Dear State Farm,

it’s been a minute since i’ve been this hot.

ok. well, i got pretty toasty last october towards the property management at my last place over no heat. but it’s been a few months at least.

state farm has decidedly ruined that streak.

look, i don’t like to be mean to people. there’s a mean, MEAN, severely toxic, very mean little beastie at my core. if she comes out, it’s not good. i try to keep her nice and mellow and tucked in her cave with a blanket and snackies and plenty of cannabis. a nice smoke haze helps keep some of the assholery hidden and takes the edges off the assholery that does break through the thiiiiiiiiiick tch cloud.

state farm broke through my nice hazy cloud and i’m LIT.

background: i’ve had state farm FOREVER. there was a small blip when i was married and they couldn’t insure the ex where i had to switch to progressive (THE WORST) but since at least 2004 i’ve been bff with jake.

home, life, auto. bundle discount. good driver discount. cool.

had a door to door salesman injury when i owned my home around 2012. called state farm once and they handled the whole thing.

had a parked car get totaled by a hit and run on a residential street around 2016. called state farm once and they sent me a check.

never, NEVER had an issue with my life insurance. just. had it.

like a good neighbor, state farm was there and we didn’t talk to each other. 

the BEST type of insurance. like politics used to be: just there working in the background, i never had to think about it.

oh, how i miss those days.

a few weeks ago i got a message from my agent: my former agent had retired, was my life insurance doing everything it needed to do, why don’t i pop by the office, meet the new agent, make sure my policies were doing what they need to do.

sure. fine. whatever. i have no idea what life insurance is “supposed to do” besides pay out when you kick off, but sure.

scheduled as late in the afternoon as i could, left work early, headed to the appointment.

same office. haven’t been there in person since 2010ish. new agent. apparently she took over for her father, the former agent, who retired. cool. i had no issue with him. i dig it. family business. cool.

NOPE.

first thing when she introduced herself:

“...so, you work at the bookstore? i’ve noticed recently they have…a lot…they have a lot of gay books.”

SAID IN A WAY THAT CLEARLY INDICATES SHE IS LESS THAN EXCITED WITH OUR LARGE SELECTION OF GAY BOOKS.

you know the white bitch karen tone.

MY GAY ASS, clocking it immediately: YUP. we sure do. my buyers work really hard to make sure we have a wide, diverse selection of books for all our customers. but yes, we are very proud of our LGBTQIA+ selection, especially in a time when a lot of those books are being banned or challenged. we like to have them available for people coming to town from places where they might not be able to get them. we like to have them available for people in our community that need to be seen; representation matters. we’re very proud of our selection and we’ve had so many customers from all over the world tell us how much they love it and they wish they had an inclusive bookstore near them. (ALL TRUE THINGS).

lumpy sack of warm mayonnaise: “oh, well i guess that’s ok.”

YOU. GUESS. THAT’S. OKAY????

who in the ever loving fuck asked you??

not a great start, but we all know people like this exist, especially in this town. one small section of town turned purple in the last election (guess where i live and work), the rest is VERY red, we know this. just shake it off.

we sit down in her office. she’s incompetent at best trying to navigate her computer programs. girl, this is literally your job. how are you so bad at this? sure. computers are difficult at times, but this was just pure incompetence. no glitches, no freezes, no restarts, just pure incompetence and inability to navigate screens.

*eye twitch*

then the questions start:

shapeless, colorless sack of seven seasons ago ann taylor sadness: oh, 30 is young for life insurance. why did you get life insurance so young?

me: i don’t know. probably for the home/life/auto bundle discount.

brassy, choppy, unevenly cut, bad blonde bob: well that seems really young. most people aren’t thinking about insurance that young.

me: i honestly don’t remember. that was 15 years ago. i’ve just kinda always had it i guess.

round-as-she-is-tall leaves the room to get something off the printer, i start doing math and trying to figure out why DID i get insurance at 30?

