I have 25 years left to work.

I lost to the military 5 working years (during which I lost $20,000 a year in wages) before I even received the money.

$70,000 divided by 30 years divided by 12 months = $125 a month. For a 25% disability. Wow, so glad I joined the military and signed away my life.

I'd have been better off to have gone overseas and been shot. Or leveled by an IED.

Am I bitter about this? Sometimes. Yes. I am. But I try very hard to not be.

So, what did I do with the money?

Paid off the remaining $30,000 in debt I accrued during the last five years trying to survive/rehabilitate myself.

Put $2,000 into Miles (my car) so that I could give it to my 77 year old mother and stop worrying about her driving around in something she shouldn't.

Put $2,000 into my dental care.

Paid $16,000 into a car that was three years old and is now warrantied UP THE ASS.

Paid my rent for a year so I could just relax about trying to come up with that money minus an actual job.

Put $5,000 into building my own business.

Invested $10,000 into RRSP's.

How fast it goes. And how far it doesn't go.

If I'd received a pension, at 25% over 30 years, it would have been a more liveable amount of money. Their take on that - veterans just don't spend it well. Bullshit. I spent mine well. And I'm just at zero.

I'll spend the rest of my life being unable to work more than two days a week.

And it's been well established that it's 100% the military's fault.

Is the fight over?  No.

Am I getting on with my life?  Finally, yes.

I'd be a lot more upset at destroying my laptop if I didn't have an external hard drive but as it is, I still lost quite a bit of unrecoverable data. Even more galling is that for two years I had a daily online backup and last month, I had to cancel it because I could no longer afford it.

Guess when the new Toshiba arrives, that'll be one of the first orders of business.

I am glad I have enough money now to replace it and it can be written off partially through the business but still....arg. For now, my housemates have lent me one of theirs so it's nice to be back on the 'net.

After a busy week which included a visit from a friend and unloading the second of the VERY LARGE trucks into a house so full of boxes it's indescribable, I'm taking a couple of days off before getting back to business.

Regardless, a good nights sleep and I am off today to deposit it, pay off close to 30k in debt, open a business account at the local credit union, see the landlord for the office space, check in with my local advisor guy down at the employment office, buy tenant's insurance, and talk to the local tax guy about small business stuff.

I'd really rather just sit in the hot tub in the rain.

And it would be a fantastic and lovely amount of money if'n I didn't have $30,000 worth of debt that the last five years caused (and which I am still seeking compensation for).

Regardless, I can pay everything off, fix lovely Miles (my car) and ship it over to MaJen before her poor thing kicks the bucket, get a new-er car with better gas mileage for myself, some dental work, prepay my rent for a year to allieviate some of the "whatifIdon'tmakeanymoney howwillIpaytherent fear, and I will actually have enough money left over to invest some for the actual future AND seed money to start my business.

Up to this point the thought has always been in the back of my mind that this day just wouldn't come and I've almost been okay with that.

But now?  Now I'm just scared spitless.

Two observations so far this week.

One, I took Miles (my car) into get his Air Care testing. This is an emissions test that doesn't exist on the island but has been standard in the greater Vancouver (and Fraser Valley, apparantly) for the last how-ever-many years. They test your car and if it doesn't meet the standards then you have to have it fixed and retested within 6 months. God knows where I would have gotten the money for that if my wonder boy hadn't passed but I was told to get it done a couple months ago and I get the feeling that if I'd been pulled over there would have been fines and stuff. I was worried about Miles, frankly, cause he's 17 years old but it's all worked out alright. Anyways, they put you in this little glass walled cubicle while they test the car so you can watch and whilst hanging out in there I perused the helpful little brochures on the wall. You know, standard stuff like "What do I do if my car fails?" The one that caught my eye and gave me a little giggle was entitled, "Why we cannot test your smoking car."

Two, it is really sort of cruel to call me three weeks after my mother has had a mastectomy and tell me that the radiologist would like me to go BACK and have some more pictures taken after my mammogram last week. Obviously, they found something a little weird and I could give in to extreme paranoia, in fact, I WOULD, except that I've had three breast surgeries and so I know that things are a bit f'd up in there. In instances like these I try to keep in mind what the last surgeon said to me, "Breasts are made up of breast tissue and fat. You don't have either of these. You're all cyst so during this surgery we've just carved the cysts into a breast-like shape. However, it's likely they will continue to grow as they have in the past, so.... see you in 10 years." Yes, yes, he did say that. Funny man.

Kinda gross but an infinitely better way of looking at it then immediately freaking out. Cause, yanno, my 'freaking out' dance card is already quite full these days, thankyouverymuch.