Be Brave Project, Day 29: The End of The Beginning

Today was supposed to mark the end of the Project for me; 6 weeks ago today I did my first Brave Thing, by contacting an ex boyfriend in Paris with whom I needed to sort some things out.

That bit o' bravery took me all of 12 minutes, he couldn't have been nicer about it all (well, it was mostly me apologizing--but as I'm sure you know people can occasionally take apologies as an opportunity to recite your faults, and he did not).

12 minutes that I've barely thought about since, because once the phone call was made and apologies accepted, my monkey mind stopped torturing me with it all and just settled down. The next day I called the Dream Accountant on the impulse of a moment--and left him a message. Second brave thing done. . .I'd begun nervously circling the tax issues that had been bothering me so, and was profoundly tired of waiting for some terrifying notice to come through the mail, and wondering why on earth nothing ever arrived.

By the end of the week I'd:

-Visited hell, in the form of the "Speedy Renewal" branch of the New York Dep't of Motor Vehicles.

-Spoken with the Dream Accountant and already received good information. Put together tax packet for him & shipped it off.

-Taken cat to the vet for delayed dental surgery/cleaning that I was worried would kill her.

-Given an Enormous diabetic cat 2 shots of insulin, needle-phobic though I am.

And I'd realized that the BBP isn't a 6 week project; that most things considered brave in my daily life, (where there's remarkably little hand-to-hand combat or embedded land mines, apart from the emotional variety) are simply acts of self-care and determination to have a better life. You can avoid dealing with your taxes, if you want to behave like a child and feel like a deadbeat. You can live without health insurance simply to protest the antediluvian gruesomeness of this wealthiest country providing none for its citizens--but who does that hurt? Who does that keep up at night? Certainly not our President.

The BBP is like going to the gym, really. You use those muscles or they get weak, and flabby, and they worry you and age you.

What I've learned is this: You've got to ACT to be motivated.

It isn't the other way around. The Be Brave Project is, I have realized, about the long haul.

Next phase of the BBP: Moving and getting that book done! I have an agent who wants to see it!

Be Brave Project, Day 22: Capital One, it's the Sock Drawer for You.

I don't like not quite knowing where I'll be living in five weeks, and I obviously don't enjoy the sustained effort it costs for me to dig myself out of the swamp of vodka and financial insecurity beneath which I was buried for most of the new millennium.

Turning around and facing the grotesquely self-sabotaging behaviors caused by addiction is not only frightening, but wearying: You feel as if you're stumbling up a down escalator all of the damn time, while next to you your friends and family glide serenely along, effortlessly moving up and forward, forward and up. My world got smaller and bleaker, while friends got married or arranged book deals; purchased houses--wisely at the time when a ham sandwich could get a mortgage--or decided to row across the Atlantic for charity; had children or leapt into exciting career changes.

A great deal of time at AA meetings is spent discussing the dangers of over-reacting when we are feeling "less than." (I know, these recovery phrases make you want to cover your ears and hum show tunes loudly, but as I mentioned, we are weary. Somehow it helps to speak in a sort of emotional shorthand, although you feel as if you're in an afternoon re-run of a crap Lifetime film.)

It's all a bit confusing, and ironic, and circular: Lushes drink when they feel inferior, and feel inferior because they've run away from life. Lushes drink because they feel resentful, but are perpetuating the behavior that created the disparity which causes resentment. Lushes isolate so they can drink, but drink because they're so cut off. But most of all, Lushes drink because they are lushes. And yet once you've put the bottle down for a bit, you do find that avoiding resentments and comparisons and anger and fatigue and isolation does quiet down the drink signals, and telling other people about it really does help to shut the signals off.

So the AA meetings exist, otherwise we'd be wandering the streets grabbing the lapels of innocent civilians and telling them our trivial stories of grudges and woe. Like I'm about to do here:

In my sustained effort to improve my credit and re-join the more responsible members of the human race, I bit the bullet and called Capital One yesterday evening. There actually wasn't as much fear/bullet biting involved in the call, because I have never missed a payment with them since I got the card (hot damn, Elusive D.!), and I have never made any previous requests. So I wanted them to drop my APR from 15.65%, and possibly give me a credit increase.

Fifteen minutes later I hung up the phone almost shaking with anger. I'd been spoken to like a child, told that having the low limit and the high APR was "good for me, and for my credit", and that as a Capital One customer I was "like a child in school asking for a good grade before the work has been done." Well, I asked, biting my words out so I wouldn't tell the woman what I thought of her demeaning customer service technique, what can I do in order to qualify for these improvements in the future? "I can't give a time frame. Files are pulled randomly." Well, fuck you very much, Darling.

Her advice was that I should start using the card, a lot, and then eventually Capital One would decide to award me for my good behavior. They clearly are using the oil crisis to push buying gas with credit, as she kept telling me that it's soo easy to just swipe the card at the pump. Twice I said, "I'm a New Yorker. No car." Oh, she piped in, I could do a balance transfer at a low APR. As if every other card on the planet doesn't have a low balance transfer. But how helpful of her to point out that how I can improve credit is by shifting debt around! Thanks ever so! Happily, I currently have very little credit card debt, having spent the last few years paying it off. I suppose the Capital One Customer Service Manager would have suggesting running up debt in order to transfer it.

I thanked her for 'the interesting information you've given me'.

She thanked me for calling and wished me a good night.

We hung up in mutual loathing. It really was one of those conversations where you realize --Oh, she doesn't like me at all.

So I went to the kitchen, removed the pitcher o' pesto from the refrigerator (anyone who doesn't have a fridge and freezer filled with pesto this time of year should really get off their ass and to a farmer's market pronto). I put water on to boil, pulled out my whole-grain penne pasta, and began slicing tomatoes. The entire time I was banging pans and muttering to myself about assholes who have no goddamn business dealing with the public. . .what the fuck is on my credit information there that she feels she can talk to me like that?. . .I've screwed up my life and will never ever be able to make it. . .the stock market's in the tank, the Be Brave Project has done nothing for me, nothing, it's just removed me from my protective cocoon. . .

As the water neared boiling, I went to the hallway to check the mail. One envelope wouldn't bend: It was thick and contained something plastic--always intriguing. Back in my apartment I threw the rest of the mail to the floor and tore the thick envelope open--

It was an Oxford Health insurance card!

I Have Health Insurance! Thank you, "Healthy New York"!

Scorecard:

Be Brave Project: 2 (Health insurance and Taxes)

Capital One: 0 (That card's going to be eating socks for the next few months.)