There are bills, insurance, expenses, not to mention jobs, families, and friends.
Sometimes, I stop and think, how do they all do it? I'm terrified just thinking about it.
I look at my measly bank account. It's growing, but very (very very very) slowly. I'm literally starting from 0 after coming back from the convent. I worry if I will ever be financially stable enough to live on my own, or help support a family, or buy a house, or get a new(er) car, or be anything other than a poor college student. I browse real estate listings and the like, just looking for something pretty, and rather, I find something ugly: six digits, sometimes more. I don't even have that many pennies!
I go to work at 8am, and don't leave until 4:40, which is fine because I love my job. But I don't go home right away usually. I do secret shops to make extra money, or I grocery shop, or I run errands. And then I go home and try to do some schoolwork. Most nights, I don't feel like it. But this makes me worry. How could I ever be able to devote my life to a husband? How could I ever work (or how could we both work, really) 8 hours a day, plus overtime, and still have a family? Doesn't this sound impossible to anyone else?
The amazing thing is, it seems that nearly every family pulls it off and makes it work.
I got an email from my employer the other day, notifying me of their health insurance plan that is now available. I'm still covered under my mother's health insurance because I'm under 24, but I took a look just to see what it was. What I found was high-deductible health insurance plan, with some numbers attached that scared me a little ( This wouldn't have made a shred of sense to me before I got my new job in medical billing. Thank God for Medical Billing 101!). How am I supposed to afford rent (or a mortgage, however those things work), food, gas, and living in general, plus expenses like this that are inevitable?! How in the world do people do this?! Car insurance, gas, repairs, health insurance, loans, gas, heat and electric... Is there something magic that happens so that you can figure your life out?
I know I'm only in my early-20s. I know I have "plenty of time" to figure this out, for God to show me my husband, and for me to settle down. But honestly, I feel so much older than I am. I've always felt this way, even growing up. It probably is from the stress that my mother placed on me to excel to such a high degree as a child. I always have felt a couple of years older than I really am. But now I'm faced with these worries about the future that doesn't feel so far away, but is. I don't think of marriage as being something maybe 5+ years away. When I think about getting married, I think within the next year or two. Maybe that's just my dream, or maybe that's just how my brain is. I'm already starting to be afraid that my "biological clock" is ticking, and with 20 children pending, I want to get started as soon as possible... Perhaps I'm rushing this...
I really just want to fall asleep tonight, and wake up a fully established adult, with a fairly decent salary, a husband with the same, and beautiful children. I want to wake up to a home that doesn't need repairs, two functioning cars, and a family that is happy, healthy, and holy. That's what I want.
But I have to go through the icky stuff first.
Right now, as you probably know if you follow me on Twitter, I have marriage and baby fever. I can't wait to get married (Latin Mass wedding, of course!), have children, and start living my life as a wife and mother.
If I could get married tomorrow, I would. If I could raise a family next week, I would. If I could be a full-blown adult, I would. But I know how much all of this entails. I know how much being a grown up sucks. I just hope I can figure it all out before it's too late...
