#acatnamedturtle

In today's world, money plays a dominant role in shaping our lives. Whether we like it or not, financial success often determines one's path to success, while those who lack financial resources often struggle to achieve their goals as prominently. Personally, I recently discovered that my financial health wasn't as strong as I had assumed. This realization has led me to understand the significance of being prepared for the unexpected challenges that life throws our way.

Preparing for the uncertainties of life does not necessarily mean getting ready for a Zombie Apocalypse or World War III (although, if that's your plan, count me in!). Rather, it involves equipping ourselves to handle the unexpected events that are bound to come our way. These events can catch us off guard, but being financially prepared ensures that we can face them with greater resilience. It's not only about having the means to purchase what we need but also about building a savings nest egg to weather the lean times.

The importance of financial preparedness hit home for me in a profound way when my step-father was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer in late January of 2022. Sadly, he succumbed to complications from the cancer treatment in early July of the same year. Until his diagnosis, he had been the primary breadwinner in our family. Suddenly, the responsibility fell on my shoulders. This sudden shift highlighted the significance of having a financial safety net.

Building a Solid Financial Foundation: To prepare for life's unexpected twists and turns, it is crucial to establish a solid financial foundation. Here are a few key steps to consider:

I never really thought about how creating an anonymous blog and just writing my inner thoughts could actually be so freeing. Yet it is. There is so much that I hold close to the chest, that I don't share with people, that I never even shared with my various therapists. Just bottled up inside this vast mind of mind, rattling around at the witching hour (3 am for me), keeping me awake and making me a bit sad.

Writing just that little bit about my secret wish for a partner and children really was cathartic. As was the fact that I practice abstinence and haven't dated in close to twenty years. It also hits home that I'm officially in mid-life and at least part of that mid-life I kind of look back on sadness with. Whose going to want to date and settle with no experience with sex unless you count what's written in books and fanfiction.

Anyways, I started telling you about myself yesterday. And I'd like to continue that some more today.

When I was in high school, or even before that, I dreamed of being first a lawyer and than a politician. Even after I destroyed my higher education life with a wrecking ball, I still initially thought that I'd go to law school, and while perhaps being a future President of the United States was no longer my path, being a lawyer could still be. Except life has its own plans, and it reared up with it's 'oh no, that's not going to happen Kat' face.

Mom got sick.

She needed me. My brother needed me. And juggling a full time job, helping to care for the house, and attempting to go to law school didn't work. Even part time. There's just not enough time in the day to manage doctor's appointments and teenagers homework, a full work schedule that involved managing a department with overseeing twenty-five or more people depending on the time of year, and three law school classes and the insane amounts of reading, research, and brief writing that takes place. Something had to give.

Law school had to give.

Some may have said screw the family, screw the job, obtaining a dream degree in a field that potentially could be a huge financial boost was more important.

I couldn't.

Mom needed me. Brother needed me. I needed me.

So I stayed at my job, supervising a data entry department. And eventually found myself a warehouse inventory manager for a multi-million dollar inventory for a company that fulfilled coupons and products for many national and global pharmaceutical and commercial products. No, it wasn't for Amazon or Walmart or any of those other well known stores. It wasn't even for a store. It was for a company that did all their consumer engagement work.

It wasn't a horrible job. It also wasn't a challenging job. Essentially it was a mundane job that found myself driving two hours to every morning, and two hours home every night.

For five years.

After two of those years, I tried to find something else, I really did. But loyalty and longevity can actually be damaging to a career in this day and age. See, I started working for that company at just shy of twenty as a part-time evening data entrist. That wasn't a bad job. They worked with my technical school schedule, at the time it paid decent money, and I didn't have to interact with the public. Or anyone if I didn't want to. Just put on some headphones and pop a CD into my discman.

After graduating from technical school with an associates degree in networking engineering, I found myself offered a full time supervisory position in the data entry department. And not many other job offers for a female in what was predominately a male-centric industry in the early '00s. I stayed in that position as I started and completed my bachelor's degree in paralegal studies, and when I started law school part time in 2009. I stayed when mom got sick. And I stayed after because I was part of something, I had friends, and while the pay wasn't great, it wasn't horrible either.

Then in 2013, I found myself unexpectedly getting promoted to Warehouse Inventory Manager for the companies location two hours from home. It was a salary position with bonuses and sick-time. Something even a supervisor in data entry didn't get. And initially I figured I'd move in with my brother who had found a position in the same area and was starting his career. Except he got a roommate, and I couldn't actually afford to live on my own and start paying my student loans back. So I drove two hours each way.

And hated it.

It took me another three years before someone would hire me. Oh I'd go on interviews, people would even like me, but then I'd get, well, you know, you're actually under-educated for this position but entirely too qualified from experience. You'd think that would be a good thing. Except it wasn't. In those three years, I was offered two positions and one I had to block obscene phone calls from for years because how I date I turn down their slave job when they were paying $15 an hour for 40 hours when I'd have the privilege of working 48 hours each week and driving to various court houses within a hundred mile radius on my own dime and cleaning up dog shit from the office of the owners dog.

