Adjustment Disorder Revisited

Pre-divorce, I found myself in counseling for the first time in my life. I was able to afford the finest county mental care services poverty could buy. And it was really good. I might have chronicled some it in my mountainoflaundry (but if I go looking for a link, I will rabbit-hole like no one's business and never return to this story, so...). Because to continue seeing a patient requires a diagnosis, my social worker said I had an "adjustment disorder," meaning, I was struggling to accept the fact that my marriage was a joke.

Many (is it eight?) years later, I sit in a magnificent home in a hoity-toity KC suburb with a hybrid car in the garage, a savings account at the bank, and a college diploma in a manilla envelope in one of the many closets. I have (suddenly?) found myself living in an upper middle class world and a year into it, am realizing I'm mildly uncomfortable about it.

You see, I'm becoming what I had once mocked. I am able to buy what my children need, want, and then some. I can purchase new running shoes, pay my credit card bill monthly (which I only use so I can earn airline miles), and always have a full refrigerator and pantry. We eat meatless on Mondays because I want to...not because the food stamp card is dry. I am living a life that I never dared to dream of. '

And it makes me a tad uncomfortable.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE having enough cash every month to pay the bills and then some. I am giddy to be able to hear the cries of my children for x and y and z and to be able to appease them. Christmas...don't get me started (on the good AND the bad). For a solid 66.6% of my offspring, I have demonstrated the value of higher education, and for that I am elated.  But the truth is, this is just weird.

Give me time, allow me to vent, send me to a therapist. I'm sure I'll get over this. But for now, I will have moments of ill ease with my prosperity. I have given money to charity, we adopted a family for xmas, and I have taught my kids the value of sharing (as evidenced by an act by  my son that merits its own post). I need to find my place in this new world, while keeping my feet on the ground.