OH. THAT’S WHEN EVERYONE DIED.

double digit deaths between 2009 and 2010. that’s right. everyone was dying and insurance seemed like a good idea.

homophobic hippo tromps back in the room and i tell her i figured it out: all the death.

lady who probably puts raisins in potato salad: oh, that’s too bad. what happened?

me: tries to quickly explains: child birth, TBI, suicide, house fire, cancer, drug overdose, a lot of things. it was a pretty rough year. but the insurance pay out from my brother and dad helped with things and it seemed like a good idea, so i got my own life insurance (and policies for my kids). 

sad sack susan: *follows up with so. many. unnecessary. questions.*

eventually she convinces me to re-up my life insurance policy 5 years early. seems logical: get it done before 50 and it should be smooth sailing for another 20 years. same cost, new policy, sure. whatever.

some of you may remember this story from the melt down it caused when i realized i have to figure out what to do for the next 20 years. i didn’t plan on making it to 45 and now i have to think about 65??

but i answer all the questions, policy goes in for review, finish up the appointment, get ready to leave and she drops:

“well, it was so nice meeting you today. i hope you’re able to get some counseling soon and deal with some of the unresolved trauma from all the deaths.”

BITCH.

WHAT.

DID.

YOU.

JUST.

SAY.

TO.

ME??

YOU demanded detailed answers to questions i tried to politely vaguely answer because it was none of your fucking business. YOU kept asking, demanding to know. i tried to gloss over it as much as possible BUT YOU KEPT ASKING. and sure, i teared up for a few second because it was out of the blue and i wasn’t prepared to go IN DEPTH about things from 16 years ago, but sure, my issues with unresolved trauma.

FUCK YOU.

YOU LUMPY, CRUSTY, LEFT OUT IN THE SUN, NO PERSONALITY, BASIC WHITE CUNT BOB, TACKILY CLOTHED SACK OF WARM MAYONNAYSE.

what a fucking inappropriate parting shot. YOU dug, then you want to get “concerned” after YOU went poking around somewhere you never should have been?

you absolute fucking diseased mad cow.

fuck you all the way to BFE and back with a rusty fork.

that should have been it.

i should have started shopping for a new insurance agent then.

but whatever. i figured it would be another 15 years before i had to go into the office again for anything. i could go back to forgetting insurance existed.

or so i thought.

this week i got an email notice that the new life insurance policy had been approved, but there’s amendments to the policy i signed in office. then i got a call: she wanted to discuss the changes and have me stop by to sign and approve the increased cost.

the changes are an additional $20 PER MONTH because of:

1. height/weight

2. drug use (i openly talk about cannabis use because it’s a legal state)

i’m. fucking. livid.

december of 2021 my state farm bill was $78.82. same 3 policies. same car. old apartment.

as of this month, my bill is $167.13.

same 2014 car. no claims. no accidents. no tickets. driving less miles monthly/annually.

better apartment: newer construction, fewer units, cinder block materials, less crime, better EMS response time. again, no claims. no accidents. no issues. 

my height and weight are BETTER than when i signed the original policy. well, height is the same. weight is better.

and drug use? REALLY? do you *REALLY* want to go there?

a government tested, highly regulated, completely LEGAL product sold over the counter in stores with no prescription needed? that “drug” is the one you have a problem with?

REALLY??

how about we talk about all the doctor prescribed, insurance approval required, limited access, controlled substance medications i had shoved down my throat after all the deaths that made me want to add my own death to the list? the countless anti-depressants and birth controls doctors put me on that sky rocketed my suicidal ideations? how about we talk about that, LIFE INSURANCE. those drugs are ok? the drugs that almost made you pay out a $100k policy countless times? THOSE DRUGS ARE OK?

but the legal, natural, safe plant that i consume, the product that safely helps me treat my AUTISM (not depression), that one you have issue with? the one that has made me excited to be alive again? THAT ONE is a problem?

so, cunty mccunterson called me yesterday: “i’ll try to talk to them and see what i can do.”

