ejshea.com – Erin Shea

I ran a half marathon. It was pretty awesome.

Of course I’m sore and practically immobile right now, but it was awesome. I know a lot of people don’t understand why runners put ourselves through these things, to be so sore at the end, but the self-righteousness of it all tends to trump the pain. Heh.

It was an amazing weekend, and I’m still a little stunned that I ran 13.1 miles yesterday. My body is sore and I’m having troubles walking. Or moving. But I wore my bodybugg and learned that running for 2.54 hours will burn 2400 calories, which was good because my lunch plans included the following:

• A fried shrimp and oyster po’boy called “The Peace Maker”
• Hush puppies
• Raw oysters
• Two beers*
• French fries
• Three beignets*
• A pile of powder sugar (it was on the beignets)

I got to see AB, Vince, Eliza and Linda, four people I haven’t seen in seven years but it felt as though a day hadn’t passed. I loved running that event, and my race post covers it, but wow was it wonderful to see those guys. Of course my weekend was made even better by Alice, Katie and Danielle, Megan and Amy – the last three especially since they let me bunk with them the whole weekend after my hotel bounced me.

(I got my money back, thank God.)

I’m taking a break from running, and will focus on weight training and boot camp with an ex-Marine (Though I just realized I probably ought to hold off on more strenuous exercise until we learn if I’m pregnant or not. Even then, my doctor wants me to lay off the superstar athletics so we’ll see.). I’ll run again come Spring, pregnant or not, but for fun. Which means, probably, three miles, five tops.

I want to love it completely again.

The lunch was worth it.

*I know this broke my Lenten promise. I hope God forgives me.

Thanks to everyone for their kind, encouraging, lovely comments and stories. I told Lynette yesterday that I felt like less of a wussy baby about the pain of the HSG after hearing from some of you that labor was not nearly as awful as that procedure.

This week I go in for the blood test that I think will confirm what I have long suspected, that the Hashimoto’s is screwing with my cycle. But we’ll see. I’m treating all of it as information, and not the determination of the fate of our world. To be fair, and I was explaining this to my friend Claire the other day while we went on a run together, I never saw my world including kids in a deep-in-my-veins way that a lot of women I know have. This doesn’t diminish how much I’d like to have a baby now – after all, who subjects themselves to a test like the one I had last week if they don’t have more than a passing curiosity about starting a family. But I don’t feel as though my sense of identity or self will change; truth be told, I know that leaves me luckier than most. This doesn’t mean there won’t be a deep sense of grief and loss, far from it, but I’ve always felt rather pragmatic about whatever the results of all of this will be, and I’m willing to suss out more information, but probably not subject myself, my husband and our little family to anything and everything in the name of producing a baby.

I’ll deal with the loss, like I’ve always dealt with loss, and that’s to take a step forward and get on with it. And then every once in a while, like any good Irish person, I’ll get really drunk and cry about all of those mismanaged feelings until I pass out.

I kid, I kid.

I suppose this is my way of saying to everyone that you’re likely to read things from me as we get closer to finding out what’s going on that is a bit less, I don’t know, traditional for a couple going through this. I don’t make any apologizes for that, but I know that much of how I am feeling won’t resonate with other women who blog about not being able to conceive. It was only this week, after having the HSG, did I pick up one of the many infertility books my friend Jen gave me. I just couldn’t pick any of them up, mostly because the language assumed a feeling on behalf of the reader that I just didn’t share.

I still don’t, but since we’re actually having these tests done, I’m reading the one book that feels like a practical application to the process of what to expect.

Is it possible to be sad and hurt and angry while simultaneously rejecting some of the conventions about not being able to get pregnant?  I think so. Scott and I had long discussions about our views on having a family, and one of the first and automatic conclusions we came to was that he and I are a family. We are a family right now, and neither of us has a problem seeing a future that consists of only the two of us and a couple of dogs. We felt if we couldn’t see that future, dealing with whatever news came our way about having kids would be made more difficult.

All that said, I am grateful for the kind words and stories. They’re very helpful for the space we’re in right now. Really and truly.

