I think everyone has a season of suck. Every once in a while there’s just this prolonged period of total suck where nothing goes according to plan in both big and little ways. The summer of 2017 was exactly that for me.

My husband and I have been battling a series of disappointments and struggles. And the point of this is not to complain about it. Everything is turning around, the panic attacks are greatly diminished, and on a more frivolous note, I think I figured out what was making my skin freak out.

So we left Texas in late May of this year and headed back to Florida. We took a super long trip through Texas stopping in Waco, San Antonio, South Padre Island (got stopped by Border Patrol- that was exciting), Surf Side, Galveston, and Fort Travis before heading along the Gulf Coast back into Florida. It was lovely. Hot and dusty but lovely.

We made it home and that’s when everything basically went to shit.

Our business wasn’t pulling in enough income, Mike’s funding from his grad program was half of what we were expecting and suddenly we were looking at months of not being able to pay our bills or buy groceries. Cue frantic job searching and the soul crushing lack of responses. Cue pulling our money out of our retirement accounts and still being short. Our newly installed ACs failed (or rather they continued to work but were draining incorrectly) which flooded the bus and caused a huge mold problem. Cue ripping out a huge hunk of the back of bus and rebuilding (it’s much nicer now but an extra couple of hundred dollars on building materials was not).

If you’ve never experienced it, stuff like mold grows amazingly fast in the hot and humid Florida summers.

My skin freaked out, like worst acne of my life freaked out. And I had a major allergic reaction to another deodorant that I am still healing from.

We were constantly fighting- about money, about sex, about the dog, about the dishes, just about everything. Being that level of broke is…hard. It is really hard. It is consistently exhausting. It is demoralizing in the worst way. In short, it sucks ass. I don’t remember who said something about poverty being a way to build character (or something along those lines) but they were full of shit and have clearly never had to struggle just to eat.

And really, in the grand scheme of things, Mike and I still had/have it easy. We are well educated, we are attractive to any number of employers for fairly high paying jobs, we both have incredibly supportive families who were willing to pick up what we literally could not handle. Our parents and my sister and brother-in-law have been and continue to be beyond generous. We own our home- granted, it’s a tiny home née school bus and we need somewhere to park it (thanks mom!). We have a safety net. We took a huge risk this past year that didn’t pan out the way we had hoped but we aren’t realistically looking at a long term future of poverty. We have ways to climb it of it unlike so many other people. This is a season for us, not a lifetime.

We are lucky.

I’m three weeks into a new/old job. I’m back at my old library system doing reference at a different branch. It’s part time but there’s always movement in the system so I expect a full time position to open up soon. And part time will pay the bills. Barely. Mike is still looking but it’s just a matter of time before he finds something. The current round of bills are paid, our kitchen is stocked, and I was able to replace empty products. We have $80 left. But another paycheck will be here soon. And that is a relief. To know that that $80 doesn’t have to last a us a month. To know that we can buy more than rice and beans at the grocery store. That I could buy my favorite peanut butter. That I could get a new shampoo and conditioner that won’t break me out. That we can actually go on a date if we’re smart about it. The weight is still there especially if I think about our looming student loans. But it’s a lot lighter now.

The bus is doing well. The new build for the AC and the back of the bus is much more functional and attractive than the first version. Of course, the weather has significantly cooled down but we’re still using it in the middle of the afternoon.

I figured out that I was overloading my skin and hair and that something in my hair care was breaking me out. I’ve switched to the gentlest, for ultra sensitive skin, fragrance free baby shampoo and conditioner I could find. I dropped all of my styling products and replaced them with one that works even better than the other combined. I am testing out (a travel size) the Paula’s Choice BHA 2% toner. My skin is finally starting to not look like a hot mess and my scalp is healing from it’s decade long breakout.

Mike and I have been…not back to normal but getting there. We’ve been cuddling more, cooking dinner together and experimenting with my new-ish vegan diet, and watching Rick and Morty and The Orville together.

So.

Seasons come and seasons go.

This too shall pass.

Everything is looking up for us.

Etc., etc., etc.