Here’s the thing, I have never been one for journaling, writing down your thoughts and feelings is supposed to make you reconsider things about your life. You can look back on decisions and inspect your life, you are able to make life changes or alter your path. Allegedly anyway, as I have never been one for journaling I don’t really know, that’s just what word on the street is.
I am at this weird part of my life where maybe I need to start writing everything down, figure out how I feel about the decisions I have made and make changes to my life as I see them. I could change my path forward or continue the one I am currently on. I find myself looking back on certain parts of my life with rose colored glasses, everything seems better in the past, jobs I loved, relationships or situationsips I was in, all look so beautiful looking back on them. During those jobs and relationship though, I was miserable. I have a friend, Kylie, who I have known for 10 years, and I constantly must call her and ask how I felt about certain things because I don’t remember. It could be the AuDHD or the car accident, but my memory seems to let me down often. Maybe writing it down will help since I am no longer near my gorgeous friend.
So, here’s what’s happening, I am currently spending my days as a housewife and homemaker. Which is a job title I never thought I would have or be comfortable with. I am not so comfortable with it now to be honest with you. It is just me, my husband Bazza, and our two dogs. I am not a stay-at-home mom as we don’t have kids and plan not to have them. It is a life decision we made so the kids thing is just not for us. Mazel Tov to those who I have decided to repopulate the world, thank you for what you do. Just isn’t what we want out of life. So, it is just me and Bazza living off his income, which is tough.
Somedays I want to get a job so I can bring an extra income into our house, and we can return to DINK status (dual income no kids.) I want to be able to help with the finances around the house and make it easier for us to survive or just have fun money. The problem is, I feel like my brain won’t let me, I feel like I cannot handle a job. I have a long list of mental health issues or challenges as I like to call them. After a recent diagnosis being added to my ever-growing list, I joked with a friend that the challenges were like Pokémon and I just gotta catch them all. I don’t want them, but humor is my way of coping with life.
Existing in a new world of living off one income, having to ask Bazza for every little thing, to ask permission to spend money on myself, or groceries, or anything, is completely new to me. Honestly, I can’t say that I like it. I am so used to living independently and not having to run every little thing by Bazza. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need to ask his permission for things, it is not a controlling environment, it’s just, I view it as his money, so I want to ask before I spend it. I am not used to depending on someone to live, if I have money in my account, I will spend it. Now, I must ask and confirm what my budget is when I go to the grocery store.
I have also never been able to hold a job for very long. If I am being honest with myself, I am not sure if it is because my mental challenges or poor job performance. I have never found a job that I have loved for a long time, I have always been envious of people who have a career path or dream and pursue it. Think about nothing else night and day and work their asses off to make it happen. That has never been me, but Cauldron I want it to be.
I have sacrificed my mental health for money for a very long time. It is all I did in my twenties and early thirties. I would take a job and slowly feel myself die at the desk I was placed, just to be able to keep a roof over my head. It is very nice to be in a position now where I have a partner who supports us, but I have been stupidly independent for so long and having to ask someone for anything, money, help, or anything else is hard for me. Bazza and I have been together for 3 years and I still have trouble asking him for help. Thankfully he is a saint of a man and is so supportive and patient with me. I love him so damn much.
I just feel like I don’t know what I am doing in my life or what it is I want to do. I don’t feel fulfilled not having a purpose, goal, or tasks to complete. The idea of going back to work though terrifies me. In November of last year, I had a major panic attack at work, Bazza had to leave his job, and come pick me up to take me home and take care of me. Now that he takes the train in every day, he wouldn’t be able to rescue me. What happens if I get a job and that happens again, who do I call? 911? It just gives me so much anxiety thinking that it could happen again, and I would have no escape route.
If I was offered a job doing something that I love, then absolutely I would jump at that position. The thing is I don’t know what I love, I don’t know what it is I want to do or who it is that I want to be. I am 35 years old, and I have no idea what it is I want to do with my life. Other than spend as much time with Bazza as I can and travel the world with him. He is my best friend and I want to experience everything with him, I am so lucky to have him.
