Blue Christmas

I have been just paralyzed with depression the last few days. I keep wanting to write on here, but then I start feeling like I need to be cheerful and perky, because who wants to hear from a complete downer person? And yes, this is a personal diary, but it's also something I put out there for all of you. So I try to dance between the two goals. I guess it says something important about me that the first time in my life that I was able to consistently keep a journal was when I was blogging. Not something attractive, mind you, just important.

Cue off-key singing: Girls just want to be re-ead, oo-oh girls just wanna be read.

But all I have accomplished is to completely block myself and I don't think it's going to go away until I write about the bad stuff.

Please don't all go away and never come back.

Here is reason I am so depressed: We got the husband's paycheck. It is not the amount that was promised to him. It is the amount he was making in the job he transferred out of, the amount that wasn't quite enough.

Before, the husband was working overtime. Lots of overtime. And all the overtime, holiday time and night shift differential brought his paycheck up to an amount that was enough. Not a huge amount, not enough to engage in such elements of riotous living as eating out or buying non-essential items of clothing, but enough to let us eat and keep a roof over our heads. Which, actually, we were pretty happy with. We had a little wiggle room to deal with the very occasional emergency or special occasion and that kept things from getting critical.

Of course, the trade-off was that we never saw the husband. Not to mention he was constantly exhausted.

The great thing about the new job was that he was going to be bringing home the same amount, but without having to do the overtime. And there would be raises that would give us enough extra that we could eventually start saving for retirement and other such nice things again.

There has been a problem, however, a glitch in the system. We're not going to get the raise until the middle of January. We'll get back pay at that point, which will be nice, but might I point out that it will be after Christmas? Also after our car insurance premium is due, our health insurance premium is due, and a host of other bills that all manage to fall due right at the first of the year.

The husband hasn't been getting overtime on this new job, so the check is only his base pay. Not enough under any circumstances. And the teen lost the bottom out of his backpack. And we had to go buy him a winter coat. And I put the preschooler in preschool assuming we could afford it. And of course, Christmas. Which I can't figure out how to make happen. Which the girls are too young to realize or really care about, but the teen will be very upset over.

Temporary troubles, yes, but still hard. Though I do feel better after writing about it. I'll try to get back to regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow.