We've all heard it before: "There is no good without evil. No light without darkness. No pleasure without pain." Well, maybe you haven't heard it before, but my wife sure did.
On our first date.
She wanted me so bad after that.
But I digress. The reason that these sayings come up over and over again is because they're true. My life lately has been an exercise in this.
Last year at about this time was one of the worst times in my life. Everything had been piling on, and it was reaching a breaking point. I had worked crazy hours on a pilot at work, but my work was awful, the worst I'd done in years. We were FLAT broke. We were so broke that when I got paid, we'd go put $50 on a Wal-Mart gift card so that I would have enough money for gas that week. Gas prices were exorbitant, I think they got above $3.60 a gallon. Once on my way home, I called Lynn to tell her that I needed to get a bit of gas in order to make it home, and she said, "Well, I don't know what you're going to buy it with." I managed to scrounge together $3.75 in change from my car, which was enough to get a gallon of gas in Burbank to get me home.
The house was sucking our souls dry. We had received notice from our mortgage company that our ARM loan would be adjusting - and the interest rate would be going up 2% - equating to an over $700 increase in mortgage price PER MONTH! The windows in the place were worthless, and we couldn't afford to replace them. The A/C in the place was worthless, but we couldn't afford to replace it, either. So we were leaving the A/C at anywhere from 80 to 85, but Lynn and Sydney were home all day so we couldn't do it all the time. We were in an incredible hot spell - we had at least 4 weeks there that were over 110 every day. Sydney's little face would turn pink from the time it took us to walk from the parking lot into Target. And the combination of crappy AC and bad windows led to an electric bill of over $550 A MONTH. So we were sweating our asses off and still paying a nice apartment's worth of rent in the midwest in electric bills every month.
We were both fat and unhappy. We couldn't afford to go anywhere or do anything, and it was too bloody hot to, anyway. Sydney was the one bright spot in the whole thing. Maybe that's how we made it through... we did it for her.
Contrast that to today. Work is better. We sold the house, paid off a whole bunch of debt. We moved into an apartment that is $500 a month cheaper than our pre-adjusted mortgage, and $1200 cheaper than it was post-adjustment. Even though we're back in the 100's again, it appears as though our electricity bill might, MAYBE will get up to $250 a month if it stays this hot. We're on the second floor of a 3-story building, so we've got a unit above us to insulate us from the sun coming in, and we're 10 feet above the heat of the asphalt and air-conditioning unit exhaust. And it's got great windows (and did I mention a much better floorplan?), good vertical blinds, and we bought nice thick curtains to block the heat. Even though it's still expensive to live out here, it's much cheaper in this apartment than it ever was in the house, and we don't have to fix anything if it breaks! Woohoo!!
Plus, we're losing tons of weight; between the two of us, we've lost a full grown person! We feel incredible, Sydney's growing up to be a really sweet, interesting, funny and entertaining little girl that we enjoy taking places (usually!) I love my family. I love spending time with them, whatever it is we're doing. And the fact that we've come so far in this year makes it all the more striking.
The contrast is incredible.
I enjoy thinking about it from time to time. It really enhances whatever I'm feeling at the time. Like, "Ahhhh... remember how crappy life was this time last year? Yep, no more of that!"
Now, I'm big on putting and keeping things in perspective. I think it's sorely missing from "Western" societies nowadays. I mean, let's face it, just living in the U.S. puts me in the top 75% of the inhabitants of earth. I don't have any illusions about that.
But there's personal perspective, too. We had a really, really crappy summer in '06, but we didn't just sit around and grouse about it. We took the steps necessary to fix the problem, which weren't always easy. We sold the house, moved to a better place, got the surgeries... In other words, I think we deserve some credit for the positive changes we made, and therefore, deserve to enjoy the contrast the new happiness brings to our lives.
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And remember when we were on the level-pay plan with the electric company, and the bill they sent us to "break even" for that year was over $1000, just before I was set to have Sydney? Oh yeah, fun times!
I hated that house. I still hate that house. I'm happy to have gone through the experience of buying a house, but I HATED. THAT. HOUSE.
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