on manifesting wealth

 so, the other night i jokingly posted to facebook about my new form of manifesting wealth: drinking from my scrooge mcduck pepsi cup.

if you’re a child of the 80’s, you may remember all the pepsi cups- i personally own scrooge mcduck, cool cat, foghorn leghorn, along with two peanuts and two happiness hotel glasses as well as three garfield mugs. yes, they’ve all been recalled for using lead paint. no, i don’t plan on getting rid of them. i don’t lick the outside, so it should be fine, right?

after sending the same picture via snapchat, a friend responded: unlimited wealth and no pants?

YES.

i laughed pretty hard as i was sitting there in my underwear, on a thursday night, eating pizza and cheesy bread. that felt pretty wealthy to me. being able to sit in my underwear, in my own apartment, on a thursday night, with an entire pizza (and cheesy bread) to myself. i call it meal planning- one pizza is at least 3 meals, three days of not having to think about what i’m going to eat. that feels pretty wealthy. not to mention i was drinking royal crown cola, like the queen that i am. queen of my own 400 sq feet.

but then i really leaned in. maybe it was the weed i’ve started smoking again, maybe it was just the change in perspective i’ve been working on fostering, maybe it was both, but man. when you really lean into something, BE READY. it will hit you like a mac truck.

i was sitting alone, in my own apartment. that i pay for. with my bills paid and enough left over for a pizza. that’s three really big things, especially in this economy. my rent is paid. my bills are paid. i have money between paychecks. 

those aren’t a given right now for a shockingly large portion of america. rent is out of control. people are drowing in debit between job lay offs and using credit cards to get through. mortgages are insane because housing costs are insane. groceries are now a “splurge” item according to news outlets. people are working two, three jobs, selling plasma, side hustling, gig working, scraping any and every bit together they can.

in that moment it felt exceptionally rich to be able to sit, on a thursday night, and just enjoy my pizza. nothing to do until work the next morning. no errands to run, no side hustle to work on. just…netflix and pizza.

wealth is a tricky subject. what i recognized as wealth in that moment was NOT what i was thinking of when i made the joke about manifesting. but holy fuck if it wasn’t true, just as it was. i was thinking of a literal scrooge mcduck vault of gold coins to suba dive through. what i found was a much more real and tangible form.

the next day, friday, was payday. i again thought about my wealth manifestation. i budget carefully. very carefully. i look ahead at the calendar and plan for any appointments, events, trips, etc. while paying my bills and splitting out my paycheck. again, i found wealth in an unexpected place: regularly scheduled appointments. i have a hair cut scheduled out for june. i have a regular brow appointment every 5 weeks. i have stella nail trims scheduled every 2 weeks. the ability to schedule appointments in advance and know there will be money there when it’s time? WEALTHY. in so many ways. financially: wealthy. mental health wise? WEALTHY. hair is a big deal for me. it’s a never ending journey of trying to find what works. what feels like me when i look in the mirror. what was a mistake. how long does it take to recover from that mistake? when money gets tight, fancy things, like hair and nails, are the first thing on the chopping block. losing the ability to have regular appointments can make a rough journey even harder because that’s when impulse and DIY creep in. i can’t afford a full color appointment, but for $9.99 i can buy a box of something at walgreens (NEVER, EVER a good idea). i can’t afford a full salon cut, so i’ll try a barber shop (the mullet phase was ROUGH y’all). when i know i have an appointment scheduled, it’s much easier to set down the scissors and the dye. just a few more weeks. don’t touch it. just a few more weeks. you can avoid SO MUCH stress (and months of awkward photos) when you can afford to just have regular appointments scheduled. same for brows. getting an itch to just pluck a few? back away from the tweezers,  you have an appointment next week. don’t you dare ruin all the hard work of the last several years! the 00’s were NOT kind to eyebrows, let’s not go back there again, for the love of low rise jeans and whale tails. 

i imagine the day i’ll have ALL the appointments regularly scheduled again. dentist? it’s been a while. doctor? ha. not doing that without insurance! oil change? technically i’m a few thousand miles under the number limit, and they said the date doesn’t matter as much as the miles. but just imagine- hair color, facials, massage, pedicures, maybe even house cleaning, stella spa days. how luxurious that would be.

having things scheduled AND the ability to pay for them? WEALTHY. i’m part of the way there. but just think…the ability to do regular grocery orders. car maintenance. subscriptions (hulu, netflix, etc). vitamins. appointments of all kinds. OH MAN. the thought of how good this would be for my mental health? whew. regular self care, food stability, transportation stability, housing stability, health stability. all scheduled, secure, budgeted for. WEALTHY.

that’s my next goal.

speaking of goals, there’s a certain level of wealthy that goes with being able to set goals.

i was scrolling tiktok and there’s a new, gen z version of dave ramsey floating around chewing people out and giving them advice for how to unfuck their finances. while listening to him yell at someone, the thought occurred to me: there is SUCH a difference between living paycheck to paycheck and just living. when you can only plan 3 paychecks in advance, universe willing, it’s hard to plan for the future. really hard.

i plan three paycheck in advance. that is extravagant to me after the last few years. and even that feels like balancing on a razors edge. i can plan three paychecks (6 weeks) in advance AS LONG AS…

as long as i don’t get sick. as long as i don’t miss any days. as long as nothing comes up. as long as nothing breaks. as long as i don’t get invited to anything. as long as i don’t make any mistakes (mathematically or purchase wise). as long as i don’t do any emotional spending. as long as i don’t forget anything. as long as…as long as…it can be exhausting always holding on by your fingernails and always being on high alert.

