I'm angry at the world right now. I've been angry since I got home. I feel cheated. I have a comfortable life, but I'm alone. No one wants me; I feel like no one even gives me a chance.

I hate feeling this way.
I wish I knew how to see beyond myself and remember all the good in my life.
I just hurt.

So. Kira's been quiet for the last couple of months. I emailed her in March, and again in April, and one last time just a day or so ago. Today I got a response from her, but hardly the sort I was hoping to get (though, in part, exactly what I was expecting). She apologized and said that she hadn't been ignoring me on purpose, just that she was busy with life and work and hardly had time to keep up with her local friends, let alone "someone I haven't met." She said she didn't see "us" going anywhere, just wasn't feeling a connection, and didn't want to lead me on. So ends another relationship.

I can't say I'm not disappointed. I'm very disappointed. Partly because, yeah, she was a nice girl and, I don't know, I liked the potential I saw there, and I feel like (once again) I'm not really being given a fair trial, but... It's just that it's always like this, more or less. In the last few years I've met several girls who were really nice and things seemed to be going well, and then... not. And I'm just tired. I'm frustrated and discouraged and disappointed and... tired.

Being single's nice. For what it's worth I've been enjoying myself. But it's not what I want. And yeah, maybe part of my problem is that I just want to hard, but that doesn't change the fact that when I sit and think of what I want to do with my life, "raise a family" is at the top of the list. It always has been. I can't not want it.

I just wish it didn't always feel like I was being left behind.

So I've been back here in Monterey for three months now. And things have been alright. Finances are annoying. It doesn't help that we're paid every two weeks; we don't have a set time durring the month when we get paid. Sometimes I'll get paid on the 1st and 14th, or on the 14th and 28th, or just about any combination in between. It probably doesn't fluctuate quite that much, but it's significant, and I've found my paycheck to be several days late relative to my bills several times, and at least a couple times it's been as much as a week late. This period is one of those times: I'm effectively broke until next Friday.

I say effectively because I do have a significant amount of money in savings. My mom is quick to note that, at my age, dad had a wife, too kids, they were living in an apartment in San Diego and living paycheck-to-paycheck, without anything to speak of in savings. I'm single, no kids, living in a room in a house, with almost a month's pay in the bank. So I'm doing alright.

But I still don't like messing up my finances, and this month I really have. I've had to dig $700 into my savings this month because the money wasn't there when the bills came, and I can't quite recoup that and finish paying my bills even when my next paycheck comes. My first paycheck in April comes on the 7th, and if I watch myself I think I can right my accounts shortly thereafter, but I don't like it. It's frustrating. I can't stand feeling disappointed in myself.

My friend Laurel sat down with me this afternoon and we went over what I get paid, what I HAVE to pay out, and what I'm left with to do as I will. She used a preset Excel template and we covered all the bases; the 'money paid to myself' in lower than I'd like, but a few of the entertainment and luxury bits she put in are higher than I think I ever spend. I'm gonna go around with a notebook through April and keep track of where my money's going and adjust my budget respectively. I really think that, when I started in January with my very informal budget, I forgot significant bits; like, hundreds of dolors of bills I have to pay each month. Sloppiness on my part, but it would explain why my finances are broken right now. That it took three months to crop up just says how flexible my banking can be, I guess.

I hate finances.