Why I hate being an adult

Please pay for my health care

There are many things I hate about being an adult. For instance, I hate paying bills. I also hate taking care of home repairs and maintenance. I hate going to full-service gas stations. And I hate that I’m supposed to act mature and not laugh when I hear the word “erect” or address someone named “Dick.” For that matter, it probably is not terribly mature of me to refer to our esteemed Speaker of the House of Representatives as John Boner. I’m sure I can think of others, but the one aspect of adulthood that I loathe more than anything else is health insurance. It sounds kind of mundane but if you ask me, health insurance “issues” (and in our country, of course, health insurance does not really exist without “issues”) are the number one pain-in-the-ass things of which one must take care (don’t want to end a sentence in a preposition). Of course, let us also note that NOT having health insurance can also be something of a pain-in-the-ass, so deep down, I feel very fortunate to have this complaint.

I used to be really good about making phone calls and looking into problems of this sort. That’s because I had a job where I was happy to make personal phone calls and I could count on not being interrupted when I was on the phone. Now, however, I have to make these calls from my home, in the middle of the day, when I would much rather be doing something else that feels more important. Therefore, I avoid it all cost until someone confronts me about an unpaid bill, which makes me feel shady and irresponsible.

Today, however, I was feeling pretty spunky and I thought I would attack that heap of paper on my desk, as well as the one on the floor and I guess that one on the counter, too, and maybe even that other one on the other counter. Martha did ask me the other day, “When are you going to clean up these piles of paper?” That’s rich. So, ok, true confession here, there is this woman who I talk to on a fairly regular basis who just happens to be a psychologist. I go to her office and I stay for approximately 50 minutes and I pay her employer from time to time for these sessions. Some people might call her a therapist. But not me. I just call her by her name. She knows me very well, has known me since 1995 and is very good at sorting out the jumbled thoughts in my head, which no one else in my life has been able to do thus far, including me. So… you know, I’m not proud, I don’t have a problem just admitting I’m a nut job. At least I’m trying to do something about it though, right? That’s a lot more than I can say for most people.

Miraculously, my husband’s health insurance through his employer has been covering this service for the last few years, minus my $35 co-payment. For that reason, my husband’s employer decided to switch health insurance providers as of January 1, 2011. No one likes consistency. No one likes predictability. That would be too boring. And of course, you guessed it, the new insurer is not paying for my helpful chat sessions with the psychologist-lady. Damn… Guess I have to make the phone call. The “issue” remains, as of yet, unresolved, but I called the health insurance company and I called the mental health provider and I called the behavioral health department of the health insurance company to ask about the possibility of getting the obscure and ambiguous “prior authorization.” I’m still waiting for a call back about that. And don’t get me wrong, I know my situation could be a lot worse and in reality I’m probably one of the lucky people. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I hate the phone calls, I hate groveling for my sanity, I hate continually explaining what seems very obvious to me, I hate jumping through other people’s hoops, I hate that I have to justify what I already know to be a really sound, intelligent decision on my part.

So there is folks, that’s my input for the day. When my husband comes home tonight and asks what I did today, I think I’ll just answer with a noncommittal “eh, you know, took care of shit.” Because that’s really all I did today. Because I’m a grown-up (yes, yes, fragmented, consider revising…).