much navel-gazing ahead

Warning: long and rambly navel-gazing post ahead.

Now that my last debt is about 2 weeks away from being paid off (and the money's sitting there waiting for my parents to arrive), it has gotten me thinking about what I want to work towards next, in a financial sense. Not that I haven't been struggling with it for my entire life anyways, but my next major goal HAS to be to deal with my weight and my health... and to that end, I'm going back to the counselling very soon (I had to put a hold on it when the move happened, and then because I was putting out way more than I wanted to for chiro, I haven't gone back yet), and yesterday I called Fitness on the Go to look into the possibility of hiring a personal trainer for 1 or 2 sessions a month to give me some guidance on strength training. Why I feel that's necessary is a whole 'nother post I'll make later.

Anyways, I've been vacillating back and forth on the car issue... debating whether to tell myself I had to wait until most of my excess weight was gone before I was allowed to buy a car, with the thought of "if I get a car, I'm never going to get ANY exercise because I'll just drive everywhere", but you know, I really think that's just another way the mindset from my upbringing is permeating my thoughts. The way my parents treated me while I was growing up (and to some extent, still today), was that I was a horrible person for being overweight, that all I had to do was really WANT to lose weight and because I didn't lose weight, I must not want it badly enough, and that I would never have a life or be able to do anything or have anything because I'm overweight. Years of hearing this has really wedged itself into my subconscious brain, and while I KNOW that none of it is really true, it's still there in the back of my head, poking at me every time I want to do anything.

This kind of thinking has show itself a lot lately, with me thinking things like "oh, I should lose some weight before I go back to doing SCA stuff". "Oh, I should wait until I've lost weight before I get a car." "I need to lose weight before I can do this... or that... or whatever".

But you know what? FUCK THAT. Seriously. I'm not putting my life on hold anymore. I want to get out and do things and enjoy myself and act like a real, social person instead of this hermit that I've become. And if I get out and spend time with people and have fun and stuff like that, I bet I'll see it start to effect my weight and health in a positive way.

Having said that, I'm still going to have to fight against myself to actually make this happen, because I've had way too many years of reverting to hermit mode when I feel overwhelmed (which is a heck of a lot of the time when my depression is bad) and I'm really going to have to work at things still. And I might have to ask for help, and I would appreciate those that know me in person helping if they see the opportunity.

On top of that, I am really going to start working on getting over my shyness and self-consciousness. When I first joined the SCA, I spent a number of years going to events and not saying hi to anyone, just sitting in a corner watching and doing embroidery becaues I was too shy to talk to anyone. And then I signed up for the year-long cooking course with Mistress Rowenna, and it went a LONG way towards improving things, because I got to know a handful of peoplein a close-knit setting. And then I apprenticed to Mistress Seiglynda and joined Holly House, and got to know a lot of the people in the household, and between those two things, it really started to break through my shyness, but I still have a long way to go.

Anyways, this post has ended up off on a tangent that is nowhere near my original point, so I'm going to end it here and start a new one to post later about my original point. :)

vroom vroom

Back to the topic I had initially started on in my last post before I went on a tangent that came out of nowhere... cars.

Actually the point of my previous post was that after debating back and forth with myself between getting a car soonish and waiting til after I've lost a whole pile of weight, I've decided to quit postponing everything and start living now. So the decision is that I will be getting a car soonish.

Ian doesn't understand why I want a car and sees it as an unnecessary expense. But he also has the mindset of a person who likes living within a few blocks of everything and loves the busy city, etc. Now don't get me wrong, I love having a commute that is a three block walk. It's totally frakkin' awesome. But many of the things I want to do (camping, SCA events, roadtripping and other travel) require a car. And even locally, being able to cram in all the things I want to do would be made much easier with a car, since I wouldn't be spending insane amounts of time on public transit. A good example is the pool. Supposedly swimming would be the absolute best exercise for me to be doing right now with my injured back. Said pool is about a 25 minute bus ride away (and that doesn't even factor in waiting time), plus shower time, etc. I *have* to shower at the pool to be able to go outside and wait for the bus and sit on it all the way home. If I had a car, it would be a matter of tossing my bag into the car, a 5 minute drive, tops, do my swim, throw on my track suit overtop of my swimsuit to go home, and then hop in my own shower at home after another 5 minute drive. Heck, I could cram THAT in before work if I had a car.

The funny thing is, that every once in a while, Ian and I will start talking about the outdoors and camping and stuff, and then I mention the fact that we could go camping once a month if we had a vehicle, and then he gets all gung ho and the idea of us getting a SUV together comes up. *sigh* men...

Anyways. Having thought about it, I'm not ready for the purchase of a vehicle with him yet. My two previous relationships plus 5 years of working in family law has caused that - at this point, our finances are 100% separate and I'd like to keep them that way for the time being. Plus, to be perfectly honest, at this very point in time, I'm not in good enough shape for camping yet. So I've decided that my plan, after November 15th-ish (because my research shows that most of the places willing to finance a car for someone who's a discharged bankrupt require you to wait 6 months after your discharge date), I will be starting to look for a small to mid-size car, with a price tag which, after a downpayment of $1000-1500 (which I can easily handle), will yield a car payment of no more than $120-150 a month for 2 years or so, so that I can afford it on my own. Considering that I walk to work, I can insure it for pleasure use only, which will keep that cost reasonable, and we have a parking stall that came with our condo so I will have no parking costs, and the limited use it will get will keep my gas costs relatively low. The payments on it will also help to rebuild my credit rating.

And we can still camp in a car, we just can't go places that are deep in the bush that would require a 4x4. He's not exactly likely to want to go to SCA camp events with me anyways, and if it's just me, I will camp with friends and can fit enough stuff for just me into the trunk and back seat of a mid-size car. And if we're still together in a year or so (I would hope so, but you never know), and I'm in good enough shape to really rough it camping, then we can look at trading my car in for an SUV.