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All right... Rachel says I need to have an emotional breakdown to transfix my faithful readers. Well, I don't know if doing so is worth the pain and suffering it would cause me just to appear interesting. But maybe I should use this for the bitchfest I need to have in order to keep my sanity.
In general, I TRY to be a generous person. Sometimes, I admit, I'm not, because, well, I'm not perfect. Perfectionism is hard to come by (read: impossible) and I learned how much energy it can suck from you many years ago. But I do my best. I don't know how it is that it ends up backfiring on me. Often.
So, the story is that I lent a friend a decent sum of money back in December with a promise that I would get payed back in a timely fashion. True to his word, I had a check from him in 2 days. Problem is that in early January, I learned that said check bounced (not really his fault, not worth going into) in early January. After I'd used the money in my account to pay all of my bills. I was waiting for a disaster, since if everything cleared in the wrong order I could have ended up with a whole lot of overdraft/bounced check fees. But it seems that luck was on my side and everything cleared before the check in question was debited from my account, so I was only charged a small sum. My friend agreed to pay that, and all was well. I was presented with my money, including the fees, as soon as I returned to Ithaca. I thought the story was over, with a mildly happy ending.
Until today, of course. My mom finally got around to forwarding my mail, when it was convenient for her. In it, I find a notice from my bank that a check caused an overdraft and I was getting charged a fee (this is from way back in January). I'm very confused because I had gotten a mini-statement that everything cleared prior to the bouncing check being debited, and of course I'm missing my January statement so I can't verify that. To top it off, the same notice informed me that I had 5 days to make my balance non-negative before I was charged a daily $5 overdraft fee. This notice was dated January 10. It is now February 24. Those of you who are mildly good at arithmetic can imagine how much I've gotten charged to date.
Now part of this is my fault. I actually left with a negative balance, planning on sending a check in the mail to clear it up when I had the money. I had no idea that I would get those overdraft fees. Part of it is my friend's fault, too, because even if I had cleared up the negative balance before I left, I didn't know about the extra fee from the check causing an overdraft because I thought that hadn't happened, so it wouldn't have mattered because I still would have been charged all of these overdraft fees.
None of this matters, really, and I don't know why I went into it. I'm just so furious with myself and am now wondering why it is that I continue to put others before myself when it just causes me misery. Time and time again. The frat does this Purple Pencil Award thing, where someone can nominate you for an award for doing something nice. I got one about a week ago that was mostly for everything I had ever done. Someone anonymously wrote a big long paragraph about how great I am, including that I'm willing to give up my time, my sleep, my money, my car, whatever to help people. And while I was momentarily happy to have such nice things said about me (more was said that just that) I later got really upset. At that point, I couldn't figure out why, other than that I didn't think I could possibly deserve such nice things to be said about me. But now I don't think it's that. I think it's more that it actually is hurtful to ME that I do all these things for people. By putting myself last, I'm bringing more pain onto myself, and I can't figure out why I do this. Of course, I love helping out my friends, but there should be a balance, right? Yet I think it's not so much about helping other people sometimes but more selfish reasons that I do nice things. I think it has to do with insecurities that I have and I think that somehow, by constantly giving away everything I have to give away - time, energy, money, miles - people might like me more and I won't feel so damn lonely. And I think I got upset (and I'm so upset today) because it doesn't work. Yet I continue to think it will. But instead, I get more and more hurt everyday. And not just financially - that's just what happened today. Even though I give everything I have, I feel like I'm not giving enough because something is still missing. And I can't find it. And I wonder what I'm trying for, because I don't even know what I'm looking for.
And as always, I'm sure I didn't make any sense at all. And of course, dammit, my optimism keeps telling me that things are not as bad as all that. That I'm such a lucky person for the health and happiness of my family and friends. That I'm loved and have food on my table and a warm bed to sleep in every night. That I'm going to graduate school next year. And that even though I just found out that I lost a lot of money, it won't kill me and I'll get over it and tomorrow, like always, I'll wake up and barely remember why I was so upset today because in my sleep I'll have separated myself from all those emotions. Yeah, lucky me.
- Lizzardie, at 5:27 PM
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