I emailed the fertility center recommended to me by my OB-GYN about acupuncture. Since I love Eastern medicine with a capital “E,” I’m gung-ho about this step. I know there are all sorts of theories about this, but mainly I like the component of relaxation it brings to the table. In the past month, my anxiety and stress levels have plummeted, and my world is much more rose-colored as a result of a better day-to-day environment, but I need all the help I can get. And I’m just curious. And my new insurance covers it.

So there you go.

First I’m going to start out by saying that I’m facing a personal and professional dilemma, one that, surprisingly enough, hasn’t been of much issue until now.

I’ve been incredibly blessed in that the trajectory of my career has seen me take the personal to the professional, combining the things that I love into a paycheck in ways I wouldn’t have dreamed. Sadly, though, I’m beginning to take stock in what it all means to have this happen. When I began having a real, tangible presence online, people just weren’t online in the capacity that they are today. Facebook, primarily, has changed that. It’s meant that what once was the domain of people, well, like me, is now open to everyone. And that’s great. I knew it was only a matter of time before everyone else embraced what many of us already had, and nothing makes me happier than to know of the goings-on of people I have known since I was a little kid. There is comfort in being able to reach out to people, to join the shared experience of life.

But then. Then there is being careful of what you wish for. People with whom I work know about this blog, and it’s been standard operating procedure to be open about my blogging and online habits. I’ve never behaved, written or done anything online that I felt would cause me professional problems, and I never wanted any employer to think I was ashamed of this blog. After all, it’s been somewhat of a personal cause of mine for years to get the companies I worked for to embrace what was happening online.

The sort of writing I do here is vastly different from the sort of blogging my colleagues in the space do. I don’t talk shop here, and yet it’s the existence of this blog that brought me to a certain place professionally. So while I don’t hide what I do, I know the content of my blog is awfully personal in nature. But it always, always has been. That’s why most of us started writing online in the first place. To write about our lives. Just the same, the lines are crossing.

My discussion with HR, for example, was interesting. The kind, repeated instructions about the fertility coverage of one plan over another, just in case it was something that interested me, was telling. And it didn’t bother me, but everyone is reading now, in a way they hadn’t before, and I need to figure out how to not only preserve my own personal brand (Brand! Hi! I work at a huge, global agency now!) but also not turn-off scads of people within my professional space.

I mean, some of you really still want to read about our struggles to get pregnant, and I like having a place to keep that dialog going. But just the same, the account executive I just met at work three weeks ago may not have been prepared to read that much about her new coworker, and maybe thinks it’s weird that I reveal so much. It isn’t, for the record, because that’s always been the nature of ejshea.com, and consistency at a blog is key to keeping your audience.

Anyway, I’m still petering around with what to do. I might take the professional stuff to Posterous or Tumblr, or I might not. I probably won’t change the candor of ejshea.com for now, especially considering it’s not a problem at the moment, but I may do some shifting around.

On that note, yesterday was my HSG. It was, in a word, awful.

I know some women have undergone this procedure with little-to-no problem, but I am not one those women. I have never experienced pain like that before in my life, and I once had the door of an Oldsmobile the size of an Army tank slammed on my leg. I screamed out in pain and begged the doctor to stop. That is how bad the pain was. The school of thought is that the sort of pain I experienced is indicative of a problem, but no one seemed to express any. Well, let me amend that: I had been experiencing such a surge of adrenaline in order to cope with the horrendous amount of pain that I was completely and utterly out of it after they were done. I saw the doctor and the radiologist hurriedly discuss the results, and I remember something about the dye not making its way to one of my tubes, but the doctor seemed to think it was because it all pooled so quickly to one side. I think. I could be making this up.

I had the nicest nurse and the nicest doctor imaginable. It did not help that my own OB-GYN couldn’t be there (she’s pregnant, so no X-rays), and that in her place was one of the partnering doctors in the practice who happens to be a man, but I did OK. Realizing that a strange man was about to be near my nether regions doubled my anxiety, but the pain was so intense that I stopped giving a hoot who was down there, but that maybe I could convince that person to KNOCK IT OFF RIGHT NOW OH MY GOD YOU NEED TO STOP YOU JERK.

