I have everything I’ve ever worked for

I have everything I’ve ever worked for.

I drive a 13 year old car.
I live in a rented house.
My furniture moved with me 7 years ago, that I bought with student loans.
I’ve had the same pans and toaster 12+ years.
A lot of our favourite possessions were gifts.
For over 10 years I’ve been slowly chipping away at £15k+ in debts, it’s still around the £10k mark.

I have exactly what I’ve worked for.

When I worked full time, I lived in excess… a combination of wanting the more expensive things in life, wanting to dine out, go to the cafe for a coffee, and spend money freely on whatever I fancied, teamed with low pay, a poor attitude and education around money, finances and wealth… I took out a loan for a car, built up credit card debt, accepted the offer for an overdraft, took out another consolidation loan… then carried on using the credit cards.

There’s no wonder I got to where I did.

I gave up work after “running the numbers” and spiralling daily further into stress and depression, knowing that those numbers just didn’t add up, and never could. The amount needed to make the payments was all I had, so I “had to” borrow more for daily things like food.

I had less coming in than my rent payment for 4 months.
I’ve lost all forms of income, either a wage, or gov’t assistance 5 times in 10 years… each time I’ve kept going, kept spending, kept borrowing. Kept that ball rolling and that debt spiralling.

I have everything I’ve ever worked for.

I have an abundance of knowledge, skills that allow me to help anyone achieve anything… from a teenage girl with low self esteem, to a lifelong friend who’s bored of the status quo, to a person I just met just wondering what they’re not seeing that will get them to the next level.

I hadn’t been using those skills for myself.

I always, somehow, landed on my feet and got exactly what I wanted… but it rarely came to me from my own work, or with a real sense of achievement.

I was taken care of by family and friends who mean the world to me, and without them, I would be completely lost in my life.

I appreciate everything that I have in my life, but deep down there’s been a feeling of resentment around not being the one who stepped up, and created the thing that’s in front of me with my own bare hands.

There was a sense of pleasure and more recently, I realised, entitlement, one backed and justified by longing.
“I wanted this, now I have it, that makes me happy….”
It’s the “spoilt brat” way.

But I’m still beyond grateful.

I’m grateful that I have all that I do.
I’m grateful that everything I want comes to me easily and freely.
I’m grateful that I always get what I want.
I’m grateful I got to live my life thus far without missing out on anything.
I’m grateful for those who take me along for the ride in their lives.

I’m also sickened by all of the above.

I hate it.

Every day, I look around and feel a disconnect from the things I have. I didn’t build this with my own hands. I didn’t create this from my own work.

I settled in a lot of cases, made do, and kept going… not even living, just existing. Keeping going, putting it out there, and waiting for it to come to me.

But here’s what I do know…

When I “spend frivolously” and pay £100 per gig ticket to see Metallica, or blow £300 on storage boxes for the spare room, or put 10% of my earnings for the week into savings and another 10% into an investments account, that shit feels so good it’s practically orgasmic.

I was the girl who would head out to the shops, grab whatever I fancied, and paid cash.

I lost that for a while.
I was clouded.
I was misguided.

I misjudged what it was that gave me that thrill… it was never the “stuff” I was buying. It was paying full, in cash, for whatever I wanted.

I used to get excited at the idea of one day walking into a car showroom and driving out with a new car, paid full, in cash, “just because”. I could feel the rush of how that would feel. No tedious loan applications, or waiting for a response. Just “here you go, thank you, bye”

I used to look forward to handing over my bank card without even hearing the total spent or checking the bank balance.

I remember laughing when my friends looked at me horrified while I filled shopping baskets with whatever took my fancy, then happily handed over hundreds at a time.

I loved being the one to throw down my card because “lunch is on me, I’ll get this one” because no one wants to fuck around splitting the bill.

It wasn’t to be flashy or show off. It was my security, my happy place, it was me just living my life in the way I’d always envisioned it to be…

I get a kick out of money.
I get excited by it.
I love it.
I love to have it nestled away in my bank account waiting patiently until I hand over my card to exchange it for whatever thing I fancy today.
I love how it sits in my savings and investment pots, rolling up, waiting for a rainy day, or some big thing that I haven’t even decided on yet in the future.
I love that I can collect it and hold onto it until my children are grown, and it can rest with me until it needs to go take care of them.

I love money.
I have everything I’ve ever worked for… and that’s how it will always be.