Seriously, though, I'm not making messes quite everywhere. In fact, I'm making good progress on cleaning up the biggest mess I have going right now: my finances. It's been about 6 weeks (give or take) since I started the Total Money Makeover program and today I made a hard decision: I've decided to hold off on going back to school.

This last piece is the one area where I've been holding out; telling myself it's "ok" to take on MORE debt in the form of student loans even while paying off existing loans. That's like trying to dig yourself out of a hole while someone else is pouring dirt on top of you and that, my friends, is yet another example of my (more frequent than I'd care to admit) stupid thinking.

But I don't want to borrow any more money. (For the love of god, woman, stop the madness!) So this is a big step for me: to realize I'm FINALLY at the point where I'm not willing to become anymore beholden to The Man. I'm DONE. It's almost a freeing feeling. Like conceding to my innermost self that I'm an alcholic, or getting to the point where I completely accept having MS or that my brain has a hard time keeping its seratonin and dopamine levels within normal limits. Surrendering, as always, appears to be the first step towards freedom.

So what this means now is, I must start paying back my student loans beginning in April. It also means that I have to come up with some other way to continue exploring what I want to be doing with my life. I've got a few ideas about the direction I want to head: one is Information Systems; the other is a field that has just come into my awareness: Medical and/or BioInformatics, which is basically the application of Information Technology to healthcare. I'm sure there are books to be had, news and magazine articles to be read and people to talk to, if I look for them.

Bottom line is, I'll be in a much better position to explore my interests, take risks (e.g. to take a paycut if needed in order to get started in my field of interest) and try new things once I've become debt free and have a substantial amount of cash in savings. In the meantime, though, I just have to keep digging myself out of the hole I've created.