Anyway, he was so, so kind, and afterward, when I apologized for screaming, as I am wont to do because I of course don’t want to disappoint any authority figure, armed with a speculum and inflicting pain on me or not, he patted my shoulder, looked straight into my eyes and said, “No, I’m sorry. I know that was really difficult.” And the nurse reminded me of all of the great nuns who taught at my high school. I couldn’t have been in better hands.

But if I never have to experience that again, it’ll be only too soon. I mentioned to the nurse that I was going to be a trooper, that if I was signing on to have a baby, I ought to just suck it up and move along. She and the doctor joked that a lot of people say the HSG is a taste of “what’s to come” for some women. So, yeah. Exciting! Especially since I plan to have as natural a childbirth as humanly possible and I am not kidding whatsoever so please save your comments. I research everything, people. I certainly made the decision to research birthing methods as we decided to get pregnant in the first place.

I have already watched The Business of Being Born.

Here is what I’ll tell you: I was on the verge of tears leading up to yesterday. I am not unfeeling or uncaring. I know how incredibly blessed I am. I have a loving, wonderful husband – one, I should point out, who insisted on going with me to the hospital, stood outside the entrance, waiting for me, with a bouquet of my favorite flowers in hand, and anxiously paced outside radiology until the nurses, enamored with him for being there with flowers in the first place, snuck him back in the patients-only hall there to wait with me. I have a great job, so does my husband. We just bought a new home, in a lovely neighborhood, and we go and see and do and live a charmed life. Just so everyone understands: I know. I do.

All of these blessings, sadly, don’t make it easier to hear how another friend is pregnant (because this week I learned another friend of mine, excitedly and joyfully and wonderfully, is, and I am genuinely thrilled for her). To have to spend the extra money for the insurance to cover all of this. To have to join this sad little fraternity of people who really know what a teeth-grinding nightmare it is to have a doctor perform invasive, kind of humiliating, tests on you that leave you in pain and reaching, without guilt or shame or hesitation, for a rocky road brownie at Au Bon Pain as soon as it’s all over.

I have never had the bakery goods at Au Bon Pain but they aren’t bad. I happily and greedily brought that sucker back up to my office and polished off every crumb.

But it is what it is. Scott thanked me last night for going through that for our family, and I knew that I had to suck it up and not feel too sorry for myself. After all, we have the luxury of finding out what’s wrong, and doing something about it. A lot of people don’t have that. We do. And in a week or so I’ll have more tests done, and so will Scott, and maybe we’ll have an answer. Maybe the HSG will do for us what it’s done for a lot of people and get us pregnant. Or maybe not. Either way, we’re on our way and that’s a good thing.

But holy crap on a cracker do I understand why women have always been told to bite down on things during labor. If they’re right, and labor is anything like what I experienced yesterday, Glin and I will be fighting over rawhides.

When I learned that J.D. Salinger had died, I was in the middle of sussing out some issues for my first project at work, pacing the floor of my home office, using the word “client” far more than I have in probably two years, struggling my way through an awful cold and sinus infection, all the while hoping that the new stainless-steel appliances we’d ordered were going to be delivered and later installed by our contractor.

My immediate reaction was “So? He was a renowned crank, and kind of a jerk, and hasn’t published anything in years and why do we do this every time someone of note dies GOD.”

But then I stopped. And listened to NPR lovingly recount the impact of Catcher in the Rye. The report featured a high school teacher who has been introducing Catcher to his students for more than 20 years. “This is the book they keep,” he said. “This is the one they never give away.”

And I remembered: I never have either. Yellow, worn and frayed, I have never let go of my original copy, the one my parents bought me for Christmas when I was in 7th grade. I’m looking at it right now, searching for underlined words, my name scrawled in the margins, dog-eared pages. Do you ever open a book and find something inside like that? As though these books you’ve been carrying around with you for years and years suspend time for you somehow by keeping those things for you? I still can’t open my high school English composition book and not find a hastily scribbled note from Joy or Jenni or Todd or someone and not instantly be transported back to the classroom. Those times really do live inside these pages for me.

