Week Thirty-Nine: Winning 200 Million Dollars
Last weekend, riding on the landslide of feeling stressed out, directionless, and altogether a Picasso-like version of myself, practically unrecognizable in my worry, I took a last minute road trip with my mother and my aunt to my pseudo hometown: St. Joseph, Missouri.
Though I was born in the "Show Me" state, I have never considered myself anything other than a Colorado native having moved here when I was three years old. Going back to my "hometown" felt less like going home and more like traveling through the lens of possibility. Who would I have I become if I'd grown up there instead of in Loveland?
It was my mother's 35th high school reunion, a foray into reminiscing about her life before losing her mom (my grandma), long before marrying her now husband, a couple of short years prior to marrying too young to my biological father, and looking back on how time and people and life changes you.**
Nostalgia has a way of coloring your old life in golden hues, making those years look bigger and better than they were, the warmth of seemingly happier times simmering low in your belly, as though your memories are an old family recipe. Always comforting, always welcome, always the long-forgotten smell of home which is difficult to replicate.
The weekend was filled with these story-filled travels. My mother driving me and Aunt Sandy around St. Joe, pointing out apartments that she and my dad lived in, their previous squalor now wrapped in a sort of happy reverie; detailing some of the intimate exploits of her youth in thankfully vague detail; musing over the drama of her high school days in amusement, remembering how the problems of that time felt bigger and more important than anything else in her life.
Things always feel more important than they are in the moment. Sometimes, I get stuck in the cycle of wishing I had more. More time, more love to give, more money, more talent, more drive, more anything. I couldn't possibly be alone in wanting to have a different life on the days when I feel stuck or alone. I couldn't possibly.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a dream that I won the lottery. Not just some paltry small fish prize like fifty grand but the big buckaroos, somewhere in the vicinity of 200 million dollars. It seems reasonable to me that my brain conjured up this idea of being rich and worry free as a way of coping with my absolute lack of both. Throughout my entire adult life, I've struggled with money. I know we've talked about this before but it always seems to be amplified, worsened everytime we talk about it. I dreamt about paying off all of the debt for my friends and family, setting up my nephews for college, donating buckets and buckets of money to charity, doing all of the the things that I'm certain I won't ever get to do in my one little, itty bitty life: go back to school, buy a house, travel to some exotic foreign land to discover myself, pull a Harper Lee and spend a full year writing.
Recently, I had the privilege of going out with this new person, whose name I won't mention for right now. Though admittedly I was less than keen on going at first, still resigned that dating is pointless and I'm probably going to be single forever and how is it entirely too much work just to make myself not seem as boring as I really am, this person actually managed to fully and wholly charm me. We met up for a drink late on Wednesday and spent about two and a half hours talking about anything and everything under the sun. It was delightful. Among the many subjects that we covered, one of them was how Americans seem to operate under the "millionaires in waiting" mentality (he's from another country, by the by). He said that after having been here for a while, Americans always seem to be waiting for the next big thing, that their break is just around the corner, and that a life of ease and luxury is just out of reach because we red-white-and-blue blooded Americans are entitled to such. It's the American dream to want it all: the house, the career, the loving partner.
It's not particularly realistic, is it? I think that's part of the draw for things like the lottery or casinos. You get folks to believe that their turn is next, that changing their lives is only two dollars away on some lotto ticket, and that once that happens, it'll be easy sailing from there on out. But that's not really how it works. Success, by traditional standards, looks a lot more like privilege. While it's true that some folks can work hard and make something for themselves, the reality of living here is that the majority of people never leave the financial bracket they're born into. And my generation has an even bigger obstacle to overcome because the economy we were handed is not only severely broken but seemingly ages and ages away from repair, if at all. How can I even think about buying a house when my credit is abysmal at best and there are more occasions than not where I have twenty dollars to my name before my next payday?
How does anyone do it?
In an honest attempt to cross off at least one more thing from my list this year, I'm on my third book in the last month, "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed. It's a nonfiction novel about the authors descent into literal and figurative madness, trying to navigate her life without her mother who passed away from cancer and without her devoted husband, who she has managed to push away in a drug fueled self destruction, all while hiking completely and utterly unprepared on the 1100 mile Pacific Crest Trail. It was made into a movie some time ago starring Reese Witherspoon (I'm pretty sure! Let me IMDB it. Yes, Reese Witherspoon. Came out in 2014).
There's something alluring about the fantasy of having an experience that will fundamentally change your life, the zest of which sits on your tongue, sweet and wholly pleasurable. It's nice to dream about having a new life, a better life, a bigger life - whether that's winning the lottery or making the insane choice to hike 1100 miles with no experience or picking up and moving somewhere else (say Seattle...) to start over. But it's not pragmatic. Life is here and it's now and sometimes it sucks beyond the telling of it.
But it is what we make of it, right?
Easier said than done.
If I could choose to be happy all of the time, I would. If I could suddenly conjure the magical ability to not be beholden to my financial obligations and instead organize my life around what I can do rather than what I have to, I would. But that's not the way it works. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to figure all that out eventually.
Perhaps when I'm my mothers age (though I've maintained for quite some time that she's still twenty-nine and holding), I'll be able to look back on this time with yearning, daydreaming of the days when my downtime was filled with reading books and listening to music because I don't have a TV, reminiscing about playing with my dog at the park down the street, cooking all manner of hodgepodge meals because sometimes eating at all means making the best of what you have on hand.
