Sometimes I am paralyzed over one very specific task.
It's usually a money related thing.
A bill I need to pay in installments because I don't have the lump sum (medical shit),
A debt I am overwhelmed by and need to lower my monthly payments on (student loan shit),
An impending expense I have no desire to incur but must in order to continue as a functioning adult member of society and caretaker of a child (any type of repairs).
These things are literally heart freezingly stressful for me because deep deep down, I believe that the fact that I find them necessary and unhappy making is a symptom of the terrible life I am leading.
Honestly, if you wanted to go to the source of pretty much all of my anxiety other than fear of death or injury to my loved ones it's all rooted in this terrible certainty that I am doing my whole damn life wrong.
Do you ever feel like this?
Like, obviously a decent person would have met all her deadlines!
This decent person has a savings account for her son, a retirement fund that both she and her husband contribute to, and yet another account in which they are saving for the down payment on a house.
This decent person doesn't feel a hand squeeze her lungs when she sees that the mail has come.
She doesn't mind ordering checks or setting up her bills for automatic payments because she'll never overdraw her account.
This is the person I believe I should be, and I really really want to be her.
I want to be her, and I have to believe that I will be her at some point,
but I'm not her right now, and because I'm not, I am constantly sizzling with fear.
It sucks too, because I hate money.
I hate its importance, the materialism, malcontent, and greed it inspires.
I hate that as soon as I got to my thirties everyone asked me when we were going to buy a house.
And I actually don't give a shit about owning a house.
You can't take it with you!
I want to scream.
Why bother tying yourself to a piece of property that will only rob you of any extraneous funds you put aside for the traveling you wanted to do in your old age?
And smart people, real grown ups, people nothing like me, have answers for all these questions.
Answers that begin with equity and end with 'DON'T YOU WANT TO LEAVE YOUR CHILDREN WITH ANYTHING?'
And yeah...I do...
but I would much rather leave them with memories than a bunch of stuff they have to figure out how to either get rid of, sell, or store after I die.
Why is it so difficult to convince people that I don't want THINGS?
I would much rather go out to a meal with six of my closest friends than get a necklace that cost as much as that dinner.
I would rather take a trip than invest in an upgraded vehicle.
I would rather splurge on the vacation, the boat ride, the road trip, and anything other experience that I can lie in bed and relive over and over again in my mind.
When I am dying, I won't be lying there fondly recalling all my stocks and bonds. I won't be happily going over how many clocks I collected or how, the day before my stroke, I finally got that diamond tennis bracelet I was coveting.
I will be lost in the memories of the meals laughed over until midnight, the embrace of my loved ones in an airport after a long journey, the sunrises over multicolored oceans, the breathless, weightless feeling of being in a foreign country and trying to memorize how everything feels and looks even though you know it's impossible.
So here I am, struggling, like everyone else, to equate my idea of a well lived life, with taking care of my family and staying secure, so there's food on the table between vacations, doctor's appointments and vaccines before summer adventures, and electricity pumping into my home, so that on a sick day, my kid and I can curl up and watch ET for the millionth time.
It's odd, but I feel better writing that all down.
My Dad once told me that his goal was to die owing a million dollars.
He's in his seventies now, and he laments that he'll probably not get there.
I laugh at him, but I silently agree.
Fuck it.
I wanna dance!
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