Hello, here for a little update. Thanksgiving and Christmas were both very enjoyable as we spent a lot of time with family and friends.

Speaking of friends, Nick and I have become pretty close friends with a couple we met through my friend, Kim. Kim and I actually aren’t as close as we used to be anymore. Number one, we don’t work in the same school anymore, so that naturally has made us drift apart. Number two, I pissed her off a few months ago and we kind of haven’t had the same friendship since. There was a weekend she had a friend from out of town visiting that she wanted me to meet, and I had agreed to go out with them on a Friday night. Well, you know me, Friday nights are usually my time to myself at home. I didn’t feel like going out, so I cancelled, but agreed to go somewhere with them the next day. Well, I also sort of bailed on the plans the following day as well (they wanted to go to an orchard I’d already been to and it was really hot outside that day), so I said I would catch up with them later in the day. I think cancelling twice must have pissed Kim off because she responded, “Honestly, I’m good. Don’t worry about catching up.” Sometimes it’s hard to read tone in text messages, but I definitely felt that she was mad at me. At that point, we had been meeting weekly to get drinks and sushi together and when the weekend ended, I had a hunch that she would bail on sushi that week, and I was right. She reached out with a lame excuse, saying that she was going to have to stop going out “indefinitely” to save up money for the holidays. Please! It was just a lie to get out of seeing me because she was mad at me. THEN she stooped even lower and made up another dumb lie that she was going to have a teacher friend of ours (who still works at my school) start cleaning her apartment, so she asked if I could give her extra apartment key she gave me over the summer to her. So which is it? She has no money to go out or she has money to hire a cleaner? The cleaning BS was just an excuse for her to get her apartment key back from me without seeing me. ANYWAYS, I was super tempted to write her a long message about how I know that she was doing all of this because she was mad at me for cancelling on the plans, but then I was like, you know what? No. I don’t want to be the mature person here, if she wants to play games, let’s go. So, I told her it was no problem to give the key to the other teacher and then I stopped reaching out.

In the time Kim and I weren’t talking much or hanging out, Nick and I ended up getting close with this couple, Ang & Nichole, whom we met through Kim over the summer as they live in the same apartment as Kim and we often were all at the pool together. Kim and I are both in our mid-30s and Ang and Nichole are in their late 20s, so they’re a little bit younger than us but they have their shit together. So, we started hanging out with Ang & Nichole without Kim, and it turns out they have their own issues with Kim as well. Kim is just too often about drama and she’s constantly talking shit about people. I’m certain she’s said all kinds of stuff about me. There was one night we hung out with Ang & Nichole and I guess one of them posted a picture of us together on Snap, and Kim literally texted me and accused me of “stealing her friends” lol. It was half joke, half not. We’ve gone on to hang out with Ang & Nichole countless times since and all of us have rarely seen Kim. The last time I saw Kim was for sushi on December 16. Embarrassingly, a short time after that, Nick and I were at Ang & Nichole’s apartment complex (where Kim also lives) and we were outside walking to a nearby restaurant when we ran into Kim! It was awkward as it was clear we were all hanging out without her. She didn’t even look at me once! Super awkward.

Kim and I still text occasionally and send each other TikToks, but neither has asked about getting sushi again. She recently had another friend in town (one I had met going to Savannah and Nashville last summer) for New Year’s and she did send a group text to me, Ang, and Nichole inviting us out for New Year’s, but the rest of us already had plans (Nick and I had his mom, sister, and cousin at the house). So I guess she’s sort of over everything, but I don’t see us ever being as close again, especially since she has pretty much decided to take a traveling teaching position back in Chattanooga, Tennessee for next school year, so she will likely be moving over the summer. She had previously invited me to come to Chattanooga with her over the summer, but we’ll see if that ever comes up again. I guess I would go just to have something to do over the summer, plus we did always have fun together. So, that sums up the friend drama. Not as close to Kim anymore, but have definitely gained good friends in Ang & Nichole, who definitely will be sticking around for a while as they plan to buy a house soon.

Let’s see, what else? I’m very excited to say that the student loan forgiveness ball has started rolling. My employer electronically signed my employment certification form on January 3rd as planned and I was shocked when my qualifying payment counts updated to the required 120 just a few days later on January 6th. I got the green ribbons and the message, “Congratulations! You have satisfied your obligation and no additional payments are required for this loan.” While official forgiveness will still take time, this is the first step! Next will be the “golden letter” from Federal Student Aid (FSA) officially stating that my loans are eligible for public service loan forgiveness (PSLF) and that my servicer will be in contact to discharge the loans. After the golden letter, I will get the letter from my actual loan servicer saying my loans have been forgiven. After that, it will take time for the balances on both my servicer’s website and the FSA website to zero out, and then even more time for the loans to fall off my credit report. BUT - it’s happening, it’s coming! As of today, my loan balance is at $86k+. What a literal damn miracle it’ll be to get rid of that!