I remember unwrapping The Catcher in the Rye; it was a grown-up Christmas for me. My first one. I also got Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation cassette and some socks and a sweater. Also? Liz Claiborne perfume. Holla for the triangle!

It’s funny to me now that I requested such a non-conformist book for such conformist reasons. I cut myself a modicum of slack, obviously, since I was all of 12, and when you’re 12 you desperately try to locate that secret space in the world where you’re unconditionally accepted by everyone for being staunchly, fiercely not like any of them at all. That place doesn’t exist, of course, but it takes years, many regrettable decisions concerning your hair, both its length and color, and the sheer exhaustion that comes from trying to fit in before you stop caring as much.

I wanted to read Catcher in the Rye because that’s what someone like the person I thought I wanted to be would read. It’s that simple. And I read it. And it changed everything.

Hyperbole aside, books like these for kids who lean towards awkwardness, like me, are game changers. This is how it happens for us. We know we’re supposed to like what everyone else likes, and for the most part we really do, but something else in the universe is calling us, moving us toward it, moment by moment, until we’re almost there. Books like Catcher land in our laps and it’s the first of many of those moments. Without it, we’re not ready for the next one when it comes along. We needed the first to unlock the rest.

This concept explains for me why I was able to appreciate Pixies’ Doolittle, BBSs of the early 1990s, sushi and Phyto’s Phytodefrisant.

These things changed my life, and something had to set in motion for that to happen. Of course I can’t attribute Catcher for why I am never without a particular hair product, but this is what happens when a book, the book, helps you get on the path to defining who you really are. You become open to the world, open to the possibility set before you, open to making the world your own.

I am certain it was probably my fifth read of Catcher before I understood any of the nuances of the book. Not that that mattered. Liberal use of the word “goddamn” in a book your parents bought for you alone adds an unquantifiable value to a person’s life. I can’t say that I particularly identified with Holden Caulfield. I have always been far too much of an optimist at heart, and I’ve never actually believed the world was out to “fuck me,” even as an angsty kid. But Salinger didn’t coddle his readers, and it somehow gave me permission to be courageous and stupidly brave. Even if I somehow ended up working for The Man.

Which, of course, I did. But I know who I am, and Catcher helped to make that possible, to say nothing of JP and Lynette who trusted their young pre-teen enough to give it to her.

So I’m grateful for his life, for his work, for what Salinger helped me to become. May he rest in peace. For real.

This week has gone by in a flash.

It helps that I have to be a bit on the move. With the remodel still going on, we have people working from 8:30 a.m. till 5 p.m. every day, which means no napping, no sleeping in. Which is fine. I’ve gotten a lot done. Lots of yoga, errands, shopping…even a day with Ali and Lexie. There of course has been running – I have 10 miles slated for tomorrow, the most I have ever run in my life - and I spent from 8:45 a.m. till 3 p.m. yesterday at a spa. It was awesome, and I’d like to justify it or make excuses for it or apologizes, but I’m just not going to. Going to a spa for an entire day was a luxury and a gift and I enjoyed the beejeezus out of it and though I probably won’t do it again, any time in the foreseeable future, it was awesome and just what I needed.

Well, wanted.

This week has been all about breathing. If you’re a little hippie, you know what a big deal breathing is, and how people don’t really breathe appropriately. So much can be resolved by a couple of really deep, cleansing breaths, and it’s cheap and easy. For me, stopping and breathing deeply is hard. It’s a chore. It feels funny. I don’t have the patience. Just the same, I know I feel better when I do it.

So in yoga this week, and while running, and while getting a massage, I’ve been practicing my deep breathing.

I can’t say I don’t continue to suck at this – I’m a Type A, jittery kind of person, after all – but I can tell you that  this week I was made very aware of what a raving basket case I have been.  I received a text from my old job, asking for help in tracking something down. Immediately I tensed up and became exasperated and anxious and then…whoa. Let it go. I’d done a pretty good job this week in letting go, and I wasn’t about to undo all of my hard work. I helped the best I could, smiled, took a deep breath, and carried on.

