is important. Particularly when he'd been discussing how both of us are draining our bank accounts frivolously lately, and how we're broke (example for me? I currently have about $120 to stretch out to live on until the 15th). But here's how I see it next year, and how things are shaping up... 1) I am not going to my father's for Christmas this year. My grandmother is ill with cancer... for the second time in three years, and under the circumstances, I think it best to spend the holidays with her and my mom this year since there's no way of knowing what will happen in 2002. Therefore I will be making every attempt possible to get out to Montana in early February for the wedding of my childhood friend, Andrea. Andi and I have known each other since we were two, and even if we don't talk to each other for months at a time, we'll always be close friends. She'd kill me if I didn't get out to her wedding. Plus it's been two years since I've been home. I need to go home for a week or so. 2) Erich wants us to move in together next summer. No problem... except in Massachusetts' apartment markets, that means I need to plan for roughly 2-3 months worth of rent to be saved up in order to move. He comments how his place was only a month's worth. I tell him he was damn lucky. I had to put down four month's worth. For those in the metro-Boston housing market, you know how much that is (we're talking close to $4,000 at the time I moved in). 3) If I move in with Erich, it's a sure bet we're not living in the city, which is both good and bad in my view. This means on top of the savings for a downpayment on an apartment, I need to save up to buy a car (and since my credit is shot, this means me buying in cash). Because I am not moving into an apartment where I am dependent on anyone else to get me around. I don't care how chivalrous Erich wants to be. I will have my own method of transportation. I refuse to have to depend on someone else. 4) I currently pay a bit more than half of my take-home pay to rent. This means that there isn't a lot left over to save up, unless I want to live on Ramen. 5) Moving will take up some of my other vacation days in order to get the apartment I live in now packed up and ready to go, and then get organized at the new one. Erich thinks we should move over a course of three weekends. My response to that: a definite NO. I moved my department over six, and that didn't require me lifting it. I'm not spending another summer moving. He can whine about that all he wants. I'm not going to kill myself for several weekends. I HATE moving. Perpetuating it over three weeks-- in the New England summer humidity -- isn't going to happen. If I need to do that, I'll factor in the savings to hire movers and EAT ramen for weeks if I need to. 6) So on top of all of this, he's insisting that I keep an open mind about a vacation next year. How?!? My finances for next year are already set up. It's looking like it's going to be a major financial spending year for me, and unless I get some beautiful bonus from work and definitely get the raise that has been talked about, it's going to be immensely tough. I told him that as of now, it's either vacation or moving. I can't do both on my current salary. I can barely do either on my current salary. And he starts the sighing routine and commenting how this economic slump is slated to be over by the middle of next year. Well, that's great. But right now it's not, and long-term, I have to assume that it won't be. Because everything they've been trying so far hasn't really helped the economy much. *sigh* In any case, I think he and I will be having a discussion about this tonight. I tend to be very paranoid about losing control, and all of my experiences with relationships have resulted in my going along with the man in whatever he wanted to do, regardless of how unhappy I was. And I feel my psyche trying to push me to do the same thing here to stop causing waves. I don't like it. And it's starting to really piss me off. --Mel. 9:58 p.m. - 4 October 2001 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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