November was a very draining month. I just didn’t have the energy to do anything else once this month ended hence the late post.

Work has been crazy busy with end-of-year deadlines approaching so mentally I’ve been drained every time I get off work. 

I also went out of town almost every weekend in November which definitely further drained my energy (not to mention my gas budget) driving 5-6 hours each week back and forth. 

Plus, I felt like I just had a lot of social engagements this month. While I truly enjoy the company of others, my introverted soul can only take so much.

Lastly, I was upset about quite a few things this month and I have such a bad habit of bottling things up. So I’m just going to use this post to let out the things that upset me. I apologize in advance to anyone reading this but I think it’s fair to give a warning that this post will sound gibberish and full of complains.

Running

I finally finished one of my running goals (early) this month! As a recap, at the end of 2020, my friend and I had made a goal of running on a 5-mile trail once a week for all of 2021 for a total of 52 runs. 

To some people, this may not be a big deal, but I have never ran 5 miles before in my entire life prior to this so it was a huge commitment for me.

Because December was going to be a busy month for both of us, we decided to double up the runs each week in November to make up for not running in December. In total we did 52 runs of 5 miles in 2021 with our last run being a 10k (6.2 miles) to commemorate finishing our goal by running our longest distance yet.

Now you’d think, what the heck Avery, shouldn’t that be a celebration? Why is this part of your complaint post?

Well yes, we definitely celebrated completing that goal. However, this entire journey also brought up a lot of mental issues and the extra runs this month probably didn’t help the burn-out I was already feeling with every aspect of my life.

I had a couple of goals throughout this running journey. 

1. Finish a 5K non-stop run

2. Run 5 miles in under 1 hour

3. Finish a 5-mile nonstop run

4. Run 5 miles in under 10 minute/mile pace

5. Run a sub 30-minutes 5K

I’ve accomplished the first three fairly early on in my running journey. Since then, I’ve only gone downhill. And no, that’s not just in my head. My tracker shows that I’ve just gotten slower and slower. 

At first I blamed it on the summer months. Now that the weather has cooled, I realize the problem has always been me. My excuses and my lack of mental toughness. I just don’t have it. I can’t push myself. Everytime the going gets tough, I quit. This is never more than evident in my running. But really, it has ravaged every aspect of my life. 

When the going gets tough in my relationships, I quit. When the going gets tough in my side projects, I quit. I just don’t have the grit. I’m a lazy person. 

Yesterday was the first day that I didn’t have to do my 5 mile run since we’ve finished, which in all honesty, I should’ve gone for anyway. Or at least gone on that hike my coworker had asked if I wanted to join. But instead I was out late the night before and thought I wouldn’t want to get up early for the hike. 

It probably would’ve been a good start to my day. Instead, I woke up and decided to stay in bed for hours. Only getting up to eat and then going back to bed to watch YouTube or TikTok videos and only getting up again to make a simple dinner.

Anyone seeing this would’ve probably thought I’m depressed. I could be. But more accurately, I’m just a lazy a** bum. Sometimes–err let’s be honest here, a LOT of times– I question whether it’s okay to be this lazy. 

I want to end 2021 strong and hope to accomplish running goal #5 of running a sub 30-minute 5K. But I have so much self-doubt. What if I’m just never going to be good enough physically to run that fast? But then all the reading I’ve done says that 30-minute 5K should be doable for anyone who trains. So am I just really that physically unfit?

And of course, there are days when I’m too lazy to even keep up with the 3-day/week training plan. So I’m constantly in this vicious cycle of feeling guilty when I miss a workout yet at the same time always making excuses for not doing the workout.

Social Engagements

This month, I had a lot of social engagements (some I wanted to go to, some I was obligated to go to). You can probably tell where this story is going.

I just hate that as a fully independent adult, I still have these social obligations that I’m not strong enough to refuse. 

I was actually happy that my family decided not to do anything for Thanksgiving this year. Usually my brother will invite us for a dinner that will also include his longtime girlfriend’s family and extended family. And let me tell you, it is a room full of extroverts. Every holiday season I dread these Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday parties with them.

This year, one of my friends wanted to do a Friendsgiving at her place which I said yes to.