The only other update that I have is that I am officially on Nick’s insurance as of January 1. I’m not so sure his insurance will end up being the better deal as when I went to refill my birth control, I was charged $21! My birth control has been free for YEARS, so I was shocked I had to pay. Okay, it was $21 for 3 months which is still cheap, but after it being free for so long, I don’t like that lol. I’m also not holding my breath that Zepbound will be covered under his plan, either. According to the drug pricing tool online, it is not. However, I searched all my meds using the drug pricing tool and for all of them, it says “Plan covers $0.00”. How can that be? How can a plan just cover nothing? What would be the point of it then? So, I’m wondering if some features of the plan actually don’t go into effect for a couple of weeks or something? Technically, Nick hasn’t actually had the premiums for the new insurance taken out of his check yet, as his check on January 3 was the same as it always is. I’m thinking the new premiums won’t be taken out of his check until January 17, but surely that doesn’t mean the insurance isn’t active until then? IDK. IDK how insurance works.

I had a doctor’s appointment back in December and my doctor noted that a new prior authorization may be needed due to the change in insurance come January, so she said to just message her if one was needed. I attempted to refill my Zep on January 6 and I got a message it was delayed. I didn’t bother calling the pharmacy to see why it was delayed, but wondered if it had to do with needing a new PA, so I just messaged my doctor to go ahead and submit a new PA. Just a few hours later that day, Nick got a voicemail that the prior authorization had been approved (I’m assuming the call went to him as he’s the policyholder). I logged onto my pharmacy benefits app and sure enough, there was an approved PA in there for Zep. So, that’s good at least. Of course, an approved PA does not mean they will pay for it, they are just saying yeah okay, we will let you get this drug. I did call the pharmacy this morning to see why the script was delayed and they told me the insurance will only let me refill every 28 days (my previous insurance had let me refill every 21 days), so it will be filled on Sunday. I asked if she could see an estimate of the price and she said not yet. So, the jury is still out but I’m not getting my hopes up. I’m fully prepared to learn I’m unfortunately still stuck paying the $550/month out of pocket. Oh well, at least with my student loans about to be forgiven, I’ll have an extra $188/month to put toward it.

The last thing I’ll say before jumping off here is this weekend will be the official one year mark since Nick’s brother Luca died. I can’t believe it’s already been a year. We’ll be going down to spend time with his family at the grandparents’ lake house (which also happens to be where Luca died). Nick’s mom wants to make/bring a lot of Luca’s favorite foods. It’ll be emotional, I’m sure, but at least we’ll be together.

I feel really bad for saying this, but Nick has been driving me nuts and stressing me out. He is just SO negative and is constantly complaining about everything, from his mom, his dad, his grandfather, his job, people at his job, etc. I’ve come home from work a few times to him having imaginary angry arguments with people he works with. He was playing music on his Bluetooth speaker so loudly that he didn’t hear me come in both times, and he just has such anger and hate in him.

Of course, with his brother dying, that seems understandable, right? But he has always been like this. Every job he’s ever had, he complains, is miserable, hates his life, hates the people he works with and for, etc. With each new job he has gotten I’ve always held my breath, waiting for the complaining and negativity to start and it never fails. He’s always unhappy wherever he goes and I think it’s because the problem is HIM. He just views everything through a negative lens and, in my opinion, he greatly misinterprets people. He often interprets people’s actions negatively and as being against him, which then makes him extremely defensive. He’s even grossly misinterpreted ME and things I’ve done and said, which is why I don’t always trust his take on things. Now I know he can’t be completely wrong about all the people he works with and I’m sure some of the people do suck, but that’s fucking life.

What I don’t get is why he lets his job consume him the way he does. He works for a tire company. He works alone most of the day inspecting tires to see if the damage is covered under a customer’s warranty. He doesn’t even deal directly with customers, he just works with tires. Sure, he is part of a department of people, but he doesn’t actually have to work WITH people often, though he may occasionally have to help unload a truck delivery. I don’t get how such a job can engender such anger and hate toward others when he rarely even interacts with people at his job!

Meanwhile, I have a very stressful job dealing with teenage students with disabilities and often severe mental health problems. I’ve had to deal with angry parents who get lawyers and threaten to sue us. I could very easily take the stresses of my job home, but I don’t. I refuse and instead choose to protect my peace. Plus, no job is worth it! If we croaked today, our jobs would have our positions posted tomorrow. These jobs don’t give an EFF about us, so I’m not going to give an EFF about it when I’m not working. Nick spends so much of our weekends and holidays complaining about his damn job that it really ruins all the fun. He’s actually extremely lucky to even have the job he has as he gets paid $52k with just a high school diploma. He’s also due for a salary review this month, so I’m sure his salary will be going up even more soon. Good luck finding that in another warehouse job.

Sigh. Especially with Luca dying, I feel like there is no room for me in the relationship anymore, do you know what I mean? I feel like forevermore, Nick’s needs/feelings/etc. will always be more important than mine as his brother died and that is and always will be traumatic. He’s so unstable right now that I can’t go to him for anything or depend on him in any way. If I truly had a problem and needed help, he would not be the person I would reach out to as he has never been able to handle problems well. Small problems to him are magnified into gigantic problems, and he often overreacts accordingly, which only stresses me out and is not helpful at all. I feel extremely selfish for saying all of that, but it’s how I feel.

1:33 p.m. - Thursday, Jan. 09, 2025