I’d like to believe I’ll be carrying this with me each day, and I feel pretty lucky to have this week to have the time to incorporate this practice into my life. I really had been walking around like a chicken with its head cut off, and now I have a tool to combat this.

Later? Body brushing and self-abhy and why I think this stuff is really important.

The one thing having a week of not being beholden to a job brings you is the opportunity to detox.

I am a big believer in the concept, and practice, of detoxing your life. Clearing out the space. Organizing. Burning the sage. De-cluttering. I think it’s healthy to have daily intentions, as it’s been my experience that it’s the day-to-day, moment-by-moment decisions that truly make up the fabric of our lives. Just the same, if you get a chance to make room for big change, the kind that paves the way for easier decision making on a daily basis, life is infinitely better.

How obvious is it that I’ve been working for Oprah, huh?

Anyway, I still believe this with all of my heart, and it’s why I was firm about not immediately going from one job into the next, with nary a break to be had. It was not an easy decision to make, because I lean towards workaholicism. This, of course, is a large part of the problem, and so I’ve designed this week to address it. I want to work hard, but I also want to avoid how toxic my life has become: crashing on Friday nights, retreating from friends, mindless eating, sporadic yoga and meditation practicing, and on and on. There won’t be perfection, but I’m determined to right some of the wrongs that have contributed to living such a stressful life.

Step one for today is unsubscribing from the countless e-mails I receive each day. Each minute. With the exception of a small few, I’ve shut out the noise that, at this point, I just spent all sorts of time deleting anyway. I am all about quality, not quantity, and I’m unable to discern between the two these days. It feels like a very tangible thing I can do for myself on a daily basis, moving forward. And really? Do I need to know every single time one of my Flickr contacts uploads a picture or three? Probably not more than once a day.

There’s more for this week, but the act of letting go of the majority of e-mails I get seemed like something big. I wish I would have given myself permission to do it sooner!

With this the last week of work at my current place of employment, I haven’t had the chance to properly respond to all of the really lovely, really kind e-mails and messages I’ve received.

I promise to next week sit down and reply.

For now, thank you SO much for your kind words of support, and for sharing your stories with me. You’re all awesome people.

I have been going to my OB-GYN for almost ten years now.  So have my girlfriends.

I know it’s weird, that a goodly number of my girlfriends and I have the same OB-GYN, but I see it this way: I don’t go to a restaurant without fully researching it and checking out the reviews. My approach to the person who annually inspects my inner and outer parts for problems probably shouldn’t be less methodical. And so it was that upon the advice of some of the women who have been my friends since I was 14 that I started making annual appointments with the woman who, yesterday, gave me a tight, yet somehow compassionate, grimace when I told her that my husband and I have been trying to have a baby since June.

One of the biggest reasons I chose my doctor was that, well, she was/is a she and she was/is young. I found comfort in knowing that whatever I was going through, chances are, she was, too, and I didn’t have to be inhibited by any problems I might be having, or at least worry about scorn. My friends confirmed this. Plus, she took the time to actually get to know you, to talk with you. In my early 20s, when I was still smoking, egads, an average of a pack-and-a-half a day, she didn’t scold me as much as she did educate me. She remains happy and proud to this day that I don’t smoke anymore, especially since she still has the notes from that one time I came in and people in the examination room over could hear my lungs gasping for air. These days, she’s in a larger, fancier practice, but she’s no less attentive.

“Weeellll, you’re getting to that time…”

That time, in fertility speak, is the year mark, the point for women under 35 where you start to bring in the big guns, should that be your choice.

“I know, I know…”

She stood up straight, and calmly began to rattle off a series of questions pertaining to my cycle, all of which I could answer with precision since I now pay attention to such things, and a few admonishments about temperature taking and cervical mucus monitoring.

“That stuff will just drive you crazy,” she says. “It drives everyone crazy.”

