Subconscious Agita

I haven’t posted much on the latest job situation with our household mostly because this underemployment of my husband has become the new norm. I had thought I had some to terms with it. We went from frugal-comfortable spending to extremely frugal spending (i.e. buy yourself nothing extra, no new shoes, clothes, etc) to a stasis of frugal without complete deprivation of small luxuries (like a $8 bottle of wine – we actually buy some decent wine once in a while – but we still hardly ever eat out. Maybe once every other month).

The part time gig he has provides enough extra income so that we don’t have to be in that feeling of restriction. But it still doesn’t feel great. We don’t get to save as much as I would like (I’m a saver, thanks to my mother’s OCD-ness about money). We went from saving nearly 2K a month (on top of 401k) to not really saving , aside from my company’s stock purchase program which does in fact turn into savings. So I can’t really complain. Our savings is increasing, so I am in no way ungrateful.  We are doing ok, better than many others.

This morning, he has a meeting with his old company about a potential position. Yeah, the place that laid him off. And, starting around 7am, I started getting quite the stomach ache. I figured it was the coffee. But hello?! I have coffee every morning. Driving into work I realized that my subconscious is stressed about this. Clearly, I have been bottling it up for 2+ years. The idea that he could have a full time job again literally is leaving me with a knot in my throat – this bubbling up of relief. And I’m trying to push it down because if it doesn’t happen, I gotta get back to that “Oh, this is ok. It’s fine.” But it certainly feels like each time the carrot is dangled, the more it takes out of me.

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