[Asterisked Accolade]

This is something i wrote (to myself) about how i want to buy wheels & tires for my car with Christmas and Winter Bonus money i'm going to get after living off of measly pay checks all year. My GF didn't like it when she heard how i planned on spending it. (I owe her $120.) This was written as though i were explaining it to a neutral party.

It feels like every time something goes right, it immediately goes awry. I get a Christmas bonus at work of $400 and expect $100-200 from Mom for Christmas. I think to myself, “Finally, I can get something for myself.”

I know I have obligations to [Girlfriend] and my Mom, I know that! But you try living your year only being able to afford trading cards and groceries! You look at your car—your passion, whatever it is—and you spend your days nearly in tears wishing you could afford to indulge in it. Wish you had the money to do what you love! Lie down on the floor of your room, bored to death because you can’t afford to step outside; to burn any gas or risk snapping your serpentine belt.

Maybe I am playing the victim, maybe so, but for Christ’s sake you begin to feel like one! When you splurge on $5 cans of plasti-dip because you can’t afford anything else—when you dream of the track and driving your car, only to stare at it in the garage, disassembled and incomplete; like having your house torn apart during an extensive renovation. Be told to enjoy that house anyway—ignore the image in your head of its completion.

Do I feel guilty for indulging in my own desire while the women who’ve helped me sit aside, as I owe them, watching me blow unnecessary (to them) hundreds on what I love? Yes! I do because I understand exactly where they’re coming from—I do! But Goddamn it, live your year too broke to enjoy yourself! Not being able to afford the happiness you once bathed in! Yes I’ll pay them back, yes I’ll make it okay—but this year has been a wasted year in my eyes! This once I wanted to get what I’ve been staring at with drool dripping from my heart all year without the money to buy.

It’s a broken record by now I know. You get it. But, I know you don’t. You never will. But it’s real, and it keeps me from wanting to even wake up when I lay down at night. It drains me of happiness and it drains me of motivation. When it’s taken, I feel hollow—it’s not good to allow a material thing to grip you in such a way, that’s true. But I can’t change human nature.

For God’s sake, I just want to feel that gratification and enjoyment again. I lust for that adrenaline and that excitement. Life just feels prison-like without it. I hope at the end of everything, that you understand.

Just for follow up, i wrote my GF the check today.