In which I accept my fate to struggle on...

The payroll lady hand-delivered the W-2s today (or, you know, whatever you need to file your income taxes).

I did a quick, surreptitious calculation of my taxes online.

At one point, I nearly fainted. The total was me owing Los Federales more than $3K. I choked, then tried it again. Oh, gee, only $800. And the last time, I owed them $6. Okay. I can pay the Feds six bucks.

But what happened to the days of the lush refunds? The refunds that put a cushion between me and the sucky, sucky world?

Those days, I think are gone.

In fact, I think they have been gone for a long, long, long time. I just choose to pretend every now and then that they haven't gone.

And from there, I started thinking about how this weekend, I had done what I had always sworn I would not do: I put groceries on the Visa. This in and of itself was a wake-up call.

I can't go playing games with myself anymore. I can't believe what my online checking tells me, because there's always something else coming up.

This month, it's the big long scratch I got on the Bullet at GiGi's funeral. And the other day, I looked at the car and thought, when did I lose the wheel cover on my left rear wheel?

Tuition cost $400 more than I had planned. Yeah, I'll be reimbursed for it - sometime in April, no doubt.

There's the deductible for the car repair - $1,000. I'll get it back eventually, but for now, it, too goes on the Visa.

The $6K I got rid of in the spring has crept its way back onto my Visa card and I'm the one who did it. $60 here. $100 there. Me. I did it.

I am busy trying to come to grips with a very grim fact. I don't like it. That's why it's so hard.

I will most likely spend the rest of my life scrabbling like this. The trip to Paris in 2005 was the last hurrah, and what a hurrah that was. I have realized I can't even really afford to go hang out with the nuns.

Until I have paid off the $3,500 on my Visa and built up six months expenses in my savings (whatever form that might take), there will be no movies, no Starbucks, no Coffee Heaven, no diner, no Kohl's, no Target, no Kwik-e-Mart. There will be no trips that require me to go out of my normal and ever-narrowing routine route.

There will be no electronic piano, no music lessons (who has the time, anyway?), no voice lessons (I had hoped...), any of the many, many things that have been on the list for the last ten years.

I cannot foresee a vacation for myself...ever, really.

There will have to be a bathroom renovation, a new roof, and a new driveway on Ma Maisonette, along with some smaller internal improvements, like replacing the ceiling tiles in the basement where the cats come crashing through.

In the face of all this "no, no, no", I realize I still have an incredible wealth of resources around me.

I have drawing pads, pencils, and instruction books. I have books I keep meaning to read. I have books I keep meaning to write. I have the cats to attend to, to play with, to love. I have the house to keep clean and bright and comforting. Okay, so there won't be any roses this year, but I can divide the irises and the daffodils and try my hand at growing annuals from seed. Who on earth can't grow a marigold? And the honeysuckle I crave grows wild along the roadside. I just have to hop out, cut a bunch, and bring it back home to root.

I have yarn. Maybe I can learn to crochet something that isn't flat. Maybe I can learn to knit. Actually, I have a lot of yarn. A lot.

I have watercolors. I have my little keyboard and an acoustic guitar. (Surely I can scrape together the $6 for strings...maybe for my birthday? Poor little match girl.)

I have a sewing machine and a couple of quilting projects I'd always meant to get to.

Nonetheless, I've been here before. I know this dark territory. This is pretty close to where I was when I first moved into Ma Maisonette, except at the time I only had one payment left on the Faithful Camry and $500 on the Visa. I brought no money, not one penny, in to work with me. I kept my wallet in the glove compartment of the car. I took my lunch with me everyday, ate lunch at home, had E and Annushka over to my house and would provide brownies or apples and cheese and the vital pot of tea.

Those days still haven't gone. They've just been waiting for me to come back to them.

Here I am.