Being broke sucks: not a proper bleg, just a brief grownup whining.

Although officially employed now, a superior state of being in so many ways to the last two years, I'm still a long way from being anything better than financially broke, and the family is still bleeding it faster than I can make it.  (The bleed rate is just a lot slower now.)

One of the greatest frustrations of that greater mess is that my curtailment of shooting activities has been nearly absolute:  hell, even my basic airgunnery is sharply limited by funds.  I try to take some solace in the memory that my own father had a long, unwanted gunnery hiatus of his own, and between that and the knowledge that this-too-shall-pass, I've been able to keep an only mildly irritable peace with my present reality.

But then the damn SHOT show comes around and torques me around.

This makes little sense, really.  SHOT is about the industry and marketing, and anyone who knows my personality and preferences will recognize pretty readily that I am completely uninterested in most of what everyone else comes back crooning about.  Even the few exceptions that do pique my interest, I nearly always see either as the basis of a refinement project, or I see the niche in some completely different way than everyone else does.

It's not that, anyway.  Really it's the "because-I-can-ness" of it all.  Somehow, to me, another SHOT means people are still at it;  I may roll eyes at what I'd call silliness, but still, I must, and do, admire them there doing it.  

"Because-I-can", when you can't, is wistful and frustrating.  It takes all the fun out of having a laugh at what you could do, but choose not to.

Poo.  I miss it.

Okay, whine over.  Drink water, carry on.  (And, truly, it is just whining.  Despite all the struggling, we are having a great time with the younglets these days, and I am fully aware of how lucky I am to have that. :-)