By some force of social obligation, I was then roped into celebrating a birthday for her husband’s cousin’s girlfriend 2 days later that cost $132 per person at a steakhouse. Mind you, steaks are not even my favorite food.

I will admit, that was my fault. I could’ve came up with an excuse or whatnot to not go, but I couldn’t think of anything at the spur of the moment.

The part that really got my blood boiling though was that one of guys in this group mentioned his birthday was coming up over the weekend only 4 days apart from this dinner.

So my friend privately messaged me to see if I wanted to celebrate his birthday by going to dinner, but I had already made plans with a different friend group that day so I said I couldn’t go.

I did feel bad that out of the 7 of us, only my friend and her husband could celebrate with him on his actual birthday.

Oh well, I thought the ordeal ended. His birthday has passed. But now, my friend is asking again if I’m free during the week to re-do his birthday with everyone else. And that just got me thinking, why are we doing this? 

It’s one thing to want to celebrate his birthday on the actual day but honestly, if it’s a different day, I’m not really sure why they didn’t think to celebrate his birthday together with the other girl’s.

Why are we doing two different expensive dinners when your birthdays are only 4 days apart? Couldn’t they have the forethought to do a joint birthday?

It’s not like it’s news to them that his birthday was coming up too. Only I didn’t know his birthday, but I’m sure everyone else already did since everyone else have been friends with each other for two decades.

Of course, in this social dilemma, I can’t exactly say what I’m thinking. “No, I don’t want to go to another dinner. I’ve gone to two dinners with you all in the span of a week and I don’t particularly want to add a third one. It’s expensive and I don’t particular like your company enough to justify this kind of spending.”

As I’m writing this, I realize that I may be being overly dramatic over this issue. It also probably stems from the fact that I had to celebrate 5 different birthdays this month (one of which I had to make that 5-6 hours drive) already so I was really over it.

And maybe I’m biased because in my other friend group, we had just celebrated a joint birthday and I always do a joint birthday with my friend in this friend group because our birthdays are also 4 days apart to be mindful of others. So I guess I’m upset that other people don’t have the forethought to do that.

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if this was a rational reason to be upset over or if I’m really making a big deal out of nothing.

Dating

I was getting grilled on my dating history and everything related to relationships during Friendsgiving which was quite unpleasant as I’m a very private person, and was really one of the main reasons I wasn’t particularly enthused to have multiple dinners with this friend group after.

It was particularly awkward when two of them were pushing for me to tell them why I didn’t want to pursue a relationship with one of the guys there that I had a bit of a flirtatious/”some” history with and I really just had to give them the PG version of “our lifestyles don’t match” when really I just want to say, “I’m not into manwh*res like him.”

The worst part was that I was quite happy with where I was in life but now they have me questioning things.

I don’t want to go into further detail because without the background story, it just won’t really make sense. To be honest, even with the background story, it probably won’t make sense since I can barely keep it straight and I know all the background.

I am considering doing a 2021 dating year in review recap style but I don’t know if I feel comfortable with it yet.

But the point is that, I just don’t think I want a relationship at all. I like my independence and I like having my own space. I’ve never been brave enough to say this in real life, but to be perfectly honest, I dread the thought of having to spend that much time with another person for the rest of my life if that makes sense.

It definitely makes me an anomaly. I can’t help but think back to high school when I hesitated on an invite to hang out and a friend made a comment, “I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t want to hang out.” 

It’s probably where my insecurity with turning down invites come from. Or feeling like I have to make an “excuse” to not go somewhere other than, I’m just not interested. 

Work

My insecurity with work has been increasing month by month. The first couple of months at this job was amazing. It really felt like a “unicorn job”. I had an amazing manager who I admired and allowed almost-full autonomy. I was given an opportunity to work on a side project that I was excited to take on in hopes that I could pivot to that role full time. 

Slowly things are starting to unravel. First, my manager left. I had a feeling I knew who would become my new manager and I was right. It was a guy that was on my team who I just don’t always see eye to eye and we always seemed to have misunderstandings even from the start.

I think he’s a hard-worker, I’ll give him that. I just don’t like that he’s a micromanager and I get this sense that we didn’t get off to a good start and that he doesn’t have full trust in me like my old manager did.

It also felt like while my old manager truly wanted me to succeed and grow in the role I wanted, this one is just trying to reel me back into his team and take me out from my side project.