I told her that I wasn’t even sure if I am ovulating, and, she surmised, with my Hashimoto’s it’s entirely possible that I’m not. There are tests, some that are invasive, catheter-involving tests that require me to take several Advil beforehand, that will help to determine if my aforementioned parts are in working order. Several are tests I’ve never even heard of, though what they’re testing for I certainly have.

I tell her that in December we gave ourselves permission to stop trying so hard, and we just let this current cycle walk on by. We talk about stress, and how I’m inclined to believe that the massive amounts of stress I’ve been feeling have contributed to not only the extra 15 pounds of emotional eating on my body, but also our inability to get pregnant.

“I work for, well, until Friday I’ll be working for…”

I tell the doctor that I’ve quit my job, and accepted an offer made to me by a  fantastic company here in Chicago, one that, as has been assured to me by many, is family focused, and places an emphasis on the work/life balance. I start next Monday, I’m taking a week off in between to eat a lot of vegetables and do a lot of yoga. And read. And sleep. And hang out with the dogs at my sister’s house while the kitchen remodel chugs along.

“Stress really can play a role,” she says.

My boobs are fine, as is the rest of me. I get dressed and she comes back with a prescription for two blood tests and a worksheet that breaks down exactly what we’re supposed to do, come Day One of my next cycle. It’s difficult, apparently, to get in for one of these tests. Others are very time-sensitive so there’s no fooling around. I keep wondering if I should start acupuncture and switch to a vegan diet. I don’t know why this has come into my brain, other than I like to give Eastern Medicine a fighting chance. Just the same, we’re simply talking about tests that will probably, she says, reveal that we have unexplained infertility.

“But at your age, we have to be a little aggressive,” she says. At my age. I’ll be 34 in April. It’s not that I don’t think she’s right, it’s just that, well, I am of an age where I am of at your age conversation. Over the hill before I even got up it.

“You’re every fertility doctor’s dream, though,” she says. I’m healthy, and except for the thyroid, in good shape. I guess this means I’m the sort who they can easily get pregnant, without much additional fanfare. There is, of course, my husband’s parts to think about, but in terms of the breeding ground that is my body, I’m just the kind of candidate that only serves to boost a doctor’s success rate.

My doctor talks about the different styles of the fertility doctors she’s recommending, who is more hands-on, who is not. All of them “get you pregnant,” which I don’t think will ever not be a string of words I don’t find oddly itchy. After that, I come back to her, she says, smiling.

I exhale. I don’t think I noticed I wasn’t breathing. Not very yoga of me to do. Clearly I’m a slow learner.

I thank her, I am glad for information. I am always glad for information. I like knowing stuff. It feels comforting to have a plan, and we all know how much I love those. I put my tights and dress back on, zip up my boots and head to the front of the office, head swarming with all of this. I get the numbers and cards for the fertility doctors.

I really don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

Admittedly I feel side-swiped. It wasn’t my doctor, she of the kind, earnest, frank demeanor. She didn’t give me anything I wasn’t looking for, but it’s at least obvious that I wasn’t ready for what she gave me. I wasn’t planning on leaving there with more than a few helpful tips and a request to come back this summer. I suppose if you’re my age, and healthy, and doing everything they tell you to do, the prescription is not helpful tips but a run-down of what’s next, if you want that.

And here is the truth: I do. I would like to know what’s going on. But let’s be honest. Once you open that box, you don’t get to shut it. I’m still unclear as to whether or not I’m ready to handle what comes out.

On Saturday, we volunteered to watch our nephew, Elliot, so his parents could enjoy an evening out. For reasons that are unclear, Elliot would eat and then promptly pass out on my chest. That was the routine, he accepted nothing less. And for people who want a baby, nothing is probably as intoxicating and ego-boosting as a three-month-old refusing to be soothed by anything but you and your sheer existence. We both fell asleep at one point, resting in the chair, after me wanting to watch Goodfellas for the umpteenth time, and Scott admonishing my choice because of “the yelling,” only to come to an quiet impasse after finding Chris Rock on Comedy Central. I kissed his soft head, over and over, until his parents came home, and we walked out into the cold, into our car.

