My Crystal Ball

Here we go again. I know that over the last month or so I've been spewing a bunch of crap about living for today and trying not to worry too much about the future, blah, blah, blah. Well, I'm kind of over that right now. Its been a frustrating week and right now I'm wishing for a crystal ball so I can look into the future and see what's happening. Actually, I don't even need a crystal ball. Maybe I could have, like, the Ghost of Tricia's future visit me or something. Although, a ghost would probably freak me out and scar me for life so we'd better stick with the crystal ball.

Things are kind of crazy at work right now. Our contract is up and a new company is taking over. I, fortunately, was offered my same position so I'm safe for now but there are lots of people who will not be getting a job offer. I just can't even imagine what they're going through right now. In this terrible economy the last thing somebody needs is to lose their job. And, while I'm safe for now, that might not be the case in a couple of years when they retire the shuttle program. Who knows if I'll have a job then, who knows if anyone at the Space Center will. If that happens, this little town we live in could turn into a ghost town. Its a scary thought and its hard to make plans for the future when the future is so uncertain.

Which brings me to my next issue. With the future of our local economy being so shaky, I worry about the real estate market here. When we bought our house our plan was to live in it for around five years, sell it, make a profit and buy a new, bigger house. Well, we've been here 4 years and the real estate market is in the crapper so bye bye profit. And we're ok with that for now. We've made some improvements to the house to make it more comfortable since we'll be here longer than we anticipated. But now we're wondering how much we should continue to do. We figure, at this point, that we'll be staying in our house for at least 5-7 more years. We would love to put a screen enclosure over our pool. Actually, our plan is to redo our deck to improve our drainage issues, re-tile and resurface the pool, enclose the pool, and re-wire the porch for a fan, lighting, and surround sound. We've gotten a couple estimates so far and we've been pretty shocked at how much it will cost. I think we could probably put in a brand new pool for what some of these people are asking. We'd love to do it though and it would make our back yard so much more enjoyable but we don't want to be the most expensive house on the block and we honestly probably won't make the money back that we spend. Its just so hard to decide whether to do it or not. See why I need a crystal ball!

Then, of course, there is the baby issue. I honestly don't know where to begin. It is such a source of anger and sadness and frustration that I kind of hate talking about it and really like to just push it out of my mind. But, unfortunately, I can't. It is something that we have to think about and talk about and make decisions about. I mentioned earlier that my company at work is changing. Well, along with it, my insurance is changing and we're losing infertility coverage. Talk about a huge kick to the gut. That was one of the main perks of my job. So, we're back to being self-pay for all of our treatments come October 1. I just don't know what to do. Do we continue to seek treatment, shell out thousands of dollars, inject my body with all kinds of medicines that may come back to haunt me one day, put all our hopes into treatment that isn't guaranteed to work? Do we resign ourselves to a childless life? Do we shell out thousands of dollars to adopt and hope that the birth mother doesn't change her mind or that she doesn't do drugs while pregnant or that she or the baby's father don't have serious mental illnesses that run in their families? Do we do nothing and hope that someday it'll just happen?

I just wish I could look into the future and see how things are going so that maybe I could be a little more at ease right now. Unfortunately there is no crystal ball or time machine or ghost of Tricia's future that can help me with that. So I just have to choose what I think is best for me in this moment and hope that I'm making the right decision. Maybe tonight is just a bad night for a blog. I'm actually kind of depressed after writing this. Ugh... I think I'll have a glass of wine. That'll make all my problems go away, right? If only it were that easy.