Discovering My Superpower

This morning I am having my car serviced.  I have been dreading that unexpected expense.  (I don't know why it's unexpected.  I mean I have owned a car since I was 20 and maintenance is part of the dealio).  It's not part of the regularly scheduled bill paying rotation and I don't always account for its eventual appearance by laying a bit aside for it.  And in the recent past, it hasn't been an issue.  There was plenty of money for things like that.  And pretty much anything else I wanted - including, but not limited to a bicycle I no longer ride, a bass guitar that I gave up playing when I stopped hanging out with the friend who was teaching me, as if the bass I didn't play wasn't enough I added an electric guitar to the pile of things I want for no earthly reason.  That is just a small smattering of what's cluttering my space.

Where was I?

Oh yeah........unexpected expenses.  Anyhoo.  Honda service is pricey and the alphabet soup services become increasingly owie pricewise as the letters get beyond B.  The D service is enough to bring a grown woman to her knees.  So my little CRV is due for a C service, which just sounds painful like a C-section.  Painful for the car.  Definitely painful for my pocketses.  I have been kinda deferring the service so as not to deal with the money thing at a time when the money thing takes my legs out on a daily basis.

If there's one thing my dad drilled into my brain, it's that preventative maintenance saves you money in the long run and that a car can't be ignored for long.  They are super jealous that way.  So, while I have my head in the automotive repair sand, I can't keep it there for very long before he starts tapping my shoulder and pointing to the car.  I eventually sucked it up and booked and appointment.  I did this yesterday online.

Since then I have been running and re-running budget scenarios using all the grey matter where I usually quest for plotline.  That left a lot of characters hanging in mid-sentence.  Every time I re-ran the budget that service price got bigger and bigger and bigger like a well blown piece of Bubblicious.

So as I trudged into Honda Service this morning, head down, scuffing my good chucks as I went.  I walked as toward the scaffold of fiscal doom.  The projected cost for this service $122.  Elation!!

So, now I am to the point that I wanted to write about and that is my mad skill at worry.  OKOKOK...maybe insane WOULD be a better word, but I am writing this not you.  I do this a lot.  Worry I mean.  Pretty sure I have the hole in my stomach to support that hypothesis.  The thing is that the reality is never as bad as I imagined.  I worried for three years about the end of my job and when it finally came, it was almost anti-climactic.  I have always been a worrier.  Pretty sure it's deeply embedded in my DNA to worry - especially about money.

So the question I am asking as I sit here is WHY DO I DO THIS?  It's a complete waste of energy and brain space and it's really starting to have toxic effects in my body.  My parents fought about money - ALL.THE.TIME.  I don't think I ever heard them talk about money calmly.  Usually screaming mimi's, sometimes frosty weeks of no words that were even worse.  I am just now realizing at the tender age of almost 50 (that's right kiddies the Blue is almost 50!), that money for me is deeply associated with those memories.  That no matter how much money I have made, it has never been enough for the angst to go away.  I suspect that even if I were Bill Gates, there would still be money angst because the angst has nothing to do with the money.  The breath-holding, stomach churning, mind spinning is just an ingrained response to any discussion of money left over from my childhood.

Oopsie.  Time to start deprogramming that pronto.

Imagination is a cool superpower and it can be used to create cool and interesting chucks or it can be used to create imaginary car repairs costing thousands of dollars.  You're right Indy, I will choose wisely.

I hereby promise to henceforth use my superpowers for GOOD.

Now excuse me, I hear Rock and Roll Heart and it's time to futterwhack here in the Honda waiting room.