Category: Writing

Essay: On seeing someone you knew briefly twenty years ago.

“She hadn’t changed a bit”

 “He was exactly the same.”
From When Harry Met
Sally*
Brace yourself.  If you don’t have a picture of the person, then the person today might not look anything like you remember.  Starting a decade or so ago, Facebook has made it impossible, for better or worse, to forget people from your past, however minor.  But for those of us who came of age before Facebook or digital cameras, having a picture of someone was not ubiquitous.  Sure, we might have a fair amount of photos of all your friends, but people on the periphery of our lives?  The people we worked with, went to church with or sat in classes
with?  We didn’t have photos of them.  In fact, a lot of people didn’t like having their picture taken, so sometimes it was difficult to get photos of some of your close friends.
If you don’t have a photo of someone, chances are your brain has airbrushed the image a bit, building up cheekbones, brightening eyes, straightening teeth.  Enough time has passed that the image that remains in your brain might look nothing like the person in question then, much less the person in question then plus twenty years.
Don’t worry that you have gained weight in the intervening years.  It’s been two decades.  How many people can say they weighed the same amount they did two decades ago?  You?  Well, you, my friend, are the exception.  Well done, I say.  But, for the rest of us, we all weigh more than we did twenty years ago, some of us substantially more.  And don’t forget that, in general, Americans are overweight.  If you’ve gained weight, chances are this person from your past has not escaped the same fate.
The hair.  The hair will be different.  Depending on which segment of life the 20 years encompass, hair will be markedly different.  I came of age when a lot of boys becoming men had long, sometimes very long hair.  Five years after I graduated from high school, most of it had been cut off.  And with men, especially, hairlines recede, or disappear altogether.  For women, the color
might be similar, or it might have changed entirely.  The style will be markedly different.
There’s a good chance you might think, “My god, do I look that tired/worn out/old?”  And yes, you do.  You were about 7304 days younger when you last saw this person.  And, for most of us, we were much more sprightly and younger twenty years ago.  If that person is in the same general age bracket as you and looks tired, chances are you look just as tired.  And that’s okay.  You’ve done a lot in the intervening years to earn that worn-out look.
You may have absolutely nothing in common.  Life throws us together and then separates us again.  We go off in different directions, explore different things, find new gurus and interests and enthusiasms.  Maybe you click with this
person and it’s like a day hasn’t passed. And maybe the only thing you share is your time together before. That’s okay.
*Probably not an exact quote but the search engines didn’t cough it up within my limited attention span and I was too lazy to search
further.

Essay: Let us Resurrect the Letter

Let us pause in our collective texting, emailing, tweeting, Facebooking, what-have-you-ing, and take a moment to appreciate the letter.  I am a fan of all forms of communication, though I am a more enthusiastic fan of some forms than others. It won’t surprise many of my acquaintances to learn that I’m the greatest fan of the letter.

