This morning I thought my way into a tummy ache. Full blown nausea from thinking about two meetings scheduled for tomorrow and feeling not ready for either of them.
First up is a call with my financial advisor (and if I were prone to using quotation marks to signify that I am using the term loosely, I’d be using them here) and then some of the weavers guild ladies are coming over (to my house!) to talk about our attempts to bring the group forward into the digital age (blog, email newsletter).
The financial meeting stresses me out for many reasons, not the least of which is that the financial advisor I have is not who I would have picked out for myself. I inherited him from my aunt along with the money my mom left me, and fear, confusion and inertia have conspired to keep me from switching. I’ve even talked to a couple alternative candidates, but I haven’t felt pulled strongly toward anyone else. I’m hoping to get around to writing a Havi-style personal ad for a new financial advisor one of these days. Stay tuned.
So this guy’s nice enough, but I don’t completely trust him. Back in 2005 when I made up my mind to quit my Last Evil Job, I called to warn him that I would be needing money since I wasn’t waiting to get another job before I quit. He made some flip remark about how it wouldn’t be a problem financially but that they’d be worried if I didn’t have another job in six months.
I let my resentment fester for a couple years to get good and ripe before I told him how much it bothered me. He apologized, of course, but the damage was done, by me waiting as much as by him talking out of his ass.
And since I tend to be short on trust anyhow, and not terribly skilled at this thing I hear they call forgiveness, the fractured relationship has just been uncomfortable (for me at least) ever since. So he’s not really the person I want to talk to when discussing my financial goals for the coming year.
Especially when those goals include figuring out how much money I need, figuring out how to make that money in a way that doesn’t make me want to cry myself to sleep each night, and oh yeah, finding a new financial advisor to whom I feel comfortable talking about getting these and other goals accomplished.
The guild meeting should be easier except that it involves having people I don’t know well come into my house. It was even my idea that people come here. I thought it would make it easier for me. Ha.
Remember how I mentioned my ability to catastrophize just about any interaction? Well, the things I can imagine people saying to me about the things I have in my house (books, furniture arrangement) are very inventive. I won’t list them because they are ridiculous and nonsensical. I can’t picture myself saying any of these things to someone else, and yet I can imagine them being said to me.
The bulk of the stress around this meeting was quelled by taking everything in my living room that I don’t want people to see and dumping it in an unused room upstairs. Not an ideal solution but the easiest one. I’m also making chex mix so I can offer a delicious snack at the meeting and feel a little better about myself as a hostess.
In an ideal world I’d also make a lot of progress on the blog I’m in charge of starting for the guild, but I’ve got tomorrow before they get here to work on that, not to mention that deciding what to do with it is the point of the meeting, so getting it all done before they get here is a tad ridiculous.
I think our next order of business is a taste test on that chex mix and a Bramwell Season 2 (aka Victorian E.R.) marathon. Vintage science and historic costumes means a little something for everyone. I hope y’all are all having much more relaxing weekends than I managed to create for myself.