This, I thought, might have to be enough, as we made our way back to Chicago, to our dog, to our home.

Yesterday we got our ComEd bill. I’m not ashamed to tell you all, I’ve been anxiously awaiting it.

I don’t know when it happened, though if I’m honest, it was probably somewhere around when I began making above-the-poverty-line wages, but I’ve turned into an old man when it comes to finances. Scratch that, I’ve become some sitcom’s idea of what an old man is. I live for winning when it comes to the bank account and bills, and the game is on, 24/7. I am sure this is a phenom novel in real life, though probably not with Type A’s like myself, but this battle I do with our finances just feels like I am joining a grand fraternity of freedom fighters who refuse to let one precious cent out the door without a fight.

I mean, if I come home and notice we left a light on upstairs, I actually mutter a loud expletive, endearing myself to the neighbors, and exposing myself as the odd duck that I am. I can’t help it. That light translates into money I can’t spend in a way that I want. And while I want electricity, I really do, I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for electricity that I’m not actively using.

I am a joy to live with where this is concerned, believe you me.

Since moving in, I’ve been holding my breath. When you move into a two-story home from an apartment with rooms as big as the expanse of your dining room tables – something I realized this morning, as the rug that spread the width of our entire office in the old place now serves as a decorative piece under our rickety old dining room table. It was disconcerting to realize that my husband and I spent the majority of our time, together, in the space of what constitutes that rug. – planning for the utility bills can be tricky. Despite a few summary statements we received from the sellers at closing, it was tough to get a gauge on the situation. This meant that I wasn’t actually going to be able to budget and plan until the bills started rolling in.

And oh how I hated that. I live for budgets and planning.

From the moment we crossed the threshold, I have been relentless about lights and heat. I grew up in a cold, old house. And, while we’re at it, there are two sorts of people. The kind who grew up in a temperate home, where comfort was a given and you never needed to pile on too many blankets nor peel off too many layers. Then there are the kinds who grew up in a home that either mirrored the tropics or the tundra. While the Shea home wasn’t exactly the tundra, it’s tough to heat a big, old house, and so the thermostat was never cranked up high, no matter how much we might have complained as kids.

If you are the type who grew up in a house of extreme temperatures, you either mimic this behavior or you fly to the other end of the spectrum. I, for one, am a mimic. Anytime I see the thermometer above 65, I suspiciously eye my husband and wonder what he thinks he’s trying to pull, heating the house like this. Of course, I’ve dictated to him how the thermostat should be set, so if it’s reaching a tropical temperature of 68, it’s because I told him to. And because I’d probably hit my head the day I gave the order.  But I live in a constant state of wondering if we couldn’t be just a bit more uncomfortable in this house. Sixty-five degrees just feels a bit too luxurious for my taste. I am of thick-skin. I could totally take 62 degrees.

So I got the ComEd bill, and it was $20 less than what I’d budgeted. When I opened up that envelope, I felt the sort of breathy elation that you only read about in Victorian-era novels. I should have had fainting couch nearby I was that swoony. Plus, I WON. This round, anyway. I was so excited to share this with Scott.

Erin: Hey guess what!

Scott: What?

Erin: We got our electric bill!

Scott. Hmmm.

Erin: And it was only $63!

Scott: Ok.

Erin: That’s it? That’s all you can say?

Scott: What?

Erin: I need a wife who will celebrate these things with me.

It’s not that my husband doesn’t have these battles of his own. These days, he can’t remove snow from our driveway without feeling as though he’s Zod and we should all be kneeling before him. It’s just that when it comes to my battles, he’s really not that emotionally invested. He’s appreciative, mind you. Weekly he thanks me for the work I do in keeping our house in order.  But he doesn’t feel that swell of victory that I do when we come up under budget.

I signed up for Mint.com, and I spent the majority of New Year’s Day playing with it, but it isn’t real-time, which sucks for an obsessive like me because if it was, together we could celebrate, develop strategy and reveal in our budgetary awesomeness whenever I wanted. Sadly, it operates about a day behind. That doesn’t mean I’m not using it, just that it’s delayed gratification and I love watching those automated bars fill up. It’s as close as I can get to a partner who gets as nutty as I do about saving money.

