Grace and permission

 It's Day 3 in Nashville. It's around 6:30a Central time on a Saturday. Woke up a bit teary. Just dreamt of romance is the best way to summarize.

Mourning the loss a bit of a dream life I can no longer articulate.

I know I've been vocalizing and confirming that this is it. Is this really it? This IS it. But the reality is a different thing altogether. So the mourning and grieving and the realization and the confirmation continues.

I finally realized - duh, I do read. Just because I don't read books doesn't mean I don't read. I'm not sure which audience I thought was watching and judging me. But when I read people's goals about reading books and think, I should do that. Why don't I do that? I start to feel like I spend too much time on screens (another thing popular media tells us is 'bad'). But I read blog posts pretty much every waking moment when I'm not watching TV, and we know I have about 16 hours of waking moments pretty regularly. That's a lot of content to be consumed.

I spent pretty much all of yesterday reading blog posts. Once I realized, I was reading, I stopped feeling bad about it and stopped feeling the need to limit myself. 

When there's something good to watch on TV,  I will watch it to my heart's content. When there's something more interesting to read, even if it's 'just' a blog, I will read it to my heart's content. So my happy place doesn't look as exotic or as widely recognized as others. No further comment.

Yes, even without the other socials (eg Facebook, Twitter, etc), I'm still letting strangers decide what's good enough. Sheesh! 

I'm trying hard not to soapbox my lifestyle choices but The Messaging is a force to be reckoned. 

So yes, a bit teary.

But I made a good choice.

In the end, I'm glad I came. No, I'm not crying less which I think was some of the mire I was getting caught in - would it even matter? So the data shows I'm not crying less, but I don't think I wasted my money to come.

When I'm not crying, I'm secretly silently smiling like a Cheshire cat. I can't believe I'm getting paid to lounge around in a new city. 

By The Messaging, I should be out exploring and meeting people. But it's Day 3 and I'm doing the same thing I would be doing at home, including crying, but with less snacks. 

I don't know... I'm still glad I came. It didn't solve my emotional problem. 

But it did check off the desire to take advantage of my time off and go somewhere else to wfh. It's not big and splashy, but it punctuates the moment enough. Baby steps. I had 2 weeks of downtime and I wanted to celebrate, punctuate the downtime...do something different. And I did, I manufactured some stress to distract myself (from the emotional problem) and I'm here. I achieved the outcome of being in the new city, and also without necessarily intending to, I've ticked off more days away from home! Yasss!

I'm still mad I unpacked my coat and sweats. And even though I was able to use money to save the day, I think I'm deciding not to pick up the sweats I bought from Amazon. It's another task and another decision. And as it turns out, I'm fresh out of decisions.

Yes my coat would've been nice to go out in the rain, but I can also wait for the rain to stop. And where exactly was I walking to in the rain. I think Logic was part of the argument.

I'm still not sure what my obsession is with packing light. I just hate, I think, when you have to repack and stuff everything in a suitcase. It just feels stressful. I love having lots of room in my suitcase. I just do. I hate feeling overstuffed. I think it represents my cluttered mind. So if I can have a physical representation of something with lots of space and free to roam, it's more calming. 

So even packing is affected by my emotional state. Wow!

The packing also is more confirmation of how much my mood is in flux and weighs in too much on my decision making. But also...that it's in flux. Whatever I'm feeling won't last forever. It will DEFINITELY recur, but that's not the same thing as lasting forever. 

So my current coping mechanism with my low moods, is just kind of tracking them and observing how long they last.

Now I have hard evidence that even the strongest of moods eventually gets replaced with another mood. I was very confident packing my sweats and jacket and scarf when I packed on Monday when the weather was cooler. When I was leaving on Wednesday and I was sweating to death in 80 degree heat, the coat and sweats seemed so unnecessary despite weather reports that it would only be that hot 1 more day while I was in Nashville.  But being stuck in hot mode, it was difficult to believe I would EVER need a jacket. #moods

So these low moods.... I'm crying and weepy...woe is me. I'm all alone (and nobody likes me). Yes these things are fact and unlikely to change. I'm not happy about it. But I won't always be crying about it. Fact. It won't always be the only thing I think about. Always remember the coat, MERJ. Remember the coat.

Oh as for the blogs I read yesterday, it was more people who had reached FI. One thing that stuck out was once reaching FI, go ahead and 'live off' your investments. Not literally. But I think it was more like live within the cast off of your withdrawal rate and see how you like it. I did a quick mental check yet again because technically that $20k has never been my actual balance, but confirmed (with my spreadsheets) that when I take off the extras and am left with just core daily spending, it is consistently < $20k. That's comforting.

This gives me a little bit more reassurance that I'm doing a lot of things right. I'm still looking for a little more reassurance of my huge travel budget, but for the most part I'm okay with it because logically it's purely discretionary. (Enter in the thoughts of strangers on the internet.)

Although I will say, I was introduced to some higher withdrawal rates and finally stumbled upon a Trinity study chart. And summarily, I could withdraw at like 8% and still be fine for 15 or so years. That suits me just fine. 

My long term life plans are not concrete. So I like knowing that if I ever wanted to get splashy when $20k/yr feels too restrictive, I can. At 8% I could withdraw like $40k/yr which is my version of chubbyFIRE. 

That seems like so much money! Can you imagine.

So yeah, it's nice just having affirmation after affirmation, that financially I'll be okay with many different ways to slice the cake.

It's nice getting the affirmation that even with my leanFIRE pot, I am still officially FI. To see other people live and vocalize that they don't Have to work for money, makes me feel the same too. That internal knowledge (thought not fully actualized) is extremely transformational. 

It makes me feel comfortable in my current job - in the small moments when I'm not actively raising my hand for more work or trying too hard to politick. I still do give 100-120% but when I stumble I can bounce back just a little bit quicker. 

Ohhhh, side note, completely unrelated...but when I was snooping around, The Dinosaur has left the company! I can't tell if she was let go or quit on her own. After 25 years! She mentioned in the past that her job had always felt a bit insecure, so I'd be surprised if something finally drove her to quit. But I can't believe they finally let her go...and why??? 

But what really got me was she was terminated in January! So that means you work the whole year and don't get your bonus?! That would make me so mad! 

(Accomplishment note:  Just pre-washed and loaded the dishwasher with the dishes and tools I think I'll need for the week! Yay, it was weighing on my mind because I wanted it done by Sunday. I felt the urge to do it, so I capitalized on it! That was the last barrier to success with for my meal kit that's due to arrive on Tuesday! I'm feeling immensely good and accomplished... like now I can just relax and enjoy my weekend and get ready for the great week ahead!)