Money
What is this shame? What is this shame that I feel in my inadequacy in approaching my own finances? What is that sense of inadequacy made of? It used to be so clear cut. Just numbers that add up to another number at the bottom of a page. Money coming in, money going out.
I’ve been proud of how frugal I can be. I’ve been proud of how I have succeeded in making do in difficult times. My kids and I got through it when the business was doing poorly and . . .here comes the resentment. . . the resentment about how the money was spent so lavishly by some members of the family when I could barely buy clothes for the kids or food for all of us. . . I was the good wife. I have always been the good wife, the good daughter, the good friend. . . now I am just being an asshole in perpetuating my own neuroses. . . I have no one to blame anymore.
Why can’t I just look at those bills, make simple categories; OK, so what if you can’t pay them all. Then you find a solution. But this has been going on for so long. . . and I will have to claim my own part of the responsibility. Cleanse, cleanse, cleanse. . . your faultedness is OK. . but you have to look at it. Why is there shame in being poor? I guess it’s not shame in being poor, but for a long time, there has been pride in having the ability to make it against the odds. Now that it is all up to me, I am scared that I might not be able to do it. I am so scared that I don’t approach the implicit problems, the little decisions. . . why do they feel so huge? Why does each bill feel like such a judgment?
Dig in. . . dig in. . . as I dig into my bills I am digging into my own sense of lack. I am pulling at that tight ball that I have in my left kidney. . . I can feel the poison of the old lactic acid or whatever it is your muscles store when they have been tight for too long. . . old old brackish energy that has been holding back the tide of support, emotional or financial. . . don’t take care of me, my Lord, I am not worth it. I have been given more than my share for too long. I am just me. Why do I deserve this bounty? What about those people over there who can’t eat? Why do I deserve to live? Why do I deserve to be loved?
Gets complicated. It’s just a stack of bills, Suzie.
But this stack of bills says everything about what I have decided about my life. I am worth a person who lives in a house, buys electricity, buys oil, buys food, buys clothing, buys the extras like books and computers and internet access. Why am I worth all of that? Why am I worth the education that I was given? Why am I worth the family that I was given? How do I fit into those rows and columns of this little spreadsheet? What numbers apply to me?
I feel shorn by the categories. . . limited. . . the same way I feel limited by words, labels. . . but Suzie, this is just a part of the same lines and definitions of what is now in this life. It is just a game. Just a dance. Let it go. Open up that bill and compare the numbers. You don’t have to be limited by it. But you can’t hold onto it. Take it as a part of the flow, a part of the succession of moments that make up the flow. . . the dance. . . the rhythm of the song. . .
Here it goes. . . wish me luck, friends.
tagged: abundance, love, money, support