Except for a brief resurgence in 2008, when I pledged to write one letter per day for the entire year (and mostly met my goal) my era of letters came to a close at the end of the last century, when email accounts became ubiquitous and communication became instant.  Here’s what happened. My letter writing
dropped off tremendously.  Friends from high school and college who were regular correspondents of the page became correspondents of the email.  At first,
letter-like emails were exchanged.  Eventually that correspondence faded as email’s true nature came to light:  a quick way to arrange details.  An unfit way, really, when you get right down to it, to exchange the longer narrative form that is the letter.
And I’m here to say I want the letter back.  I want regular correspondences with
people.  And I propose the following guidelines to encourage correspondence.
1.  Your letter is interesting.  Whatever you write about in a letter?  It’s pretty interesting.  This is the magic of the letter.  When someone has taken the time to transcribe something on paper, find an envelope, address and stamp the envelope, and get the whole thing in the mailbox, the contents of the letter automatically become more interesting than if we were chatting or emailing.  So you could only think to describe your errand-running for the day?  In letter
form this is fascinating, I kid you not.  Don’t wait around to write a letter because nothing is going on.  Are you reading a book?  Have you seen a movie lately?  Are you excited about a TV show?  Put it in the letter.  Your life is happening all the time, so why not share it in letter form?
2.  Make them short.  I myself am guilty of going on and on in letters because I tend to blather about whatever quite easily (see point number one), but I have decided to turn over a new leaf because short letters are easier to respond to.  If you have a collection of notecards Great Aunt Ethel gave you, get out one of those
and start writing.  When you’ve filled up the notecard, you are done.  Although if
you are really going strong, I say you can add one more sheet of paper.  But not much more than that.  Aim for some general chit-chat (again, see point number one) and one or two questions for the recipient and call it a day.  Or, see if your letter friends want to exchange postcards.  Those are even shorter, and cost less to mail.
3.  Respond quickly.  See how point three builds on point two?  If you are just dashing off a quick note (which will be interesting to the recipient—remember point number one) you have many more opportunities to dash off that letter than you will if you plan to write something much longer.  And when you respond quickly (and with a short letter) it’s more likely that your letter companion will also respond in kind.  I would say try and respond within a week of receiving the letter, though sooner is even better.
4.  Have a letter system worked out.  When I wrote a letter per day I had a letter box which held my main correspondents’ addresses, as well as notecards, postcards, stamps, a favorite pen and some return address labels.  That way the “hardest” thing I had to do was find a mailbox when I was done writing.  When you have to find the pen and find the notecards and turn on the computer for the address and go to the store for a stamp and an envelope it’s likely that you will not get that letter out the door very quickly.   Spend a few minutes organizing yourself and your correspondence will be much easier.  Also try to automate the most odious task of letter-writing.  For me that’s writing return addresses, so I have pre-printed labels to stick on.  Maybe you hate addressing envelopes?  You might try what Matt’s mom does.  She runs full pages of labels with Matt’s address information and sticks them on the many letters and postcards she mails him.
Are you excited to reclaim the letter from the detritus of the twentieth century?  Great!  Get out your pens (or computers. I’m not opposed to receiving letters written on computers and then printed and mailed if that’s what works for you) and write.
If you would like to engage in regular letter correspondence with me, write a comment of how to get a hold of you and we can work out details.  Note also that I’m not opposed to an in-town correspondence. It’s so nineteenth century, it’s cool!

Essay: On “just checking in”

I got two phone calls on Tuesday night. This is two more than I usually get during an entire week. The first was from a member of Matt’s family checking to see if we were okay.
“Yes?” I said, confused as to why the question was being asked.  He told me there was a shooting in a mall near Portland and he needed to know if we were okay.  I let him know that I was home and Matt was at work and thus probably fine.

He signed off with, “Well have him call me when he gets home.”  I assured him I would, wondering why that was necessary as I had just told him where Matt was and it was nowhere near any mall.
Later that night a former roommate called because she just heard the news.  “Are you okay?”  I assured her we were.
Um.  This is where I have a problem with everyone needing to be in touch on a surface level all the time.  20 years ago if there was a mall shooting, or other such tragic event here’s how the thought process went.  “Do I know anyone there?  Could they be at the mall in question/other such tragic event? Probably not.”  And then everyone would move on.
Because really, what are the chances of me being at a mall outside of the city in which I live? In the afternoon?  On a weekday?  I can say that people who know me well enough to have my phone number should realize that the chances of me being at a mall at any time of any day are so small they actually approach negative numbers.
I see this at work a lot.  I once had a parent call because the guy who drove her child to school for the daily carpool hadn’t texted her that her child had arrived safely and he did that every day and could I check to see if her child was there.  Well yes, where else would she be?  And, better question, why are you calling me
and not him and why do I need to humor your crazy?
Here’s the thing. Matt drives to work in a car every single day.  I come from a family with a history of depression issues and, though I’m fine now, I’ve had at least one episode of major depression in the past.  I’m also overweight.  Matt and I are much more likely to die from these three things (cars, depression, health problems brought on by overweight) than any random gun violence that might happen in the same metro area as us.  But no one calls and checks in with us every time there is a metro automobile fatality and that happens every single day.  Friends don’t call me regularly to check my mood or what I’ve been eating lately.  There is danger all around, but it’s not the danger you are thinking of.
It’s good that there are people who care about us out there, but I’ve come to believe that it’s ridiculous for people to constantly cast themselves in the dramatic role of “worried about friend because situation happened near them.”  What if we hadn’t been home?  What if I had gone to a movie?  What if we were staying overnight at a hotel*?  Would the thought process have gone, “Well, I can’t get ahold of them so they must be DEAD!!!”  Or would people have just gone on with their lives?  I suggest that it might be a bit easier to go through life assuming that the people you know are avoiding death and trauma on a regular basis.  If tragedy finds your friends and family you will know soon enough.  In the meantime let go of some worry.  And maybe, if you want to, call them just to
chat.
*We actually had plans to do that the next night, but the concert that was playing that necessitated the hotel stay was moved to March, so the mid-week in-town hotel trip was moved too.

