Oh. Ouch.

I got hit really hard today. I mean really hard. Like a guy with brass knuckles kind of hard. My day had been...less than stellar already & I was feeling, erm...disappointed in myself (yet again) and I came home & checked out my mail, and lo & behold I got a bill for $2400. Yep.

Apparently a surgery bill I thought had been covered by insurance really wasn't, and now I have to dish out a little over $2000. (The insurance company was kind enough to furnish roughly $370.)

I seriously went through the stages of grief, as if that big ol' chunk of cash was some beloved relative who was quitting this sphere forever and whom I would never see again until the blessed eternal realm. I was shocked; I denied it, tried to prove the bill wrong; I realized it was really real and sat on my bed & bawled. I think I was angry in there too somewhere ($370??? COME ON!!!!) but I can't remember exactly when it hit.

Actually, I'm now a little ashamed about the way I reacted. I mean I sobbed. I haven't sobbed in a long, long, LONG time, and there I was, unable to draw in a single breath without it breaking up like a teenage rock band after high school. And really, when it comes down to it, it's only $2000. I can cover that. Granted, my savings account will take a serious blow; granted, I'll have to postpone some things that I wanted to do NOW because I simply don't have the cash I thought I did; granted, my plans are utterly and completely screwed up now...(Oh! THERE's that anger!) But I am glad that at least it wasn't some astronomical amount that I didn't have. I'm glad that I won't need to be like Fred Vincy in Middlemarch and foist out my debts on other people. At least my parents won't have to pay this. At least I won't be more of a burden to them than I already am. (Darn [mumble-mumble]-year-old living with her parents still...)

And, when this bill is paid, then I'll be square. I'll be completely free of debt & I'll feel all nice & liberated (even though I already felt liberated; I just didn't know I wasn't liberated at the time).

So, to all of you who thought that I was going to move on soon? Oh, no. I ain't. Not now. Nohow. No-can-do.

Blech. Sorry. That's even too bitter for me to swallow at the moment.