Fight or Flight?

George gave me my walking papers today as I left out for work. No acrimony involved. He was able to tell me without freaking out or flapping his hands. Seems his joblessness will now be permanent and he needs to either rent or sell his house. All the home-improvements going on told me as much, but he finally told me himself today.

Now, you know I want out of here. So that's the good news. He even 'forgave me' of what I owed him on the car that I totaled. (Editoral, added June 2nd, 9:38pm--Too bad he couldn't have ended the conversation without commenting on my "mediocre life." I can only imagine that he meant that I am sometimes messy, but otherwise I chalk it up to his Asperger's causing his monumentally social ineptitude to flare up again. Because please. He must well and truly be incapable of seeing his own reflection in a mirror if he thinks my life is mediocre. It is, in fact, getting better every damn day. And that's why George will never be my friend. The ass.) Overall score; George has helped me financially more than anyone else has for the last two years. I can't be mad at 'im. (Ed--for too long, anyway.)

He's also given me four months to get a new place.

Well, of course you see that I'm not as ready as I wanted to be to get a new place. But what I wanted was pie-in-the-sky. I wanted an entire year's worth of rent in the bank. I can only say it was possible, but before I had to empty the account to get the new car, I saw myself not saving money as I should have. So the odds were not with me there.

When it comes to letting my cash coagulate into savings, I'm lousy. But when it comes to ponying it up for big purchases, that I can do. I've even gotten better with living on the scraps leftover after the purchases.

So now I plunge ahead. I will pay off my peeps before I start looking for a new place. I will work up a new budget and see what I've got and what I need to be looking for. I will worry about my rental history (read; eviction history) when the time comes to find a place.

And again, my mind is set on New York City. My friend in the Bronx is paying less than 900 a month. I could live in his neighborhood without batting an eye, just as I did when I lived in Harlem. What I have to do is battle the impulses to uproot everything and flee. Like, for instance, how good does California look to me right now? Also, now that I really do actually truthfully have my New York counseling license in hand, I'm wondering why I can't do as I tried to do in my first NYC incarnation? Just sell my new car, quit this Jersey job, and go live, work, play, and love in NYC.

But this is my flight response to stress. I've learned this finally. I cannot blow everything apart just because of this change. I have to fight it out. I have to keep my spending under control. I have to keep the lessons I've learned. This is what I've been whining about for 1.5 years. By the end of the summer, and more importantly, before my next birthday, I will be a grown man again.

A grown-ass man.

Oh ...






















... thank God.

Thank God.

This is so very, very alright then.