I got lucky though. My current boss gave me a chance. In a combo position of business administrator and human resource coordinator. Oh I'm not making great money. It's really barely enough for mom and I to manage on, but we're getting by. If I do some side hustles of answering surveys, participating in research studies, and selling crafts and stuff around the house. It's an honest job for a company that doesn't pay their employees anywhere near their worth or even a living wage honestly, but the people I work with locally, they make a huge difference. These past two years have been shit. There's no other way to put it. And the people I work with have been great. They've supported me and been there for me and my mom in so many ways. Through the death of my step-father, through the death of my grandfather and then grandmother shortly after from a broken heart. Through the death of my cousin and then another cousin. Both taken way before their time. And through so much more.

And I've realized a few things.

I've have made a really bad lawyer. I can't like. I wear my feelings on my face, and lying just makes me feel like crap.

I really hate managing people and being in a job where I don't have to after sixteen years of doing it is pretty amazing.

I actually like working with spreadsheets and data.

I don't want to work in human resources long-term.

Well, I suppose from my first post, you kind of know that I'm not going to tell you exactly who I am, or other identifying information, but I can give you a general sense of who this person writing the blog is. First, call me Kat. That's easy enough. I suppose you could call me Turtle if you wanted to, but the real cat named Turtle might get a bit upset. She's partial to her name and hates when we accidentally call her adopted sisters by said name. So Kat it is. Short for Katniss...or Katherine. The choice is yours!

And as you've probably guessed, I'm not a just bloomed flower, entering into my twenties. No, that ship sailed. And apparently the mid-life ship cruised into my life without me realizing it. For almost a year. Bloody nice realization to have while cooking dinner last night. Surprising it took that long actually. But then, the last two years have been full of tremendous change, health challenges, and death.

Not my own death, of course, but beloved pets and family members.

It does show how much I've grown over the past twenty-plus years that the various challenges since 2020 have not found me curled up on a therapists couch again, crying and paying them to be my only friend. Yay for that.

An introverted homebody, I'm truly happier at home with family, and chatting with my close circle of friends. Not that I'm not open to adding more friends - I just find it so very difficult to actually make friends as an adult, especially as I mentioned I'm more of a homebody. Who doesn't drink. Or particularly like bars and clubs. Or large groups of people. Or small groups of people where small talk must be exchanged. As you can imagine with those fine endorsements, I'm single and haven't really dated much since those days of LiveJournal. Part of that was from a broken heart given by the lies of my first love - and long-term middle school/high school boyfriend. The other just that I always feel so very old fashioned in the modern world of dating.

But I do have family that I'm close to - my mom, who you'll learn about as she's one of my best friends and the person that I try to take care of as she's got her own health issues, my younger brother and his wife, my adorable nieces, and the three furballs who I lovingly call my children. There's Turtle who is the oldest, a 5 1/2 year old grey tabby, Goat the middle child who is just over 2 years orange tabby, and Bear who is the youngest at 1 month younger than Goat and who is a Calico. I love them all dearly, and love that we were able to rescue them and give them great a home.

Do I wish I was married? Ask those around me, and you'll hear I'm always telling them no. But I'll let you in on a secret, I do wish I was. Or at least in a long-term committed relationship. Being single has its advantages - no sharing the remote to think of one off the top of my head - but I always pictured myself married with children. Or divorced with children depending on the day. Having a child or children is so much a dream of mine. And I get that people do the single mom things all the time. I'm totally up for that. Yet one of those challenges that life has thrown at my over the past twenty-plus years makes that more difficult.

Go out and sleep with some random guy.

I've been told that. Not sure that's the best route to take, inflicting potential parent-hood on some random stranger. More than that though, I've known for close to twenty years now that I can't safely carry a child. Oh I can get pregnant the doctors think, but the potential for stroke and death are apparently high for me. It's also one of the biggest reasons I probably never dated much - aside from that broken heart.

Dating means sex.

Sex potentially could lead to pregnancy. Not birth control is 100% effective aside from abstinence.

Pregnancy most likely would lead to death. Or abortion.

And while I fully support a woman's right to choose, I choose that abortion is not something I could do or would be comfortable with.

It's hard to fathom that it's been over twenty since I created my first of many journals on LiveJournal. There, I was able to connect with those who shared my varied interests, participate in the various fandoms before it was popular to do so, make some amazing lifelong online friends, and truthfully, express myself in ways that I seemingly couldn't in my everyday life. I expanded my self-taught knowledge of online coding, learned how to make icons - about the extent of my graphic artist capabilities, and learned that I wasn't a defective human being.

I know, something that most people aren't.

At 19 though, I didn't fully appreciate that.

Now, twenty-two or so years later, I'm finding that I really miss that ability to connect with people through writing online and just being somewhat anonymous. LiveJournal is still around, as are other sites running the same basic kind of software like InsaneJournal and DreamWidth, but there's disadvantages there. LiveJournal is more Russian based now that it's owned by Russia, and it doesn't have that same feeling as it used to. I checked out one of my old journals - yes, I can still access it surprisingly - but the site in general just doesn't...feel right. Plus, honestly, the rise of Facebook and Twitter kindof killed those online journal social media sites.