I did not stumble upon this situation easily or quickly. I feel like I've been spending years and years working towards being this person but never really allowing myself to realize that I reached my goal. The only thing I can relate this feeling with is the change between my Sophmore and Junior years of highschool. My Freshman year was a throwaway year - I struggled adjusting to the new surroundings, new faces, new schedules and it took a while to get my footing. My grades reflected as much. This is probably a common theme for many, I certainly hope I'm not alone here.
By Sophmore year I was pretty comfortable but found myself worried about being judged for who I thought I was. My head was too fogged up with what every one else was thinking or doing that I forgot how to have fun. Sometime between the awkward first years of highschool I had an epiphany and by my Junior year I had come full circle back to the girl who didn't give a shit. It was as if I had to lumber through those couple years making mistakes to get my footing right and start marching forward.
Like many of you I spent my twenties having a really fantastic time. I was able to experience a lot of things that helped to shape who I am. But I also had to make plenty of mistakes along the way and I've been paying for them in one way or another for a while now. But I understand what things I did back then and how to turn it around now. My focus falters from time to time so I'm very grateful to have a wonderful husband who very rarely loses his center. We really compliment each other well in that way I think. He is very driven and goal oriented and I am the complete opposite, I'm dreamy and wishy-washy. He helps keep me grounded and I give him wings to be silly.
So we've been working at it. We've been working together focused on our future and what we have to do in order to ensure stability. It's not that fun; there are no vacations or dinner/movie dates, no shopping sprees or large purchases of any sort. We're what you might call frugal. But I suddenly feel like I can see light at the end of the tunnel and it's a good feeling. For the longest time we couldn't finance a gumball, but today we bought a new car. A new car - not a used/pre-owned car. It's not like it was anything very expensive and my husband gets a fantastic company discount so it was even cheaper than we thought. That's not the point though. I am now a "finance-able" person. (Is that a word?) Holy shit, when did that happen?
It happened when I wasn't looking or paying attention. I've been so used to feeling like a loser, actually pretty comfortable being mediocre, that it came as a shock that I've morphed beyond that person. It's pretty sweet. And now that I have tasted some of the results of our hard work I am more invested in keeping our current plan going. There's still work to be done, I'm not quite where I want to be yet but I'm pretty happy thus far.
Those of you who are in the Mortgage business will understand this - my goal is to be A-paper and everything that that implies. I want the credit score, the income, the reserves and the damn equity. I'm so close. It's crazy to think about it. It's crazy to me that I can
Because it's so unfathomable to me, I do have this bizarre sense of guilt. I don't know if it's a feeling of abandoning my fellow American's in strife or a sense that this good fortune would be better bestowed on some other more deserving soul. I don't know. Maybe I just need time to marinate on my new identity and get comfortable with it.
Regardless - I bought a new car today. Her name is Jackie Blue and she is awesome.
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