The Almighty Dollar

Taxes are done for the year - the refund is a big relief. I know I could change my withholding info and have immediate access to more money throughout the year, but I honestly prefer the lump sum I receive every February. An extra little bit every two weeks can easily get frittered away. A large sum is easier to set aside in one of many savings' accounts. Earmarked for infertility bills, student loan payments, a house someday (please?).

The job posting on campus which M applied for finally closed this week. Now HR will start reviewing each application. They determine (based on some asinine, unknown rubric) which are the "top ten" applicants and send those names (and *only* those names) to the department for consideration. I get a stomach ache every time I think about it.

M graduated November 19th, so he's only been looking for a job two, almost three, months. Six to nine months - that's the average time they are saying it can take new graduates to find work these days. I forget who said it. But student loans only have a six month grace period before you have to start making payments. I don't think we are poor enough to qualify for further forbearance. Six to nine months...

We're not bad off; we're actually far more fortunate than a lot of recently married couples just out of college. And we are maintaining, treading water. A pretty serious disaster would have to happen to completely submerge us. God willing, that won't happen, and if it did, we are close to family who would make sure our basic necessities were still cared for. But we can't move forward - we're in limbo.

I'm not a patient person, though. And much as I don't care for change, being *stuck* in one phase of my life for too long becomes grating fairly quickly. I feel guilty looking ahead to shelling out hundreds of dollars a month for fertility treatments if M doesn't have a job. What if it takes longer than six to nine months? But I want children, and I want a house, and I want my husband to have a job that he enjoys. Honestly, I think if we didn't have to worry about fertility treatments, if I were "normal", we might be able to look at houses now - even without a secured job for M. But I worry about how many cycles and how much expensive drugs and monitoring we will have to do to get pregnant.

Why does everything have to hinge on M finding a good paying job? It just adds to the pressure.