Break Down

This weekend I sort of had a breakdown. I realized that I don't think we can stay in Santa Barbara long-term. And if we can't stay here long-term, why stay short-term? What precipitated this realization? A bank account with about $95 in it and a week until payday. Faye asking for a portion of utilities for the past four months. Interviewing at a Montessori school that would be perfect for Nora if it weren't for the tuition, approximately $800-1200 a month (for only nine months). In short, we're not making it here financially and I don't really see how we will be able to in the future, because there aren't really all that many good jobs. I think the number one occupation here is trust fund recipient. Another issue I have is the lack of people like us. You see, with median home prices at 1.2 million dollars there aren't a lot of young families. Call me a snob, but, I don't want to be friends with anyone who can afford a million dollar two-bedroom house. So, now what? We've spent nearly two years in various shitty situations waiting to live in this house and now here we are and, and, AND?!!!

The other part of this is the fact that we live in the shadow of gratitude towards Victor and Faye 24/7. They have done a lot (and I mean a LOT) for us the past two years. And we are grateful, but we'll never be grateful enough, in my opinion. We are sort of at an impasse because we (I) feel like although they are renting the house to us at a substantial discount from the market value it is still more than what we can afford. So it is difficult to continue to feel appropriately grateful when we're still struggling to make ends meet. I've never been all that good at accepting assistance (especially monetary) because there are ALWAYS strings attached. I thought that to live here I would be willing to put up with it, but I find myself thinking, "Is this really worth it?" And once you ask that question once, it sort of starts to creep into your thoughts more and more and more. Until you are forced to answer the question and I'm on the road to "No, it isn't worth it." So, now what?