Essay: Reflections on writing 52,082 words in 30 days.

Until this September, I never thought I had a novel in me.  In high school I attempted to write various novels now and then, but never got past the first several pages.  However, one of my resolutions for 2012 was to write one 500-word essay per week for the blog and in doing that, something shifted in me.  I wrote a 6,500-word essay in August about one moment in my life when things could have gone differently and that caused me to wonder how my life would be different if things had gone in that direction.  And that became a book.

But that wasn’t the book I wrote for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, pronounced Naah-know-WRY-mo).  For those of you not in the know, NaNoWriMo takes place in the month of November when thousands of writers across the country band together to write novels.  Or at least 50,000 words of a
novel.  That’s a goal of 1,667 words per day which is more than triple my original 500-word essay goal, but is doable.
The rules for NaNoWriMo say you have to start your novel on November 1.  So the 36,000 words I had written on the book inspired by my long essay were set aside for a new book.  It turns out I have not only A book in me but TWO books in me.
To prepare, I outlined the new book and had sketched out the characters before I began.  I also attended the NaNoWriMo kickoff party for my region.  We all (and there were probably over 100 people in the room) went around and said something about our book.  I quietly groaned when we started, annoyed
that we had to listen to everyone talk about their book.  But as people shared about their novels, I was surprised how much fun it was.  A lot of people in the room were “pants-ing” it, meaning they had no plan, but would just start writing.  I was interested to see how many people had their title picked out because I’m not one for titles, myself.  The first book I was working on is currently called “Chapters” because it’s longer than an essay and this current one has the catchy moniker of “Untitled LO YA fic.”  One woman even had written the blurb for the back of the book which she read aloud to us.
There were several fabulous story ideas in the room and a lot of laughter.  I got a sense of who had “won” (finished their novel) vs. who had not won.  Some people reported that their previous NaNoWriMo novel was published (some self-published, some e-book, some traditional published) and the mood in the room was giddy and full of fun.  I came home excited to begin.
The daily writing quota wasn’t terribly difficult.  I could meet the daily goal of 1667 words in about 90 minutes.  I do have the luxury of a 32-hour work week, and for me, November is the best month to embark on a writing project as I don’t work very much due to the school schedule.  I had a four-day weekend and an entire week off.  Because of that, I was able to write more words per day than the minimum. My self-imposed quota during Thanksgiving week was 2500 words per day which I exceeded five days out of seven, with one day being a spectacular 3024-word day. That’s six times the 500-word essay word count.
I didn’t write on four days of the month (November 16 and then November 28-30. Once I hit that quota I flamed out).  But except for three or so days, I could sit
down and crank out the words.  At this point I’m not sure how good the whole thing is, because one of the other NaNoWriMo rules is you can’t go back and edit during the month.  I’m also not finished.  I think there another 5000 words or so before I can wrap things up.
But is 50,000 words really a novel?  Not really, it’s kind of a novella-length.  However, I think that in writing 50,000 words that fast a lot of “fleshing out” is missing, at least for my book.  I think I’ve got a good overall structure and when I go back to revise I’ll put in more details.  I’ll also fix all my wrong word choices and spelling errors.
I liked the fast pace because it meant I couldn’t waste time on small details which would have tripped me up.  For instance, in my book I have a minor character who is a gossip.  She appears early on and then pops up near the end. When she emerged again I couldn’t remember her name so rather than looking back to figure out where she was and getting caught up in earlier syntax I just wrote [earlier gossip] instead of her name and moved on.  Other characters just got quick placeholder names: Mr. Bioteacher, Ms. Englishclass, etc.
The fast pace also meant I had to produce every day, even if I felt like what I was writing was crap.  Most days when I peeked back (I only peeked, I didn’t revise) it wasn’t nearly as bad as it felt when writing it.  And sometimes something brilliant would just happen, a magical trick of the creative process that I have read about for years and was amazed when it happened to me too.
I noticed an interesting difference in attitudes about people participating in NaNoWriMo vs. people who weren’t.  NaNoWriMo participants are unfailingly
supportive.  It’s like a thing.  Whereas I noticed that some regular people
had a lot of questions, most in the vein of “so is anything really going to
come of this?”  And for a lot of people, I think no, nothing will come of it, if you define “something” as “getting published.”  But I think that the point
of the month isn’t to publish; it’s to create. I think the crazily supportive NaNoWriMo community would agree.
I created a lot over the month. All those words, sure.  But also characters were built, relationships were built, story was built.  I am happy I made all of those things, and that’s where I win.