Until then, I'll just have to operate in the ways that I know I can: trying my best to better manage my finances, attempting in whatever capacity I'm currently capable to take care of myself and Isabelle, taking care of my relationships through love and honesty and communication. Because as the best band in the universe put it, "The best you can is good enough".
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** On a quick side note, I highly, highly, highly recommend spending time with your family members as often as your can. It's so easy to forget that before they were parents, they were people with lives and dreams and stories to tell. I am so fortunate that I had the chance to hear some of those stories last weekend.
Though I was born in the "Show Me" state, I have never considered myself anything other than a Colorado native having moved here when I was three years old. Going back to my "hometown" felt less like going home and more like traveling through the lens of possibility. Who would I have I become if I'd grown up there instead of in Loveland?
It was my mother's 35th high school reunion, a foray into reminiscing about her life before losing her mom (my grandma), long before marrying her now husband, a couple of short years prior to marrying too young to my biological father, and looking back on how time and people and life changes you.**
Nostalgia has a way of coloring your old life in golden hues, making those years look bigger and better than they were, the warmth of seemingly happier times simmering low in your belly, as though your memories are an old family recipe. Always comforting, always welcome, always the long-forgotten smell of home which is difficult to replicate.
The weekend was filled with these story-filled travels. My mother driving me and Aunt Sandy around St. Joe, pointing out apartments that she and my dad lived in, their previous squalor now wrapped in a sort of happy reverie; detailing some of the intimate exploits of her youth in thankfully vague detail; musing over the drama of her high school days in amusement, remembering how the problems of that time felt bigger and more important than anything else in her life.
Things always feel more important than they are in the moment. Sometimes, I get stuck in the cycle of wishing I had more. More time, more love to give, more money, more talent, more drive, more anything. I couldn't possibly be alone in wanting to have a different life on the days when I feel stuck or alone. I couldn't possibly.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a dream that I won the lottery. Not just some paltry small fish prize like fifty grand but the big buckaroos, somewhere in the vicinity of 200 million dollars. It seems reasonable to me that my brain conjured up this idea of being rich and worry free as a way of coping with my absolute lack of both. Throughout my entire adult life, I've struggled with money. I know we've talked about this before but it always seems to be amplified, worsened everytime we talk about it. I dreamt about paying off all of the debt for my friends and family, setting up my nephews for college, donating buckets and buckets of money to charity, doing all of the the things that I'm certain I won't ever get to do in my one little, itty bitty life: go back to school, buy a house, travel to some exotic foreign land to discover myself, pull a Harper Lee and spend a full year writing.
Recently, I had the privilege of going out with this new person, whose name I won't mention for right now. Though admittedly I was less than keen on going at first, still resigned that dating is pointless and I'm probably going to be single forever and how is it entirely too much work just to make myself not seem as boring as I really am, this person actually managed to fully and wholly charm me. We met up for a drink late on Wednesday and spent about two and a half hours talking about anything and everything under the sun. It was delightful. Among the many subjects that we covered, one of them was how Americans seem to operate under the "millionaires in waiting" mentality (he's from another country, by the by). He said that after having been here for a while, Americans always seem to be waiting for the next big thing, that their break is just around the corner, and that a life of ease and luxury is just out of reach because we red-white-and-blue blooded Americans are entitled to such. It's the American dream to want it all: the house, the career, the loving partner.
 |
| If only life and dating were like the movies |
How does anyone do it?
In an honest attempt to cross off at least one more thing from my list this year, I'm on my third book in the last month, "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed. It's a nonfiction novel about the authors descent into literal and figurative madness, trying to navigate her life without her mother who passed away from cancer and without her devoted husband, who she has managed to push away in a drug fueled self destruction, all while hiking completely and utterly unprepared on the 1100 mile Pacific Crest Trail. It was made into a movie some time ago starring Reese Witherspoon (I'm pretty sure! Let me IMDB it. Yes, Reese Witherspoon. Came out in 2014).
There's something alluring about the fantasy of having an experience that will fundamentally change your life, the zest of which sits on your tongue, sweet and wholly pleasurable. It's nice to dream about having a new life, a better life, a bigger life - whether that's winning the lottery or making the insane choice to hike 1100 miles with no experience or picking up and moving somewhere else (say Seattle...) to start over. But it's not pragmatic. Life is here and it's now and sometimes it sucks beyond the telling of it.
But it is what we make of it, right?
Easier said than done.
If I could choose to be happy all of the time, I would. If I could suddenly conjure the magical ability to not be beholden to my financial obligations and instead organize my life around what I can do rather than what I have to, I would. But that's not the way it works. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to figure all that out eventually.
Perhaps when I'm my mothers age (though I've maintained for quite some time that she's still twenty-nine and holding), I'll be able to look back on this time with yearning, daydreaming of the days when my downtime was filled with reading books and listening to music because I don't have a TV, reminiscing about playing with my dog at the park down the street, cooking all manner of hodgepodge meals because sometimes eating at all means making the best of what you have on hand.
Until then, I'll just have to operate in the ways that I know I can: trying my best to better manage my finances, attempting in whatever capacity I'm currently capable to take care of myself and Isabelle, taking care of my relationships through love and honesty and communication. Because as the best band in the universe put it, "The best you can is good enough".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
** On a quick side note, I highly, highly, highly recommend spending time with your family members as often as your can. It's so easy to forget that before they were parents, they were people with lives and dreams and stories to tell. I am so fortunate that I had the chance to hear some of those stories last weekend.
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