Concert

Well, to my friend J. - I tried. Really, I did. I even exceeded my maximum by 60% [I always set a maximum in my mind when bidding on eBay - but then, my OCD sets in and I get pulled into the auction mode and find it hard to 'let go'] - putting the bid price at close to what I paid for my first car (many, many, MANY years ago so it's not like I was getting insane and spending thousands of $$ for tickets)...but it was getting to a number that I would have felt 'buyers remorse' (cognitive dissonance is the marketing term for it - one of the few things I remember from that class) and I didn't want to feel badly about the event. So I stopped updating and stopped bidding. We will do a nice dinner the night before the concert (which we'd already booked as a backup plan in case I couldn't get the tickets) and enjoy catching up over chips and salsa and possibly a margarita or two!

I barely see my kids these days - and I'm torn between being thrilled that I rarely see them (and therefore the angst quotient I feel towards them is significantly reduced) and feeling 'lost' because I haven't seen them. I don't have much to say to them - everything I do say leads to a 'discussion' that I end up wishing we'd never had. But at the same time, they're my kids. I sort of miss seeing them. Maybe it's God's way of preparing me for what is to come when B. leaves for college.

Speaking of which - he is supposed to get scheduled for his 2nd taking of the SAT. I'm pretty much leaving it up to him to 'drive' the process. True, he needs me around for the credit card to pay for the online registration. But I'm HERE most evenings and if I'm not, his dad is - so he needs to get his plans in order and get us to help him take care of it. I'm getting a bit tired of trying to 'drive' all these things that need to be done - and only getting a lot of grief for my efforts. So I told J. this evening 'I'm backing off. You need to let him know that he is expected to take care of this himself - and if he blows it, and misses the deadline, he'll be 'late' in applying to schools and 'late' in getting in and 'late' in getting housing. And if he doesn't get student housing, he's staying home for his first year of college 'cuz we are positively NOT renting an apartment for him.'

This college stuff is making me crazy. He wants to apply to a lot of schools, all across the state. Applying costs money. And he has to DECIDE - if/when he gets accepted, he has to make a decision. And then we have to figure out how/if we can pay for it. All this stuff gives me indigestion. Scares the crap out of me. How in the world are we going to do this? It's not the 'letting him go' part. I'm over that. Maybe God invented the teen years to help mom's let go, 'cuz honestly, I'd help him pack RIGHT THIS MINUTE if he had a place to go to. It's just the $$ part. We should have thought this through 18 years ago when we got pregnant. We DID think it through - but we went ahead anyway - and here we are - right where we knew we'd be. On the cusp of retiring with two kids going into college.

And even worse, we're at that cusp in a failing, scary economy, watching our retirement savings dwindle - there are only so many times you can say to yourself 'we're buying low' - at some point, the decline in the total amount just scares the crap out of you. Thankfully, we both have good jobs and could conceivably work as long as we want - BUT I DON'T WANNA, I DON'T WANNA! And neither does J.

It'll work out. There's a plan. There's a way. We'll manage.