The Zen of Big Girl Pants

I believe in taking care of things and up to now our proposed mini-farm has not been well maintained. To me the seventeen page inspection report is a checklist of maintenance and repairs that must be done before we even think about whether I like the color of the walls. Owning a mini-farm is going to be a time consuming endeavor and it’s going to cost a lot of money up front to make up for years of neglect.

Naturally, we had to review our budget. I'm used to budgeting, so I was blithely confident as we sat down this week to assess the situation. When we were done, I was in mourning, overwhelmed, devastated. We aren't broke, but we suddenly don't have any money. In retrospect I realize that turning hard saved cash into equity is the painful part of buying property, but I wasn't feeling philosophical. At the time all I could think was, "I'll never have anything nice again!" I wanted to cry. My boyfriend must have read my mind, because he said, “Welcome to farming,” sympathetically.

Of course, I knew it was time to put on my big girl pants and make a spending plan, but I needed a moment.  Besides, I was (and still am) almost out of big girl pants, because the dog has been raiding my lingerie when I hang it out to dry and seems to like the way $20 underwear shreds.  Suffice it to say, I’m as low on big girl pants as I am on money to buy them. At the time, I was low on morale too. I needed to grieve for my obliterated savings, before I accepted the new reality of my finances.

In case you're one of those people who hasn't heard of the five stages of grief, I'll tell you what little I know. There are five stages of dealing with a loss. They might be experienced in order, but one often bounces back and forth along the spectrum perhaps getting closer to the end goal. That goal is acceptance: the Zen experience of letting go of a desired state in favor of an appreciation of one's present circumstances. I'm not feeling one with the universe yet, but here's how the process went for me.

Denial –“No. I must have input something wrong. We have plenty of money to update the plumbing and fix the electrical and repair the dangerous staircases and go to plays and eat out and replace my lingerie. . .”

Anger – I’ll admit it, I got whiny. This is when I don’t like being the person trapped inside my head with myself. Since I can't tolerate my own whining, I won't make you suffer through it here. My boyfriend agrees, you don't want to know.

Bargaining – “Surely there is a way! Maybe I can give up the trip to Europe.” :D

Depression – “I already gave up the trip to Europe for the down payment. There is not a way.” :( 

Acceptance – "It's just money. I can make more. Besides I'm going to be too busy with the mini-farm to go to plays or to Europe."

This final stage came very slowly. I waffled quite a bit between whininess and depression, but when I started to let go of the idea of having it all, I actually started thinking of a way forward. The part of me that needs to take care of things has won a major concession from the part of me that is debt wary and the list of what really needs to be done is less grandiose.

No matter what, it will be a long time before I'm sashaying down a Parisian boulevard with cute little bags of custom fit lingerie dangling from my wrist. As a grown up diva with a mini-farm I'm sure I'll be fine as long as there is a Victoria's Secret clearance catalog to keep me in big girl pants.