Please know, I am very aware of how lucky I am to be in a position where we can survive off one income, is it easy? No but it is do-able. We don’t have money for fun things, it’s just bills and groceries, that’s it. However, I have been so broke that I could only afford bills. In my twenties I became anorexic, not because of a body disorder or need to be skinny, but because I couldn’t afford to eat regularly. At 5’5” I weighed about 110 pounds at my darkest point, all so I could keep the lights on and my dogs fed. They took priority over myself, and if I could go back, I would do it the same way. I don’t not regret prioritizing them over myself, but I say all this so you can understand how much I have struggled. I have gone weeks having a negative number in my bank account, only to get paid, pay 2 bills and be back in the negative. Having Bazza and his job provide this much for us is a dream come true. It just doesn’t make me feel like I am bringing anything to the table to help support us.
When I was growing up, support was always financial. I was raised to work a good job, make money, and pay other people to solve your problems. That is how I lived for most of my existence, now I am struggling to learn that support can also mean cleaning the kitchen and doing Bazza’s laundry. Making life easier for him at home so he doesn’t have to think about much when he gets home. I just want to take this time as I am learning this lesson to do something, find a passion, find what makes me happy, drives me, makes me want to get up in the morning and have that spark or fire in my life. I know it won’t be like that every single day, I can’t expect it to with my Pokedex of challenges, but I would like to find that thing that makes me happiness. Outside of my relationship with my husband, something that brings me joy. Something that makes me want to be selfish and have this passion for, I want that opportunity to chase a dream, or goal and fight for it.
Which brings me to this thought that has been invading my dreams at night. I am not sure if it is a current hyper fixation or if it is something that I could do for my path. On TikTok a few months ago there was a video that went viral saying that if there was a domestic housewife, that also meant that there was a feral housewife. I already liken myself to a raccoon, calling myself a trash panda or saying that I dumpster dive. So, the title of feral housewife tickled my brain so much. However, the idea of being one doesn’t compute with my brain. The thought of staying home every day and cleaning, organizing, and spending all my waking hours with my 2 monstrous dogs makes me want to reserve a grippy socks vacation. If you told me 2 months ago that it was something I would be considering doing, I would have thought you mistaken me for Megan. A friend of mine who must clean everything daily, can’t go to sleep with dirty dishes in the sink type of person. That has never been me and I never thought I would become that person. Until I did and got out of bed at 10pm to go put plates in the dishwasher.
So, it is either embracing the idea of being a feral housewife, or I get a job and bring an income into our house. Do I destroy my mental health for a paycheck, or do I learn to enjoy living the life of June Cleaver? After spending the last 4 weeks applying to over 100 different jobs in the area and not getting more than 2 interviews, I am starting to see it as a sign I am not meant to work right now or at least work for a company. I could work for myself, work for Bazza, boss bitch, girl boss up and see if I can make being a housewife into an income. Will it be easy? NOPE. Do I like easy? God no, where’s the challenge? I am the type of person who will do something twice and in heels because I was told it was too difficult or couldn’t be done. I must prove people wrong, maybe I should start proving myself wrong.
I don’t know what I want, I think I know what I need. I need to keep myself sane, not get a job that I hate and come home every day with a bad attitude because that will just make our home life awful. I feel like embracing the feral housewife style is what I need to do, I know so many people who would love to be given this opportunity and yet here I am, complaining about it. It’s my mental challenges that make me complain and feel unfulfilled, but still. I feel like it would be a crime to waste this opportunity.
I want to do more than just be a homemaker, I don’t know what it is yet. I don’t have a purpose or a drive, but I have this feeling deep inside of me that there is something that I was meant to do, I just haven’t found it yet. Let’s figure this out together, as I embrace this new lifestyle. I don’t know what this blog is going to turn into yet, some days it might be my schedule, some days it might be a detailed, in-depth investigation of my rambling brain, like this. Some days it may be nothing because I have nothing to give. But I will try, I can promise you that, I will try to write daily: what I am doing, what I accomplished, and how I am feeling. I deserve to try for myself, it is not for anyone else; I need to do this for me. I want to stay at home, I want to make my husband’s life easier, I want to be in a good mood when he comes from work every day. Not angry because of a situation or person at work made me that way.
That is the end of this ramble, diary, confessional, intrusive monologue. Thank you for being here, reading this, and joining me for this journey. I am going to try to be a feral housewife, because my husband deserves it, but I think I do too.
Bisou Bisou,
Tara Ashley