BITCH SAYS THIS LIKE SHE’S DOING ME A FAVOR.

you magnificent waste of humanity, YOU ARE THE ONE THAT CONVINCED ME TO CHANGE MY POLICY EARLY.

YOU ARE THE ONE THAT FUCKED THIS UP. i could have kept my other policy in place *JUST FINE* for another 5 years. but you convinced me this was a good idea, save a few dollars, lock it in til 65.

FUCK YOU.

FUCKITY FUCKING FUCK YOU.

i already have an email out to the local gay chamber of commerce and i will be finding a new rainbow family friendly agent ASAP.

fuck i’m mad.

AND WHO WANTS TO SPEND THIS MUCH ENERGY BEING MAD ABOUT FUCKING INSURANCE??

fucking insurance.

i hope all her overly stressed thigh seams all give out on her in the middle of a crowded grocery store. i hope all her shoes cause blisters forever. i hope her office is always cold and she never has a sweater. i hope her printer jams every third page and her toner smears on every document. i hope her computer crashes every time she asks an inappropriate invasive question. i hope she gets flat tires when there’s no roadside assistance. i hope every gas station is 5 miles too far and she runs out on the side of the road at the most inconvenient time possible.

fucking insurance.

 

...and then...

well, they’re not innocent, but i’ll change their names anyway.

this story isn’t even about them. it’s about me. because, well, it’s about time i became the main character in my own damn story.

as egotistical and narcissistic as that feels.

ANYWAY

last july, i had the cutest little romantic conundrum, a quaint little triangle as it were:

the recently graduated/unemployed, slightly roguish navy veteran who cooked and took me on adventures?

or

the kind, generous, very gentlemanly millionaire who has been a dear friend for 10+ years and could provide the world?

PLOT TWIST

i didn’t choose either of them.

well, IN THE END, i didn’t choose either of them. the first one, you can read the blogs. the second one, well, it turns out the item is not available and there is no expected restocking date.

so, in the end, for them at least.

let’s take a long little loop back to where we are:

time travel back to the 2012-2017ish era with me. i was working for the mechanical/electrical firm. we had a client job: completely rework an equestrian arena to turn it into a grow farm. pot legalized in 2012, farms were going crazy popping up everywhere, everyone needed electricians to wire farms and clean rooms and stores. BIG job. big. turning a horse stable into a pot farm. biiiiiig bill.

that dude dipped on. or tried to at least.

my boss at the time loved difficult clients. he LOVED the people screaming at me on the phone. he loved the people that tried not to pay their bills. he lived for angry people. he’s also a stand up comedian and those clients provided endless material. it all works out in the end.

so, the boss makes a deal with no pay dude: small, manageable weekly payments until it’s paid off.

so, WEEKLY, i received a check in the mail.

literal checks.

now, in the beginning of the legalization world, it was a lot, A LOT of the boomer generation. legit, they knew everything about pot and business. but, they are old school. i mean, OLD SCHOOL

there’s a weird thing with the boomer (and older) generation that when they mail checks, physical checks for payment, they don’t trust the mail and they wrap the check in a sheet of paper and put it in the (secure) envelope and mail the payment to you.

the literal and proverbial check in the mail.

weekly checks. WEEKLY. with a piece of paper wrapped around it for safety.

may god bless the boomers, the rest of us are befuddled by them.

i, a giant nerd, cannot waste a perfectly fine piece of blank paper. it’s only job was to wrap around a check and keep ner-do-well’s from stealing information from the mail. mission accomplished, but it doesn’t deserve to just be thrown away. 

in no time i had a STACK of tri-folded papers. all different colors, blue, yellow, white. some legal size, some note sides, some top tear, some spiral bound.

what on earth did i save them for?

well, an idea came to me: a collection of short stories, each limited to one page, each either starting or ending with …and then…

…and then we joined the story already in progress

we leave the heroine at the clutching climax and then…

you get the idea.

now, pivot one degree to the left: the recent life insurance review and renewal.

