The stress is building up, which is part of why I’ve not posted in two days, or walked.  That’s bad, and I need to deal with it, so let’s start with the easier of the two for now, and the one that will clear my head.

I’ve had a lot of recruiter contacts, I’d estimate I’ve been approached for 4-5 positions, some full time some contract.  Now we’re in the waiting part of the game.  Which for me is stressful. I can wait fairly well, but I’ve got little to do but think about what might or might not happen.  This can be bad in it’s own way, which is why I have other projects to work on.

On the other hand, we misunderstood how unemployment worked, and instead of restructuring our bills earlier, we paid them.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but we’re not getting any income until mid September, and that’s stressful. We aren’t alone here, at least, — I remember being alone in Charlotte and really bottoming out on life.  I’ve never been alone here in Columbus, even if you don’t count Tam. We’ve got a few close friends, and family so things are going to be okay.  Our landlords, at least, will work with us if we communicate, so that’s good too.

The real problem, of course, is that we weren’t prepared for any kind of financial emergency.  We can’t just exist for a month with no income and not stress about it.  That’s a real problem, and one we’re going to fix.  I think we can even start now, and Tam and I have had some conversations about it.  It means changing the way we use and think about our money, but as Americans, that’s probably a good thing.

I want to say that we’re much better than we were ten years ago, when I was making a lot more money, and our household brought 2-3 times what it does now. Our bills weren’t appreciably higher (food was slightly higher, as there were more people involved), but we were still scratching by, paycheck-paycheck.  This isn’t about resources so much as how you deal with them.  We can do better, and we have to.

Noting all this stress is important, as it’s a potential driver of depression.  There has to be some to move you forward, but too much and it gets into “I can’t handle it” land, and things fold.  Paying attention is one of my five important rules and this is no exception.

And like I said, there’s potential good news: there’s a lot of nibbles out there, but as my grandfather used to say, nibbles could just mean all the minnows are eating your bait.  That ties into something else I worry about, and will write about tomorrow: unreasonable hope.