I have a strange relationship with money. The idea of money seems both very tangible and wholly interdimensional at the same time. When I read this article I was totally shocked. Yes, I knew that there were people in this world who could afford to spend $600 USD on a dinner for two but this blogger just seemed so normal. Her voice in her blog is very relateable and down to earth and I just felt like, hey maybe she is similar to me. Yet just the affluence that she enjoys separates her vastly in my mind from one moment to another.
I think because I don't often see large sums of money move around in my life I am shocked every time it happens to me or I can see it happening to "normal" people.
Yes I go to college. Yes that takes a lot of money, but I don't ever see it. Financial aid goes straight to the school and deposits the extra in my account (which blows my mind every time I see that bank statement).
When that scholarship hits my books I feel like a raccoon that grabbed a sleeping man's watch and must run very quickly and very stealthily back to the woods to admire it later. I instantly have moments of panic that the money is going to be taken away from me and I will be left to fend with no cash.
Yet, the irony is that I really don't have any cash. I run mostly on card (because I am afraid of losing cash). I, most of the time, never see my money. It is an imaginary number on a computer screen. Banking seems so odd to me, I think if I were born in an age where you could rely solely on cash I would be the crazy lady with the hidden stashes of money around her house.
Now I am not saying I don't spend money, oh no on the contrary I spend money way too much. Now we get back to the issue of sums because I have a very large problem with parting with large sums of money. I agonize and feel guilty over it and must justify it in my mind so I don't go insane. BUT, I can spend lots of money on little things. I would rather buy five little worthless things than buy one more expensive thing of real value. It is ridiculous and it just gets worse the larger the sum.
I think that there is also a subconscious limit on money, that I can't get past, on how much a "normal" person can spend at once. Maybe this stems from my personal awareness of my parent's finances when I was a kid. I think that I honestly cannot fathom that a person could have more money at one time than my parents make in a year. I mean I've always been aware of millionaires and the like but they never seemed "normal" to me.
Money, to me, seems both worthless and invaluable; right at hand and vastly beyond my reach. It never made sense to me. I can remember so many times over the years wondering why the world didn't operate on a trade system and I know now that the logistics would never support a global market.
I feel rich when I find a five and poor when I spend twenty and yet I hope for a time when my base level salary could be double or triple what my parents made for many years and that isn't even counting my husband's contribution. The doublethink involved in it is insane (yes a 1984 reference I'm reading it now).
I think I need to start monitoring my spending more closely. I need to start taking more responsibility. I need to start wrapping my brain around financial ideas being real.
With a Reflective Adieu,
Carly
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