Essay: Jefferson Smith still has my vote.

On an afternoon of a snowy January day during my eighth grade year I walked up to a classmate and hit him in the arm. He turned around and popped me in the eye, giving me a black eye.  There was no real reason for me to hit him, I
was messing around, I liked him a bit–though no more than 15 other boys–I had hit several other people as I traveled down the hall, but not as hard. I think his hitting me back was a reasonable response, albeit not the best one.  When someone out of nowhere suddenly inflicts pain upon you for no real reason, turning around with a fist is rather justified.

 My action, which led to his action landed us both in the vice-principal’s office where he sat sullenly and I collapsed in tears.  We were both suspended the next day, and the boy was excused from the office while the confused vice-principal kept me behind to try to further understand my actions. I had no explanation for him and he eventually sent me to my final class of the day where I got the first of many shocked reactions.  “I can’t believe he hit you!” many of them chorused.
The outrage only added to my misery.  I could understand why he hit me and it felt unfair for him to be cast as the wrong one.  We were pretty evenly matched, weight-wise—he was a rather compact wrestler—and I hit him first.  But I was
the girl and he was the boy and it was the general court of opinion’s view that
I shouldn’t have the black eye.
I’ve been thinking about this incident because of the recent—and perhaps fatally damaging—news in the Portland Mayoral Campaign.  We have already learned that candidate Jefferson Smith never voted until he was in his late 20s, has had his driver license suspended multiple times due to reckless driving, has been reprimanded for fighting in his adult basketball league and has had his law license suspended due to his inability to complete paperwork.  The most recent way Mr. Smith has found his way into the news cycle is the revelation that when he was an undergraduate in college, he hit a woman at a party, causing her an injury bad enough that there was a legal settlement.
The details have emerged from both sides.  According to her, he was coming on to her all night and wasn’t pleased when she gave him a firm no.  She fell asleep on a coach and when someone—who everyone agrees was someone other than Jefferson Smith—tipped over the couch she assumed it was him and went after him.
According to him, he repeatedly tried to stop her from coming at him before he struck her in the face and causing stitches above her eye which led to the settlement.  He refers to it as one of the worst nights of his life and had said he is still very sorry.  She, still apparently pretty pissed after twenty years, points out that him stopping by her house in the wake of the revelation of the news violates a no contact order Smith had agreed to in the initial settlement.
We’ve heard a lot of things about Jefferson Smith during this campaign, but this is the one that has caused him to lose a few critical endorsements.
My take?  It sounds like they were both drunk at a party and neither had very good judgment at the time.  Is it right for someone who is bigger than another person to hit them?  It’s not the best option.  But if they won’t let up?  I can see why, through the haze of alcohol, it probably seemed like the best choice at the
time.  The linchpin here, of course, is gender.  He was the man, he was much
bigger, he had been coming on to her, he should have known better.  If the roles were reversed there wouldn’t be a story at all.  However, she had a role
in this too.  If you are accusing someone of something, maybe get your facts straight before you fly off the handle.  In her version of the story Smith comes off
as pretty oafish and skeevy and he probably was.  But she said no to his advances and he backed off enough that she felt comfortable to not only stay at the party but to fall asleep on the couch.
