Budget For Ecuador

Time for a budget. Just for the next several weeks before we leave. Yikes! I have never actually made a budget. My brother-in-law pushed me about doing one and I had to admit that this is a new experience for me. Ordinarily I work and pay my bills and do not look past the next few days, the next trip, the next project, the next purchase. I live day to day, week to week, perhaps into the next month. So when Eric asked me to make a budget today, I felt hesitant but hastily listed as many items I could think of and when I got to the bottom of the page I was stunned. Clearly I am not prepared for this. I am accustomed to putting in the hours and covering the bills and making things work. Including private school and college for Tara, and ballet and violin lessons for Maya, and repairs on the car and trips to Canada and Rome and Belize and Ecuador. Now that I am winding down my practice and there is a finite end to my life as I know it, I am beset by limitations, which in turn create absolute panic.

On the other hand, for the first time in the ten years that I have been with my husband (and the thirty years that I have been away from my parents), I wonder if I can be dependent on him. Can I just let go of my need to take responsibility? What a novel idea! I am not sure how to be measured in this; either I am in total control or passive and meek (no!) and dependent. Is it the ability to earn income that gives me power? If I earn nothing, do I mean nothing, do I stop making decisions and influencing those around me? I wonder if part of my original eagerness to move to Ecuador was an unconscious wish to let go, to trust, to surrender. I just have not figured out how to be without being in control. Either I make things happen or I lose my bearings and float away. Either I am present and powerful or I disappear.

So writing out this budget means letting go of the life I know and being practical and surrendering to a new reality. I am not sure I am ready for this!