I have a problem, I know.

Lest you think I don’t know where this comes from, I do. And of course I’m speaking in hyperbole to a certain degree. I’m a control freak, and I have worried about money for as long as I can remember, and these two make for a lethal combination. But I’d like to believe that what I’ve actually done – and I mentioned this in my end-year wrap-up – is finally get a handle on an area of life that, when unwieldy, effects every second of your day. I remember when I spent the majority of my day worrying about how I was going to get gas in the car, much less food in my frig. After my divorce, I broke down in tears on a regular basis because of money. It wasn’t that I wasn’t making enough money to live, though things were tight, it was that I had no idea what was going on with it.

For as much time as I spend obsessing about our budget, it’s not with the same sad, soul-sucking energy that I used to obsess about money. If you’ll excuse the vulgar sentiment, money is my bitch now, not the other way around.

I started out simple: I read people like Suze Orman and Jean Chatzky and then adopted some of the advice they dispensed. I downloaded Excel spreadsheets with macros built in so I could plug the numbers and plan. I examined my credit and cleaned up my score. I opened up ING accounts and had percentages of my paycheck automatically removed (I paid myself first, as they say). I planned meals and wrote up grocery lists and didn’t go in there hungry. I identified things I could live without – bi-weekly mani/pedis, unlimited iTunes purchases, trips to Target – and worked hard to break the habits. I got a financial adviser. I had the maximum taken out of my check and put into my 401k.

I am now a firm believer that we’re all way more wasteful than we realize, and it really is true that we take far too much personal stock in money and materials. If that wasn’t the case, sacrificing daily Starbucks or trinkets at Target or even fast-food lunches would not be sacrifices at all. Oftentimes we’re just not willing to do the work that financial freedom, as most experts call it, requires.

Of course there are realities. One of my new mantras is that having good jobs doesn’t mean we get to spend more. It means we have the luxury of being able to save our money and have security. When Suze talks about savings eight-months worth of expenses, and she does so during a time when most folks don’t have a job and no savings to begin with, it’s all very daunting and scary and panic-inducing. It’s insulting to massive swaths of people who would not only love to save, but have tried hard in any way they can. It’s not always possible to save like the experts want you to, and when you tell them they should have eight-months liquid on hand, it can screw with a person’s self-worth. Plus, and my sister and I are forever having these talks, sometimes you just want to buy something nice, and sometimes it’s more than the experts say you should, because, dammit, you only live once and you can’t take that money with you.

So I know all of this, and I respect it. I’ve just found a way to declutter my brain of the majority of sadness that used to occupy it, and it’s worked for me. To be fair, I also did something that the experts suggest and I went out and found a better paying job. I find that advice a bit, well, ignorant, since it’s not that easy for most folks to just go out and increase their income like that and it’s certainly not a readily achievable goal in a climate of 10 percent unemployment. But it’s only right to point out that I did get a job making more money and when I did, I used that money to better organize my financial house. And I point this out at risk of people hating me for it, because it’s easy to talk about saving and planning when you have the money to do it, but I have to point it out because it was hard to do. It really was hard to sock that cash away and not spend it after years of, literally, scrapping up every penny I could find to pay for the necessities, much less things like new shoes or whatever.

But now we have a house, not the same shitbox apartment filled with a bunch of crap from Target that we would probably have tossed in a year anyway. And if you would have told me just four years ago that I was going to be a homeowner in a neighborhood I loved, I would have never believed you. But I’m proud of myself, proud of my husband, and while I know that we’ve been blessed with good health and luck, I’d like to think I’ve provided a buffer for my family for when things do go bad.

Because they do. They always, always do.

For now I do a happy dance in my layers of clothes, my furry slippers, filled with hot tea and coffee, as I open envelopes from Peoples Energy, thumbing my nose at The Man, turning off light after light in the spartan rooms of our home.