Paying Bills, Counting Blessings

I paid bills last night. Mailed them off. If I ever sit down and look at what is going on, I'll cry. I had to pay the nearly $600 to a home owner's association that I shouldn't have because I don't have the ability to fight them. I do not know which home owner's association I am committed to. I'm just screwed. I do not have a lawyer to enforce my rights.

I still have the car payment and the credit card payment to make. There is still Christmas, which is going to be very very light this year. People are going to get cards. Don't expect much from me. It is one of those years.

Today is one of those days I must stop and thing about how things are going to play out over the next couple of years. Every day should be one of these days. I need a plan for going forward. Every day I need to look at that pan and make notes. that just doesn't happen. I don't have the strength most days.

Nat and I are not grasshoppers, but Nat and I do not have the ability to put away for the future right now. We are living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck.Whatever you call it, we are broke.

Christmas movies are rarely about people just barely getting buy. They are either about rich people who have other problems, or completely broke people who are homeless or in some other form of perpetual catastrophe. Where is the movie about my people, the functionally broke?

What is my definition of 'rich'? Any one with more money than myself is rich. No. I cannot put a dollar amount on the definition. Even adjusted for inflation, rich means different things in different areas and at times.

With the mortgage trouble, I'd say that I have been blessed because I have a fixed rate mortgage with a company that has held on to my mortgage. I'm not rich.

With the political situation around the world I would say that I'm blessed because I live in a country where I am free in very many ways. I'm not rich.

With the broken family units flopping like dead fish all around me among my friends and peers, I am in a functional unit, and I come from a functional unit. I am not rich.

With unemployment climbing and the prospect of loosing entire industries for lack of liquidity, I am blessed with a pretty good job that provides for my family an even has good insurance. I'm not rich.

With obesity, AIDS, habits, addictions, STDs, war, and all the things that can snatch breath, limbs, heart beets away from us at a moment's notice, I have been blessed with health. I am not rich.

With all the rotten brats and prodigies I've run in to in my life, I have been blessed with one of the brightest, socially aware children on Earth. I am not rich.

With all the loneliness and soles in the world. I have been blessed with the perfect mate. Natalie and I clash and love and sometimes the fir flys and we find our way together. I am not rich.

With all the problems I have with religion and church and rules that no longer make sense and lack of discipline, I have a deep faith in God even without them. I am not rich.

With all the bad people, good people, indifferent people, happy-sad-hyper-depressed -- all the people in the world available, I have been blessed with one of the best selections of friends of any one I know. I am not rich.

I think rich is having and not knowing. I think rich is having and not caring.  I am blessed. I am not rich.