Head High

Money Money Money.

Saturday, 22 April 2021

Ever since I can remember I have always resented my father a little.

Life would be going fine, good even, and all he would talk about was money.

He didn't have money, he needed money, he worked all his life just to broke when he's old.
Money, money, money.

I've heard it all my life and never understood.

Yes, not having enough money was bad but we weren't starving and had a roof over my head. We had each other.
Why fret about money when there were already so many things to be miserable about in this life?
It felt like adding to it on porpoise.

I didn't understand, the same way he never understood my anxieties and insecurities.

He told me I would when I got a job.
And I did.

I understood when I worked my butt off just to give him all my money.

I'm happy to do it, don't get me wrong, I'm helping with the one thing he has always struggled with.

I was there for him the same way he always was there for me.

But then in a span of a week my glasses broke, the warm weather came and I only had winter clothes, birthdays were coming up and I couldn't get them presents and the scholarship talk began.
My bookshelf broke.
I wanted to get my drivers license.
I wanted to get a tattoo.
I needed to be able to save money for the future.

I needed too much and had too little money.

There was absolutely nothing I could do to change that other then ask for help, which I would never do. Again, I'm not starving.
But the feeling of impotency was so overwhelming, it didn't help that I couldn't see for shit without glasses.

I was so confused. It was just money, right? No.
It was if I ran 5 miles just to drink a cup of water and realising it's not there and then searching frantically for it when
And finally I realised my dad and I aren't so different.

I worry about not being enough.
He worries about not having enough.
We both try and try and try.
But at the end of the day, nothing really changes.
And we're still one and the same.

I just wish he realised it, too.