what DO the next 20 years look like? what do i want the next chapter to be? what energy am i taking forward? what energy am i leaving behind?

i was writing in my journal working out bits of the break up, bits about the friendship, deciding neither was really a great fit for me.

i asked myself: what kind of ending is it when the lead female doesn’t choose the rogue or the gentleman but instead chooses herself for the next 20 years?

and it was literally the bottom of the page in my journal, and at the top of the new page i asked…or is this a beginning?

which side of the …and then… am i on?

for the two male characters, this is the: and then…. ending for them.

she released them, each unto their own, and then…

i don’t know where their stories go. it’s up to them. they get to choose their own and then…

for me, i think, it’s looking like a beginning

…and then she set off to conquer the world

…and then she discovered her own company to be the most rewarding and lived happily ever after

…and then she realized her ideas and her stories are worth being shared

…and then she stepped into the great unknown to do whatever the fuck she wanted

please and thank you

i want to buy an abandoned funeral home.

it’s old and gutted and PERFECT.

isn’t it beautiful?

look at it

BUT LOOK AT IT.

oh, wait...

slightly better...

 

there. the heyday. 

 

it’s perfect.

i want it so bad.

does anyone have a spare 1.2 million to buy and another 1.5 to rehab? i have the plans already in my head. i was able to walk through the building a few years ago and I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

picture this:

main floor:

front left door, former gothic cathedral: coffee shop (with a drive thru)

central 2 doors: bookstore

front right door: plant shop

mezzanine: business offices

upstairs: 7 apartment units, 2 with built in fireplaces (existing) and skylights (existing). artists in residence for the bookstore downstairs, traveling authors on book tour, writing/intern program with housing, SO MANY OPTIONS.

basement: speakeasy with fireplace (2 existing), partial or full restaurant with a custom wine bar with cold storage (built in stone cold storage, former casket storage)

back storage building: outdoor summer events, summer kids writing camps, community garden, book fairs, parking lot sales

ugh.

i want it so bad.

i have my venmo handle available if anyone wants to boop me a few million, please and thank you.

bigger picture

well, here we are three weeks down the road and oh, the lessons we have learned.

i’ve been doing the work. sitting with the ugly thoughts. working through all the emotions- the anger, the frustration, the disappointment, the annoyance, the embarrassment, the disgust, the shame.

i forget that learning is a process and you don’t just KNOW all the things, and some lessons have to be learned more than once.

it doesn’t do any good to be so mean to myself. to blame, be frustrated, be disappointed. i’m working on it.

this week’s lessons are more tangential, which i think means healing is happening. life has stepped back in to remind me there’s PLENTY of other shitty stuff to focus on, i don’t have to just dip into the breakup well.

thanks for that, i guess?

on monday, i had a seemingly innocuous appointment with my insurance agent to discuss my life insurance and see if any adjustments needed to be made. i don’t know what those words mean. is my life insurance is supposed to DO something? not just be an oh shit back up plan? i had no idea what to expect. life insurance. it’s just a thing you have; part of the state farm package deal: home, life, auto. get those stacked discounts. good driver: check. no more good student, that’s long since gone, so the only other thing is multi plan. whatever. i don’t care. sure. i’ll do an appointment.

i hadn’t met this insurance agent yet. the one i signed up with 20 years ago has since retired and this new gal took over his practice. spoiler alert: father/daughter. she took over her dad’s practice. cool beans. i dig it.generational. in the family. nifty.

so. appointment. i get there. we sit down at her desk. she has my policies up on the screen; life insurance. 20 year term policy, started 2010 at age 30.

yup. that looks like what i pay for every month. ok. and?

and she starts asking questions.

a term policy?

yup.

do you know what that is?

ummm…life insurance?

so she explains the difference between term and whatever the other one is: term means you’re basically renting life insurance for a set chunk of time. if it pays out, it pays out. if it expires, well, you should have died faster i guess. i had a 20 year term. 5 years left on it.

