Addendum

Ok, that was a brief meltdown, in a moment of sheer panic and frustration.

Here's how cool my life is: my sister read the last entry, apparently just after I wrote it, and she called to make sure everything was okay, and to remind me that nobody could make me do anything by 5:00.

I knew that...but as I said, I don't do well under pressure and threats - especially when they come in the middle of my afternoon at work.

And since I'm not the type to sit around singing Woe Is Me...let me finish by telling what happened after all the panic.

I called both loan places to find out exactly what I needed to do. The first place - the one I've been making payments to - told me that the loans I have with them (which include all but that one that I got the call about today) are two payments away from being out of default. Yay! They told me to make the minimum possible payment on the other loan until the rest are out of default, then I can re-consolidate, and include all the loans, or defer the first group until I can get the last loan out of default as well. And once that happens, I can go back to school. Double Yay!!

When I talked to the second place - the ones who were making all the threats - they were much nicer, and confirmed what the first place told me, except that they offered to go ahead and defer the one loan until I could get the others caught up. Which means I keep paying what I've been paying anyway, for two more months, and then I can re-consolidate and possibly get the whole mess deferred, or keep paying - at a much lower payment, hopefully - or see about getting back into school.

The school thing may still have to wait a little bit, because by the time all this happens with my student loans, I'll have a brand-new baby to take care of. But maybe next summer, maybe next fall...maybe we'll have to wait until we're sure we can afford it. But whenever we decide, I'll be able to do it. I can finally finish school.

Which means I may finally have to decide what I want to be when I grow up...

Oh yeah...and my husband's bosses? Well, they didn't just kidnap him for the day - right now they're taking him to get a 4-in-1 printer, to go with the brand-new notebook computer they got  for him (on which I'm typing right now), and they're going to fill our car up with gas. And he'll be home soon - possibly in time to watch CSI.

So all's well.

Paying for School

I don't know what to do.

I thought I was paying my student loans; the payment is just about killing me - it's taking almost half of what I make every month - but I've been paying it.

Then I get a call from someone about another loan that apparently got left out when I made the other payment arrangements. And now these people are making the same threats that I thought I'd finally put behind me. They're calling me at night, calling me at work, threatening to take my paycheck (which isn't even worth the effort they made to locate and contact me), and even though I only found out about this a few days ago, they're giving me until 5:00 today to make some kind of payment arrangement before they "resort to other actions."

I thought I was taking care of my loans - I thought I was paying all of them at once - and I can't afford to pay any more than I'm already paying.

My husband isn't home, and I really need to talk to him about this. I'm not good at these decisions; I panic, and I don't understand all the technical-sounding financial lingo that they keep repeating. I don't understand what my options really are, and I don't do well under pressure and threats. I know I've been told how to handle phone calls like this, but I don't remember. Ken would remember, and he wouldn't be panicked and unable to think clearly. I thought he would be home before I was, but he's out with his bosses - who don't live here, so when they're in town, they pretty much kidnap him, and he ends up having meetings and dinners at the most random  hours of the evening. He doesn't know when he's going to be home tonight, and I don't want to bother him with this while he's doing work stuff...but I'm scared, and confused, and I don't know what to do, and I'm afraid to make any decisions or committments without talking to him first. I don't know what to do...

I didn't even finish college! All this nightmare and I don't even have a degree to show for it, and I'm working in a retail job for next to nothing, and most of the time I really hate it. Shouldn't I get some kind of a break? Some sort of discount, for working in a crappy job with kids who are working their way through college, and knowing that I dropped out, and being ashamed when people ask me what I do for a living, or what I've been up to in the years since they saw me last?

Guess not. I hate my job. I hate that I didn't finish school. And I really hate that I'm paying more than I can afford, for things I hate already.