Just thinking about my finances today, I am overwhelmed. From loans for graduate school to the car note (my car was totaled last November when I got rear-ended) to surgery bills to regular old “life” bills, it feels like I don’t even know where to start. After graduate school, I moved back home to help my parents with a lot of much-needed, much-overdue work on their house and yard. I felt they more than deserved that help, and after how miserable I was during my time in Missouri, I just needed to be able to work with my hands and be near people who love me. We’ve made wonderful progress on that on renovations and organization, but it has been a real challenge to my identity. I hadn’t lived at home since high school, and my tendency toward financial independence at a young age and working ridiculous hours had been big parts of who I was.