And so I reprogrammed my thermostat

Last week, I learned that my job would ultimately be transitioning to part time.

The implications of this, as you can imagine, have got me feeling all kinds of ways about things – life things, financial things, “who did I piss off in a past life?” things. There is no ideal time for plans to get knocked off course, and so it is up to me to deal with it somehow, to find a way to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and to hopefully come up with a way to make everything work before everything somehow falls apart.

I don’t love uncertainty.

You know that. If you’ve been around, reading this space for any given time, you know that. You’re certain of it, even.

I am not certain what the answer is.

I am not certain what I’m going to do.

That freaks me out.

All I can do is the best I can do and I struggle with that because the best I can do often doesn’t feel good enough. The best I can do often feels like I’m doing nothing. The best I can do sometimes involves watching Netflix for hours on end until I look at the clock and realize that maybe maybe maybe I should be sleeping.

I look at my bank balance and I wish that numbers didn’t intimidate me. I think I should make budgets and make solutions and possibly clip coupons.

I reprogrammed my thermostat so that as I type this, the temperature in the living room is starting to dip for the night and I am wanting to wrap myself in a throw blanket to keep warm. I’ve read you can save between 1 – 3% on your heating bill for every degree you lower the temperature. That shizz better be true.

But it’s something I can do.

When I feel so stuck and like things are out of my hands, to successfully program my thermostat so that maybe next month my energy bill won’t rival the national debt makes me feel like I’m taking back a little bit of control from my life – my life that seems to be holding the reigns while I am merely along for the ride. To prepare smaller meals to waste less food. To ease up on the Starbucks habit. To pack my stupid lunch every day for work even though I a) hate packing my lunch, b) hate eating what I’ve packed and c) would much rather go out for tacos.

This is not the end of the world. And I am told that everything will be okay (please, keep telling me that. It helps.). It will be. Nothing is as bad as it seems, but it’s all shaded by the color of uncertainty and frankly uncertainty has never made anything look better.

It’s my hope that struggle is temporary.

I’ll keep doing my best.

I’ll keep looking for solutions.

And breathing in and out.

And trying to focus on what is good instead of dwelling on what isn’t.

And I will wrap myself in a thick blanket and keep warm because otherwise my body will turn into a giant icicle because holy moley it’s cold in here.