And after the event?  Smith (or his family) settled up, paid the fine and he followed the agreement to not contact her, at least until the agreement was made
public.  He has said he is sorry to her and to us.
So I’m good with that.
I will still vote for Smith, though I think he’s not going to win.  Because here’s the deal.  For every single one of these revelations about Jefferson Smith the candidate—and there have been many—Jefferson Smith the man has said some version of, “Yep. I did that.  It totally sucks, I had bad judgment and I’m sorry.”
His opponent, former City Council member Charlie Hales, has had a number of blunders of his own.  He plagiarized an article, implying that he had attended an event that he had not attended.  He lived in Washington for several years and continued to vote in Oregon.  He left his city council term before completing it so he could become a paid lobbyist.  Because he chose not to complete his term so he could take a more lucrative job, the city of Portland held a special election and
those things don’t come cheap.  He also illegally taped an interview.
Hales’ response to these blunders?  He blames his staff (the letter,) the fact
that he wanted to sleep with his wife at night (the voting) or that he had kids
to put through college (the lobbying). He doesn’t say he’s sorry, he just plows ahead with his “it was the past” attitude.
And that attitude I’m done with.  Both men’s policies are pretty much the same,
but only one man can take responsibility for his actions.  That’s the man that has my vote.

Essay: Argh. Facebook.

It’s 10/11/12!  So exciting!

Here’s what drives me crazy about Facebook.  For a site that is supposed to keep you closer to your friends, it fails.  I have never, ever logged off Facebook without feeling lonelier than when I logged on.
What Facebook is quite good at is keeping me in touch with my friends who are on the periphery of my life.  I have a friend from elementary school and we are friends on Facebook.  I know more about her life now than I have since we parted in high school and I’m quite happy about that.
But here’s the deal. Aside from my other friend who is a prolific poster, quite funny and delightful, I don’t get enough about anyone from Facebook.  My friends who are my real face-to-face (or email-to-email if they are far away) can’t possibly post enough on Facebook to replicate what one get-together will do.
When I read their posts between seeing them, I end up just feeling more
separated from them.
And while Facebook is handy for the “I wonder what’s going on with [insert anyone from my past]” type questions, the result is ultimately unsatisfying.  For instance:  last week I wondered what had become of a friend from high school with a unique enough name that it was easy to search for him.  There he was, with a page and everything.  I investigated his page and I can tell you that I know pretty much nothing about him except the city he lives in, the fact that he apparently plays the banjo (or at least holds one for the camera as if he plays it) and he may have a dog and a cat.  So what’s the point?  I don’t really want to contact him and become “friends” on Facebook, I just want three paragraphs about how his life is.  If he had more posts, I could pull together a summary, but it’s not like the rank-and-file have publicists.  In fact, right now I know more about Channing Tatum than all of my ex-boyfriends and that just seems wrong.
So I go on random “wonder what” hunts and come up with fragments of lives, thanks to Facebook.  The site is all about the lure of the connection with little actual connection.

Essay: Petulance and Accomplishment.

Wandering around Facebook feeling nostalgic the other day I clicked on my high school graduating class Facebook page and discovered that one of my classmates had written and directed a movie that will be opening February 14, 2013.

