Age.

I'm learning more and more that age is mostly a state of mind. You are as "old" or as "young" as you want to be. However, at 24 years, I feel like I'm somewhere in between.

I feel like I'm just dressing up like an adult, playing the part...wearing "career clothes" and going to my "career" each day. Saying "grown-up" things and acting "mature." Buying a reliable car and kitchen appliances, paying the utility bills and rent.

All I really want to do is wear jeans and flip-flops, hang out with my friends until the wee hours of the morning, spend the whole day sightseeing, take spontaneous weekend road trips, and spend Sunday evenings at the musical fountains in Grand Haven.

But instead, I have to work from 9 to 5 every day so that I have money to pay for my reliable car, apartment and utilities. I can't stay out late at night because I know that if I do, I'll be too tired to function at work. I can't buy jeans and flip-flops because they aren't acceptable to wear at work, and I can't afford 2 separate wardrobes because I have to pay for my reliable car, apartment and utilities. And I can't spend Sunday evenings on the pier in Grand Haven because I live in Nashville, so that I can go to work every day to earn money to pay for said reliable car, apartment and utilities.

I know in my mind that I'm young and should be having fun, enjoying life...but I also know in my mind that I have responsibilities and bills to pay. I realized recently that I no longer get excited for payday because it means I'll have money to spend...I get excited because it means I can pay my bills and make it one more month.

I'm not really living; I'm surviving--and barely that.

SIGH.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trimming Cabinets

Image
After we got all the old floors removed, it was time to prep some cabinets for our built-in desk. We went with pre-fab kitchen base cabinets because they were already built and they were 15% off at Home Depot. Why did we want to install those before we laid the floor? Well, because kitchen base cabinets have a standard height of 36", and desks have an average height of 32", and we knew that the tile floor would add about 3/4" of height, so we wanted those base cabinets to sit as low as possible when all was said and done. We also decided to lower the cabinets even more by cutting them off from the bottom. Here's a shortened cabinet vs. the original height of the base cabinet, side by side: First, we had to prep the cabinets for their "haircut": We removed all of the "brackets" that were holding the bottom boards on. I believe those boards around the bottom are called "toe kicks" or "toe strips". The toe kick in the
Read more

Counters and Floors

Image
When we left off last week, we had just installed the base cabinets for our desk. Now let's talk about the desktops we built and installed. We contemplated all sorts of different options...we thought about butcher block, but knew it would have to be custom ordered to size = pricey. We looked at some other options in the home improvement store, but everything was either not wide enough (we needed a depth of 25") or not thick enough. Then I remembered an old blog post by my favorite DIYers over at Young House Love, when they built a 13' long built-in desk and used 2 by's for the top. So we picked up a few 2 x 10's and a couple 2 x 8's, not knowing which combination would be the charm (since 2 x 10's are not truly 10 inches wide, nor are 2 x 8's truly 8 inches wide). The combination of two 2 x 10's and one 2 x 8 ended up being the perfect depth, and we wouldn't have to rip down any boards! Here are the boards all cut to length and ready to
Read more

Goodbye Smelly Carpet!

Image
Do y'all remember that we have a basement? It doesn't make many, if any, appearances in the blog. That's mainly because we haven't done a darn thing to it since J got the keys to the house. After helping my parents with their house during our summer vacation to Michigan in July, I think we found our motivation again, because we came home with big ideas and energy to attack the basement! Remember what it looked like before? It pretty much still looked exactly like that, except add a bajillion more stains on the carpet (they seemed to creep up from below!) So, the carpet had to go! Once we got all the carpet out, it was time to paint the walls. We wanted to do that before we put in the new floors, because I tend to be a messy painter :) Oh, hi Penny! The walls were like an off-white that had yellowed over time. And speaking of yellow, the stairwell was painted a hideous yellowish-green. SO BAD. Also, the "built-in" bookshelves left a nice
Read more