It's kind of strange that now, when I finally have things to talk about again, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to say them. I'm kind of embarrassed, actually.
For a while I was posting and thinking about how we could afford a surrogacy. Yesterday we had a discussion about it and I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that, by the end of the year, we can. I mean, I grew up poor. My parents didn't buy their home until I was in college (same house, we'd been renting it from my grandparents since I was 10). My brother and his wife are currently in a bad place financially. So I am very uncomfortable with the thought that I don't have those concerns. I actually forget that at times. Seriously. I clip coupons. I can't bring myself to buy new clothes often (despite the fact that I am not as small as I was pre-lowercase but markedly smaller than last year at this time). I constantly worry that things are too expensive, even when they really aren't. I worry about every penny we spend, fearing that it's just too much.
Assuming that all continues to go well with his company, we will get a very large check at the end of the year with his share of the profits for the year. A check that could pay off the rest of my student loans, pay off the car that we plan to buy in July, pay for a surrogacy AND put some in savings. My mind is completely boggled. It just makes no sense to me. A check above a yearly salary that already has me woozy.
Earlier this week, the lowercase spent the afternoon with his friend M and his mommy (M was in the isolette next to the lowercase, born the day before him at 30 weeks gestation) while Mr. W and I went to get our wills done. It was disturbing to say the least. Our attorney really focused on how lopsided our balance of finances is. Me: bringer of debt via student loans, no income, extremely tiny retirement due to only 3 years of teaching. Him: no student debt (no loans at the time and then he didn't finish college), owns a company worth quite a lot, huge life insurance policies.
We were worried about the custody of our child should anything happen to us, and her primary concern was figuring out our estate and trust funds and avoiding estate taxes. All done in a way that made it clear she didn't see the worth of what I was contributing to our family. Though it did make me realize something about myself that I'm actually kind of proud of:
I DON'T ACTUALLY VALUE MONEY.
It's a necessity and something that I will continue to worry about while I'm alive...something that I need to have to care for those I love.
But I would take every last dollar I have and run it through a shredder before I would be separated from the people that I love. I would rather have a house falling down around me and be with my family than have all the money in the world but a family who are distant. And when I die, while I would like to give my family money to make things easier for them, that isn't my primary concern. I want to give them love. That's it.