 

ok. and?

her: well, what made you get a 20 year term policy at age 30?

me: ummmm…fuck if i know. the discount? home, life, auto?

her: it’s an unusual age to get a term policy.

me: huh. i don’t know.

her: *leaves the room for a minute*

me: why WOULD i have picked then for life insurance? i moved to spokane a few years before, so it wasn’t that. i don’t know..when did i turn 30? ummm….2010. oh, OH. OH YEAH.

oh yeah. between 2009 and 2010 was ALL. THE. DEATH.

all the death.

oh. yeah. yup. that tracks. that would be why i got life insurance then.

fuck.

FUCK. cool. well. that was a punch in the face i wasn’t expecting.

her: *comes back in the room*

me: oh, i figured it out. that was the year everyone died, so i made sure to get insurance to protect my kids. guess i didn’t really think about making it this long.

her: oh, yeah, that would be a reason why.

we finish all the paper work, renew for another 20 years. i now have a term policy that covers me til i’m 65.

me: 65 huh? well. i didn’t plan on making it this far, i guess i’ll have to figure out 65 now.

her: why didn’t you think you’d make it this far?

me: i was a single mom of 2 boys for 20 years. the number one killer of women is their domestic partner. i escaped one of those once, think i just avoided another one of those. and being a single female, and a single parent isn’t great odds. and also, just…when you lose 10+ people in a year…it just…

her: well, you made it!

me: well, i guess i did. huh. 

one more parting shot before i left, she was like: “it looks like you still have a lot of grief to work through…”

REALLY BITCH? you’re in here ripping off scabs and poking around old wounds, completely unexpectedly, catching me completely off guard, zero warning, and then you have the gall to say it looks like i have grief work to do? 

WELL. THEN.

what an uncalled for and unexpected punch in the face on a monday afternoon.

HEY, REMEMBER WHEN EVERYONE DIED AND SO YOU GOT INSURANCE IN CASE YOU DID TOO?

also, remember all the years you really didn’t think you were going to make it? when it really didn’t matter if you made it to another day? when it didn’t concern you to think about getting hit by a bus? well, we had a good run.

but we did it.

side note: i really do need to start carrying around a mouse in my pocket as much as i reference myself as “we.”

15 years into a life insurance policy. renewed for another 20. where the hell did 15 years go?

no, but really, WHERE DID THE LAST 15 YEARS GO?

the message of: “look at the bigger picture” has come up a few times in the last few days.

what do you mean bigger picture? what does bigger picture even mean? this is a dumb message. i don’t get it. bigger picture. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?

bigger picture thinking: also thought of as long term goals, a guiding light or principal.

oh. well, when you put it like that…i mean…but like…what does that even DO??

big picture thinking helps regulate negative self talk, lessen fight or flight response, and lessens hostility and aggression when provoked. thinking about the bigger picture/long term goal helps relieve the stress and negativity of the moment to focus on the overall affect.

WELL WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT.

where did the last 15 years go? a lot of survival mode. a lot of just getting by. a lot of just duck and cover.

what do the next 15 years look like? what is the bigger picture?

look at the last 3 weeks: how does that frustration and disappointment look 15 years from now? i can take the lesson of knowing that it taught me to be more rigid about my boundaries. expect more from how i let people treat me. call myself on shitty decisions and listen to my intuition sooner. be more careful with my resources to reduce feelings of disappointment and feelings of being taken advantage of.

look at a bigger picture from a different perspective: my dad was 55 when he passed and he had been happily married to his third wife for 10 years. that means he was 45 when he got married again. at 45 he still believed in love and possibility after 2 divorces. at 45 he found the GOOD match and was happy. they were building a great life together in a nice home with good friends.

45 is still plenty of time to start over. to find the good chapters. to still have hope and plan for the future.

i may not have planned on making it to 45. i may not have planned on outliving a term life insurance policy. i may not have planned on a shitty break up reminding me who i am and what my worth is, but here we are.