Objectively this is pretty exciting for the following  reasons: I went to school with someone who made a movie!; the classmate in question is female and I’m always standing on the “more women in Hollywood” soapbox!; the movie in question is about a topic near and dear to my heart (young women’s emerging sexuality) that isn’t often seen on screen!; there are recognizable actors in it who I enjoy!; also, if the trailer is to be believed, the movie looks pretty damn good!
You can check it out for yourself.  The movie is called The To Do List and doing a Google search will get you to promo material for it, including the trailer.  Be warned though, YouTube makes you sign in to watch said trailer because it’s not appropriate for all audiences.  The plot focuses on a nerdy senior in high
school who wants more sexual experience before she goes to college and makes a
list of things she hasn’t done and works through them.  It’s also a comedy, not a drama, so you can guess how the list will go.
So awesome, right?  Win-win? If only that were true.
I’d like to say that I’m enlightened enough to have a “yay for her, good job” reaction, but the truth of the matter is that I fell into a funk for a few days.  Then there were a few days of processing and here are the various layers of my reaction.
“It’s not fair.”  This was probably the worst reaction and it was the first.  It’s not like I’ve been working toward writing and directing movies as Maggie Carey seems to have been doing for the past decade or so according to her IMDB profile.  So shouldn’t I be happy that she has toiled and accomplished a finished product?  I should, but I’m petty and I am not.
“I do good things too!” This was best expressed one day at work after completing one of my daily tasks.  “Attendance is entered for the day and they can make a movie about that, dammit!” I announced to the guffaw of my co-worker who had the pleasure of observing most of my overly dramatic angst.
The truth is, I’m guessing that my not-so-glamorous life isn’t that different that Maggie Carey’s life.  I’m thinking that she has laundry and dishes too.
And a lot of the work listed on her IMDB profile is not glamorous movie-making work. It’s the equivalent of entering attendance in my world.  (I bet it pays better, though.)  The fact of the matter is, I think we all want to be recognized for just getting up and getting to work each day, no matter how we feel about our jobs.
Directors of movies just happen to have a calling card that’s a lot bigger than Office Managers of charter schools.
“She shouldn’t be the one to write that story, dammit!”  This took a bit to uncover because I was mired in the above two feelings, but here’s the thing.  The story is about a nerdy high school senior.  However, the writer of the story was in no way, shape or form a nerdy high school senior.  She was part of the popular crowd.  I understand that people don’t have to write from their own experience and that there are many more comedy choices in the main character being a nerdy girl, but I very strongly feel that I and my fellow creative nerdy friends should be the ones to write the nerdy high school tales.  It seems unfair for someone in the top pinnacle of high school society to write a story from the perspective of the rest of us.

Here’s what I remember about Maggie Carey.  She was on student council.  She was a cheerleader in Jr. High School, but not High School.  She swam on the fancy private club swim team and had an amazingly fast backstroke.  We sometimes had Accelerated English together and I found her a bit spazzy and annoying.  I’m not sure we ever interacted, and the only clear memory I have of her was the skit the student council put on during our Senior Year which was very clever and involved all the characters from Scooby Doo and perhaps she played Velma.  I went to a big school.  Our social circles didn’t cross.  Her being popular didn’t affect me, I had no desire to be popular myself and she wasn’t a mean girl.  I have no reason to wish her anything but well.

The boyfriend told me to get over it, especially once he saw the preview and pronounced that we were going to see it.  I know he’s right.  And I will be seeing the movie and eventually will be wishing her well.  But I hope not to hear in press interviews that she wasn’t very popular in high school.  She may have had an awkward adolescence like everyone else, but she was one of the high school one percent and if the topic comes up, I would appreciate if she owned that.

Essay: Patricia’s Money Philosophy Series. Part III of IV: Learning & Saving

I believe in paying attention to your money.  I think that how you care for it and what you spend it on make a difference—not only for your own piece of mind, but also in the context of the universe and energy and whatnot.  Money ignored is money that won’t be around for long.  So here’s an incredibly long and detailed four-part series about how I manage my money.  To see the entire series look for the tag “Money.”

