Close to the Bone

I watch tons of CSI-type shows. One of the things I love to watch is the experts who can reconstruct a face, an entire person the way he or she looked in life, from nothing but a skeleton. In this Halloween season, I’m even more amazed by the skill it must take to find the features in the featureless. As far as I’m concerned, take something down to the bare bones and - well, I can tell a turtle from a dog, but this person from that? No way.

I guess my morbid turn is understandable - I’ve worked myself to exhaustion several times this month. But what do I expect? This is my hectic season. And though most of my time has been spent in (uncompensated) driving, my fabulous pay check on Wednesday had me smiling. What did I do with all that money? I sent some to my IRA, bringing the total up farther than I ever thought I could. I paid the balance of my kids’ student loans, too, and sent another chunk to a card that now is within one payment of zero - that takes us down to only four accounts left to be wiped out, and that’s including the mortgage. In other words, I took that entire check, and put it somewhere that would help me reach my goal.

Of course, the day I spent every penny on debt and investment was the same day my boss announced she had to cancel one of my classes. It’s too early in the game to pull back this far. Usually I have two or even three more pretty fat checks. I have bills still to pay, and Christmas is coming, and …

Yeah, okay, I’m nervous. Yes, I’m proud of how far I’ve been able to bring us, but the scare tactics of the media (covering a “crisis” that has – as usual – been going on for years without much more than a line on page 5) have done their job. I’m succumbing to fear. Just in time for Halloween, I’m ready to join both bank executives and Congress, and dance the panic dance.

And it’s foolish. We’re in this together - we’re all tightening belts and finding ways to make a dollar go farther. Hell, we have been for years, some of us. But I’m doing this by choice, not necessity, not yet anyway. How can I complain because this one time I cut into things a bit too far? I’m still here, still solvent, still me. And I’ll do everything I can to help those who need anything I can provide.

Because this close to the bone, underneath the padding, we all look alike to me.