Long time, no hear from myself

Measuring time is painful and if you are a blogger...and a writer...and you don't do either one for a very long time, you realize that...nobody may care, not even...one. bit. I do have many good reasons for not blogging, though. You know, the thing is- I don't know it all, and so I write what I know, which is not alot, then I go back for a year or more and I let others teach me something (thank you, Dave Ramsey, Suze Orman, and Beth Moore) so that I can come back and share it with the e-verse, or at least start writing again for my one follower.

I can measure the last year and a half of my life by - three grandchildren, one cat love gone, another cat love arriving, parents with health issues, children with financial difficulties, friends in pain, friends having fun, cancer, two surgeries, facebook friends in pain, spiritual pursuits, reading books, and the day job. But what I will remember this time by is the journey to freedom that I am experiencing because in three months, I will be out of debt.

The last time I wrote I was struggling to get out of debt. I've been living on a budget for almost five years. The debt counselors call it a "tomato soup budget," but my health has no room for sodium and no budget for soup. I live paycheck to paycheck indeed, but I live. I pay everything on time. I have managed car repairs, home repairs, clothes (on clearance), occasional hair cuts and manicures (sigh), and Christmas gifts. Christmas gifts are tricky. I do so want to be wildly generous with the people I love, not frugal and worried or embarrassed about what I give them.

Let me repeat---Three more payments and I will be debt free. About nine months ago I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. There is a light at the end of the tunnel! It is not a train, as they say.

I still receive phone calls and emails lamenting from my friends in debt- and oh my gosh, are they unhappy...I just smile and say "you have to tear up your credit card and get on a cash plan." They ignore me and go to the wailing wall. I know a few folks who live off parents, live on unemployment for as long as it is humanly possible to pretend to be looking for a job (or actually looking and not finding anything at all), lots of people who pretend to be successful actors (posting on facebook anyway- things that are meant to make everyone jealous, but if you count- they are posting about two gigs a year- maybe $1K?) The thing is any of us would like to be living some easier way, but steady pay and steady chipping away at it works. Evil Debt will be behind me in three months.

(on a side note, one of my friends - an actor- refers to George Clooney as "George"- as if she knows him. OH MY GOSH. "I like George," she says. Really?????)

Now if the world ends in December 2012, I will be pissed off having spent one paycheck a month for five years getting out of debt when I could have been spending all that money on toys...or actually meeting "George" in person...

...not really. I would have never had enough cash to actually be in the same universe with "George." Hangin' with "George".

I believe that my debt ending will be the first freedom I have ever had, beyond the freedom given to me that I did not earn when I was born here in America. At least I can say I am earning this one and that makes me proud.