I learn
When I was first out in the world on my own, I started reading heaps of personal money management books.  It got so I would just wander over to the section of the Dewy Decimal System in the library to see if there was something I hadn’t read that caught my interest. Most of them say the same thing in different ways, so after you’ve read five, you can move into skimming mode once you hit say, the “how to budget” section.  From time to time I dip back in if a book interests me.  I’ve gleaned good advice from these books, and all for free.  Thank you, public library system.
If you are looking for somewhere to start I recommend Your Money or Your Life, All Your Worth by Warren and Tyagi. I have also found the debt-free philosophy of Mary Hunt to be inspiring.  Also, anything by Suze Ormon is good.  You can also follow my example and find the personal finance section at your local library and choose books at random.
I save
Since my first job in high school, I’ve always put some percentage of money aside.  Not that the money has always gone toward my far-future. In fact, the savings from that first job financed my personal spending in college.  I’ve saved various percentages of income over the years, from as little as $50.00 per month during the grim, incredibly boring and low-paying job I got after graduate school all the way up to 20% of my net pay in a brief heady time when I finished paying
for my certificate program and other things hadn’t cropped up.  With all that saving, I’m probably sitting on a pretty big pile of cash right now, right?
Not so much.  Though it’s a bigger pile then I’ve ever had.
In my mind, “saving money” is a particular thing where you put money aside and never, ever touch that money so it grows and grows until you retire when you can use it.  I’ve never met that standard with my savings.  A graph of my savings account over the last ten years would show peaks and valleys.  For instance, I saved over $5,000 to fund my move from Massachusetts to Portland.  Well done!
Those were the years where I had no debt and my living expenses were quite low.  I made the most of my savings, concerned about the many potential expenses that could crop up during the move.  So the move took up $2,200.00 of
the savings and the subsequent unemployment while looking for work ate away at some of the rest.  I took on temporary work and the company hired me and I had a brief period of saving until I entered graduate school.
Beginning with graduate school, I began to draw down the savings.  This was not an easy time for me.  Once, while once again withdrawing money from savings, I sighed while handing over my paperwork.  The bank teller inquired as to what was wrong.
“I hate having to pull money out of savings.” I told him.
“But that’s the point of savings accounts,” he replied, “so you can draw from them when you need them.”
This concept was exactly the opposite of my “put money in account never touching it until you retire” savings concept, but I had to conclude that he was right.  Without that savings account I would have exited graduate school with not only student loan debt, but also credit card debt.  It’s always better when you can be your own emergency credit card and I still hear that bank teller’s words from time to time today.
So the savings account was humbled by graduate school, but the six months of unemployment following graduate school made an ever bigger dent.  I counted on steady temporary work, as I always had found in the past, but temp work didn’t materialize over the summer.  Nor did any jobs.  The temporary work picked up in the late autumn, giving me a new appreciation for the paycheck incredibly mundane tasks provides.  Then I made a rather large financial mistake and took a job I was extremely overqualified for.
In my year and a half as a secretary, I went slowly crazy, both from boredom and disgust at my pay rate.  I was paid less than $10.00 per hour, which at the time was only a few dollars over Oregon minimum wage.  I’ve never had to watch my finances so closely.  My rent took nearly half of my gross pay and I shopped carefully for everything.  If I had loved the job, or even liked it, I would have done these things happily, but there was little work to do at my workplace and that made the scrimping even more grim.  I was barely putting anything aside, and my goal to save $5,000 was being fed by a trickle of $50.00 per month.  I didn’t want to do the math to see how long that would take.
Things improved when my boyfriend and I moved in together.  The rent we paid together on our one bedroom was only a bit more than I paid on my studio and sharing expenses really gave me some breathing room. I eventually landed my current job, which came with an $8,000 per year pay raise and my savings could begin again in earnest.  Over the last six years, the graph of savings has been more of a steady upward climb, though it has dipped now and again, as
things have cropped up.  I accept those dips, and set my course to recover the savings as soon as I am able.