Independence

One of the things James always says that he loves about me is that I'm an independent woman. Every time the Ne-Yo song Miss Independent comes on he says, "Just like you!" When the guys that were working for him commented on James being worried about the government shutdown because his "wife probably doesn't work," he replied, "Pshh, my sugah momma works, fool!" (Okay, maybe that wasn't his exact response, but it was something along those lines). And it's not uncommon for me to complain about work at the end of a long day and get the response, "I'm married to such a hard working woman." Ahh, it's nice to be appreciated even if I am currently being a slacker and blogging instead of auditing. Meh.

Aaaanyway, I don't really consider myself all that independent. I have my own car...that my parents paid for 100%. I went to an amazing college and got a great education...that my parents shelled out tons of dough for. Up until four months ago I didn't even pay for my own car insurance. Actually, I still don't. James pays for it. It's true that I have held down a great job for three years...but my dad got me the job basically by calling up my boss and telling him he had a semi-intelligent daughter who had taken an accounting class or two and had recently graduated from college. I have a sneaking suspicion that he also threw in the fact that I'm tall and blonde because my boss is kinda pervy and would probably hire based on that alone.

So yes, I've had a job and paid all of my own bills (with the exception of cell phone for a while there and car insurance) and rent since graduation three years ago. I guess for the most part that makes me an independent woman. But seriously, it's like pulling teeth for me to do something as simple as get an oil change. Also, anything that requires an official looking document terrifies me and usually results in me putting off dealing with it until the document is lost, then crossing my fingers that the issue mentioned in document will disappear as well. I do this even more when I have someone to depend on to take care of it for me. Like James. Ever since we've met he has taken care of everything car related and now that we have a joint bank account he takes care of all the bills. What a weight off my shoulders!! It's just sooo nice to have someone to do all that annoying stuff for you. I love that I can count on him and he'll take care of it. Or at least file it away in a logical place so I can find whatever it is when dealing with it is finally unavoidable.

I still have a job and pay half of everything...but I think I am losing my sense of being independent...which scares me because in instances like now where James is gone for a month, there are some things that I can't help but deal with myself. Two days ago I spent the evening hacking into James' email account trying to figure out what company our car insurance was through so that I could get my new last name on the insurance card. It took about an hour and lots of sounding pretty retarded on the phone with customer service, but I finally got it accomplished. Independently. The next day I had to go to AAA to get my car put into my new name and to take my dad off the title. Of course, this never would have gotten done if my dad hadn't signed the paper work, handed it to me, paid for my AAA membership, and told me exactly what to do. And even then, I "lost" the paperwork, only to find out that James had filed it away nicely in my little file-box in a folder titled "vehicle." He's so smart :) Then after all this I finaaaally went to base with my new insurance card and my new registration from AAA and got a sticker on my car so I can get on base by myself. Also known as: independently. Whew, it was a doozy of a couple of days, but when I told James all that I had done, I knew he was proud of me for finally doing something by myself for once. I believe his exact response was, "What's this? I leave for a month and you become all productive!" Yes, that's right. When I have no choice, I can actually get a thing or two accomplished on my own.

All this has kind of been a wake up call. I don't want to be that person who becomes soooo dependent on her husband that she can't even make a dentist appointment on her own or something. And since James likes that I am an independent woman so much (Possibly because it means I buy him things. Often.) I'm going to go ahead and make a real effort to pull my own weight in our household from now on. Time to put Ne-Yo on repeat.