…Valueless, helpless, dependent, incapable, powerless, weak, insignificant, empty, good-for-nothing, useless, unimportant, pointless, meaningless…

I’ll explain why I put all of those words there in a moment.  Better yet you will understand after reading this post, or at least I think you will.  (it is kind of a long one…hang in there till the end…haha)

We are budget people.  We live by our budget.  Then of course there are those unexpected things that come up.  This past week we had what seemed like A LOT of those unexpected things come up all in one day!  My husband was on his way to a charity golf tournament when he got in an accident leaving our subdivision.  A teenager was speeding and hit him.  Thankfully everyone was ok and he wasn’t t-boned.  It ended up only being mainly the bumper and no frame damage which was a very good thing.  However this started our day of bad luck.  My husband called me to come up to where he was.  I pulled behind the officers and put on my hazard lights.  We had to wait for a while for the tow truck to get there.  I went to my car to move it closer once the officers left and it wouldn’t start!  My battery was dead.  Our neighbors had passed by about 15 min prior and asked if we needed anything and we said we were good, just waiting for the tow truck.  Gave our neighbors a call and asked if they could come back to jump my car, hoping it was just the battery and not the alternator and/or starter.  They had just gotten to Olive Garden to eat but being the fantastic people they are, they came back to jump my car.  So that was the second bad thing for the day, in a matter of a few hours.

We headed to Wal-Mart to get a new battery once the tow truck came.  We dropped the car off there and walked across the parking lot to grab a bite to eat.  Just as we sat down to eat we got a message from another neighbor asking if one of our dogs had gotten out because she saw one that looked like one of ours.  Of course we weren’t home so we didn’t know.  Called the teenager at home and sure enough he (the dog) wasn’t there and had gotten out.  I ask my neighbor to head back to where she saw him and try to get him while my husband was telling the teenager to run and call his name!  Thankfully, he was found safe and sound. I left in a hurry when my husband called about the accident so I left the backdoor open like we do when we are home so they can come and go.  Apparently he didn’t like that and came to find me/us.  He was going to where we were at the front of the subdivision.  He’s smart little guy.  haha.  Well we lost our appetite after getting that call.  That was our third bad luck thing for the day.  We went home after the battery was installed and we got the rental car and didn’t leave.  We didn’t want anything else to happen, at least to the cars.

That is the background to where the first line of this post came from.  After all of the initial shock of wore off the reality of it sank in, for me anyway.  Like I said, we are budget people and we didn’t have a new car battery and a deductible written into the budget.  haha  I promise this post is going somewhere, hang in there…

We are trying our best at paying things off but of course more things come up.  We will have a 16-year-old in May, which means purchasing a car AND insurance for a teen boy which is insane if you didn’t know.  Two teen drivers on the insurance, one being a boy = broke parents.  haha  I sure don’t envy any of you who have multiple teenagers in one house who are all driving.  I’ll pray for you!

Now  to the meaning of the first line of this post.  I wish I was healthy enough to work so that I could contribute financially to our budget.  Trust me, being decrepit (aka having CF and being disabled) doesn’t pay well at all.  It is enough to pay the car payments, which mine will be paid off in 7 months!  Just in time to put it towards the car insurance increase.  haha  I feel so helpless and valueless (and all of those other words up there) because I can’t work and contribute.  It is a real shot to the ego and feeling of independence.

I posted on Facebook that I was overwhelmed and that I didn’t want to adult one day last week and people were very concerned.  My status was loaded with sarcasm.  I was just ready for it all to be over.  I had to apologize for it sounding the way it did.  We are fine.  We have plenty of food, gas in the cars and our bills are paid.  We may not be able to hop on a plane to the beach somewhere when winter hits but we are living the dream none the less.

So my post is about how hard it is to accept not being able to work due to your chronic illness.  I haven’t been able to work in quite a few years but when it seems like the bills are piling up, that’s when it really hits home.  My husband being the awesome man he is said, “babe, yes I guess you could try and work but that would just make you sicker quicker, therefore making my time with you less and I want as much time with you as possible, so it’s not worth it.”  It was very sweet but still hard to swallow.  Something as simple as not being able to mow the lawn anymore was very hard for me to accept.  My husband told me I wasn’t “allowed” to anymore because he saw how much I was struggling doing it.  I’m one of those weird people who like mowing.  It’s because I can be outside and in the sun while “exercising.”  There are many things I want to do and I know that I would get the evil eye from my husband if I did them so I refrain.  haha  The hardest part of it all is that my independence will only get less and less over time.  The things I can do without struggling will diminish.  Loading groceries into the trunk brings on a coughing fit and shortness of breath, to give you an idea of how hard things can be at times.

I leave you with these words from country singer Chris Janson…  (this is me being funny, just in case you didn’t know)

I ain’t rich, but I damn sure wanna be
Working like a dog all day, ain’t working for me
I wish I had a rich uncle that’d kick the bucket
And that I was sitting on a pile like Warren Buffett
I know everybody says
Money can’t buy happiness

But it could buy me a boat, it could buy me a truck to pull it
It could buy me a Yeti 110 iced down with some silver bullets
Yeah, and I know what they say,
Money can’t buy everything
Well, maybe so,
But it could buy me a boat.

A boat is on the wish list since we are so close to water here in TN.  I guess you have to play the lotto to have good odds at winning. haha

Until next time…