Which World To Pick

This weekend was kind of tough. Saturday was a really busy day, culminating in a party down town. This party was filled mostly with yuppies. Not knowing it was a dress-up party, we went in jeans and sweaters. Girls were in little black dresses, slinky red dresses, pants and glitzy shirts...we were out of place. We would have felt out of place even if we were dressed the same, so being dressed down certainly didn't help that problem. It made me start wondering though. We make these life choices, follow dreams to reach goals, we sometimes lose sight of what our priorities should be or perhaps they are what they should be but that's not what we thought they would be. I wanted the big corporate life. I wanted to make a lot of money and buy an overpriced small loft in the big city. I never dreamed of my wedding or having kids or having a house with a fence with dogs and cats and the "American dream".

But here I am, engaged, a wedding just around the corner, we have a house in suburbia, 3 animals...how did I get here? When did I make the decision that this was the direction I wanted to go in life? And how do I make the decision to turn it around?

Neither my fiance or I know what we want. We want the best of both worlds, but I don't know how to do that. Not many big cities have acre lots with big houses that aren't $100 million. We think that when we move we'll probably rent for a year in the city and if we don't like it, we'll move to suburbia. Neither one of us has done the big city lifestyle thing before but we've both wanted to. It may be that we love it but it's also highly possible that we'll hate it and will be dying to get back into a house with some space and privacy.

It just feels like the older you get the longer it takes to do anything. I know in our case that our bills are seriously hindering the moving process. The one thing I really want my kids to learn and understand the importance of is financial matters. Neither my fiance nor I were really taught how to manage our money. And when I started getting this huge monthly paycheck I went a little crazy and now I'm way in debt because of it. The good news is I should be able to get out from under most of it in about 8 months. My new years resolution is to stick to the 2006 budget I drew up. And to stop cussing. I know it seems hard to believe, but I cuss like a sailor.