I was truly hoping that I could pivot into my new role and my hope was that a new role would be created for me where I would be able to work under the manager I’m currently helping the project for.

She has previously told me on multiple occasions that she has brought up to the VP the idea of transitioning me into this role fully but the budget was not there at the time. 

I just hope that she hasn’t forgotten and hope that the option is still there, especially since by the start of 2022, if nothing changes I’m likely going to have to transition back to my role and leave this side project.

With deadlines approaching on this project, I want to do a great job and finish everything up by 2021 because the success of this project reflects greatly on me. But there is still so much to do in such little time left that I’m not sure if I can do a great job on it.

There’s also a side of me that thinks even if I do an amazing job on this and meet every deadline, where does that leave me? They may feel that once the job is done, there’s no longer any need for me and I’ll be left to transition back into my old role. So the incentive isn’t exactly there, at least not right now.

I’m also a bit anxious that notable people in the company have been leaving (including my manager) which makes me think that maybe there’s a red-flag that I’m missing and that I should also be looking for an exit strategy.

I currently work from home which I love and I cannot imagine going back to the office so that has made me somewhat passive about looking around. 

Student Debt

Student debt paid this month: $880.77

Student debt remaining: $37,438.64

I haven’t made much progress in paying down my student loans as I’m expecting my mortgage interest rate to be higher than my student loans so I’m not in any rush to pay it off. I’m just continuing my minimum payment of $880.77.

I’m also continuing to take advantage of the COVID-19 forbearance on my federal loans so I have not made any payments there since March of 2020. 

With the forbearance announced to end this year, I am thinking of making a lump sum amount in January 2022 to finish off the remaining ~$4,400 of my federal loans so I can finally close my Nelnet account.

I house every month’s debt progress from the very beginning here if you want to check out the progress so far. 

November Budget

Fixed Spending

As noted since February, my parents and I agreed that I would postpone any monthly payments to them while I am in the midst of the home-buying process. I will instead continue to save up and resume payments once the home-buying process is complete.

Other than that, my cell phone bill and Netflix make up the rest of my fixed spending.

Variable Spending

Gas – Gas spending was outrageous this month. As previously mentioned, I drove out of town pretty much every week so that was expected.

Entertainment/dining out – I have some notable entertainment spending this month. I bought an advanced parking ticket for a concert I’m going to in December which cost me over $50! Can you believe it? Just for parking.

I also signed up for a 5K run happening in 2022 since my running buddy and I realized we’ve never done any kind of race before. We are actually going as a big group of 10 so I’m not sure whether we’ll keep it more as a social run/walk or actually try for a personal best.

My dining out spending is still crazy over-budget for all the reasons I’ve mentioned earlier. Between holiday celebrations, multiple birthdays, and the fact that my running buddy and I always go out to eat after our weekly run which was doubled this month, the over-budget was expected.

Groceries – On-budget.

Shopping – It’s that time of the year. My Amazon Prime auto renewal.

Miscellaneous

Gift – We all chipped in $20 for the joint birthday of two my friends to give them a gift card each which I think is very reasonable.

Savings

To add to my upset, I was not ecstatic about the drop in the market this month which puts me further away from my $200k net worth that I was about $5k away from hitting at some point this month.

But of course, that’s out of my control. Instead, I went a little out of control in contributing to my brokerage account trying to take advantage of the “sale” with the drop in the market.

Unfortunately, the market has not recovered yet so I am currently down almost $200 from what I’ve put in. Hopefully, we will see a recovery in December.

Goals for Next Month

I owe a lot of year-end review recaps for 2021. I plan to recap my one year of running experience. I may recap my dating experience (this is tricky because it may have to span more than just this year). I also still want to do my travel recap, which I will more realistically combine into one giant 2021 travel in review.

To avoid further burn out, I plan to take a break from running at some point in 2022 but for the remainder of 2021, I really want to go all out and renew my goal of running 5k in 30 minutes before the end of the year.

Of course, last but not least I am still hoping to hit $200k net worth before the end of the year. 

I may or may not do another post before the end of the year. If this is it for 2021, it’s unfortunate that it has to end on a bad note, but I’m just keeping it real. Hoping for a better 2022!