Sick.

Since the first week of February, our three person (well, two plus one tiny) household has endured a total of four rounds of antibiotics, three ear infections, two bouts of food poisoning, one helluva car wreck leading to broken rib that was already cracked thanks to one case of asthmatic bronchitis leading to the resurrection of childhood asthma that’s been dormant since like 1993, and we didn’t even get our fucking partridge or our damn pear tree.

Life: W.T.F.?

And through it all?  RED TAPE RED TAPE RED TAPE.

Why does getting proper treatment for simple health issues require so much damn red tape?    Don’t worry, I’m not actually going to open that can of festering maggots on my blog, despite my boiling hatred for all things insurance related right about now.

Okay, but here’s the thing. Being essentially a freelancer, I spend a lot of time worrying about our finances.   There’s the reasoning my friend Cos uses – that no matter how good of a gig you’ve got, when it’s on a contract basis, you’re always a little unsure how long it will last or where your next paycheck will come from. That may be true, but I used to call him crazy for thinking it when he was clearly in such high demand, and in my case, if the people I’m currently working with love me half as much as I love them, then it’s based mostly on the fact that I’m just a plain old anxiety ball, and as of late it seems I am hemorrhaging cash just to maintain basic health care and quality of life for my family.

(Scott’s a proud small business owner. It’s true he’s working on his architecture degree because he’s got a design bug that just won’t quit, but at the end of the day we are a household of self-sustainers…no employer funded health care or sick days here….just a hell of a lot of 1099’s and medical bills.)

But this morning as I lay in bed past 9 am trying to decide if the worst of yesterday’s bout of food poisoning that knocked Scott and I, and Sara, and Dash, and Sean ALL down for the count had really officially passed, I tried to remind myself that it’s those luxuries that make this lifestyle lovely.   I never stop to appreciate it {mostly because I’m too busy working twenty three hours a day}. But I DO get to cuddle on the couch with my husband and daughter at 3 in the afternoon on a Tuesday while recovering from the nastiest case of food poisoning this side of…I don’t know what. Maybe there is something to be said for the foolishly idealistic Millennial lifestyle Scott and I somehow stumbled into after all.

Sure the laptops are open, and the cell phones are ringing, but if I can find a way to balance the anxiety that comes with this way of life, I think we may just be on to something.