Introspection

There are days I wonder why life can't be as easy for us as it is for other people.
(And, yes, I throw a pity party and stomp my feet. I'm allowed. My old debate teacher told me I could pout for five minutes before I had to shake it off an move on. This is my five minutes.)
The Man and I try to live an ethical life. We try to help people out. we go to work daily. We pay our bills. We raise our children in the best way we can.
But nothing ever comes easy.
We have been trying since October to sell our rental place. We kept it until it had served its purprose, not making any money on it, just letting a woman I thought was a friend live there and paying enough to cover the house payment and insurance.
Not only did she leave, thumbing her nose at us as she went and owing us back rent, she left trash and property and belongings and a ruined friendship in her wake.
But we pulled on our big girl panties (yes, even The Man) and moved on. We sold it within a week to a very nice man who put a down payment on it.
When we went to update the abstract, all hell broke loose and we learned that there was a problem with the deed and it would have to go through probate.
The man we'd been buying it from for ten years wasn't in any big hurry to fill out forms and take care of it (why would he be? He was still getting paid!), and his dragging of the feet has landed us at the first of February and a possible closure in the next week.
Luckily our buyer is a saint and has hung on for the long haul.
But still, we've had to climb a mountain just to see the other side on what should have been an easy experience.
Last year, we had to struggle with Bug's school and diagnosis and everything that went with it.
We had two plus years of dealing with The Man's hand and injuries.
We're still dealing with it in the form of crippling headaches due to his PTSD.
And last week, my darling baby girl was basically handed a sentence of asthma. Not that the doctor would say it for sure, but if you put her on daily nebulizations with a medication designed to stop asthma attacks and tell me we'll be using an inhaler next, that duck is quacking loud enough for me to hear.
I'm not complaining. Well, yes, I am. A little. Five minutes, remember?
I know other people have it worse with illness and death and debt and no homes or family.
I get it. My complaints are minimal in comparison.
I wouldn't trade places with them for the world.
But it would be nice to trade up and have more money and more freedom and less stress and better health.
I've grown up hearing we're never given any more burden than we can carry.
Someone must have realized I can carry a lot and still stay upright. (I'd love to know who ratted me out so I could slap them silly and ask WTH they were thinking?)
But it would be nice to not have to shoulder such a heavy burden, not to be such a pack mule, and to be able to breathe.
Selling the house will be a huge breath of fresh air.
And a load of this ass's back.