there hasn’t been savings. or investments. i wasn’t allowed to have either for a long time. qualifying for any government assistance over the years meant not having any resources. you’re not allowed to have retirement, investments, land, cars, boats, savings, any resources over $5,000. if you’re that rich, you obviously don’t need government help. i don’t know about you, but $5,000 doesn’t go very far in the grand scheme of things. maybe it did when they first wrote the rules, but i can promise you that number hasn’t been updated in at least 26 years even though every other parameter has extremely changed. i spent 26 years learning how to survive without a safety net, it’s hard to learn to build one now (hard, but not impossible, i have to keep reminding myself).

i don’t plan for the future right now. there is no 5 year plan. there is no retirement plan. there is no generational wealth that i’m leaving behind plan. there’s “i hope i can make it to friday without my other brake light going out” and “i can eat toast and cereal til friday” plans. 

i think the next level of wealth i want to work on is being able to plan. a vacation in 6 months (both the time off AND money for it). i want to plan on having more regularly scheduled appointments, maybe more than one at a time. i want to plan on retirement.i want to plan on more than just making it by the skin of my teeth. social security is a joke. there won’t be any left by 2048. if there is, it won’t be enough to live on the way cost of living keeps increasing. 401k and IRA are phrases i know but not things i have.

being able to plan for the future, in some ways, also means you plan on having a future. i don’t really remember a time when i planned on having a future. “just get through today. just make it til friday. just make it to next friday.” those have been the mantra for 26 years.

and i don’t know if you know this, but the world is a shitty place. people die all the time of fires, cancer, overdose, car accidents, covid, suicide. young people. people my age. people my parents age. the odds of making it to an age where retirement is even a possibility doesn’t seem possible. there’s a horrible old joke about people that retired just in time to die. how many have i known? more than a few. retired for a few months then a heart attack or an accident hits. a few years away from retirement and a fire wipes everything out. starting to plan for retirement and cancer knocks on your door.

it’s hard to plan for the future when you don’t really think there’s much of one coming. it’s hard to be interested in staying alive today when there’s no future. that’s a brutal sentence, but that’s where i’ve been for the last several years.

facing eviction while being unemployed for 7 months was incredibly traumatic. what options were there? was there a point to finding options? what options was a looking for? recovery strategies or exit strategies? what options am i looking for now? survival plans or growth plans?

the old phrase: money can’t buy happiness is a lie. sure, there’s no item on a shelf you can buy labeled “happiness” but there ARE items called groceries. housing. stability. security. health. all those go a LONG way towards happiness. when you’re not constantly worried about one mistake. stretching a dime into a dollar when even a dollar isn’t quite enough.

i’m working on buying my happiness. i’ve got a good start. a lay away plan. pizza in my underwear on a thursday plan. regularly scheduled appointments plan. the knowledge and discipline to make and stick with a budget. i’ll keep chipping away at it. wealth shows up all the time in unexpected ways and unexpected packages. an unexpected pedicure treat from a friend who doesn’t like to go alone but wants to try to keep his feet healthy. a free coffee because you hit double points day. new tires for your car because a friend cares about your safety (that’s a twofer!).

anyway. TL/DR manifesting works. pizza in your underwear is awesome. wealth is a matter of perspective. money can buy happiness. 

shake off the dust

well. it's been a minute since i've been to this particular corner of the internet. may of 2022 to be exact.

i had to look back through my iphone photo gallery to even remember may of 2022. for the record, that was a particularly rough part of the mullet phase. if i ever have to remember anything before either my iphone photo gallery or my facebook galley, lord help me. if it existed before facebook, did it even really exist?

this week is a local literature event. i convinced myself to take a day off to attend some of the writing workshops and events and whatnot. maybe even the book fair...if i leave my debit card at home.

time to crack the old knuckles (no, really, they're old. they hurt. they need cracked to function) and attempt to regain any remnants of any literary prowess i ever flailingly attempted to claim.

occasional bolts of singularity strike in a time and space where i can manage to scratch them down on paper or make a note in my phone only to be forgotten and lost to the realm of...did i think that or was it something i heard once?

the occasional cheeky phrase or pensive though cracks the surface. not nearly enough to string together in any attempt at publication to date.

missives such as:

"i am wholly convinced that my words would be of offense to those that know me and completely inconsequential to strangers. but to truly speak my mind would result in a hold of the medical kind versus that of compassion."

"a superior inferiority complex freezes my pen, both convinced and terrified, equally, of success."

brief snatches of character descriptions: "i have never seen hair that so desperately wanted to be somewhere else."

brief  plot points: "this is the kind of night memories are made of. those bright vibrant flashes of experience to look back on. the "i can't believe we did that," the "do you remember that time..." the "whatever happened to..." glimpses of future changing history. when, ten years hence, you sit up all night remembering, closing loops, retrospecting and reliving."

rare moments of truth: 

if i ever sat down to think about all the things that make me sad in my life, i don't think i could ever get up again.

so i set them aside and keep moving. it may make me cold and heartless, but it's required to survive.

instead of allowing them to swallow me whole, i cover them up.

with tattoos. with inappropriate jokes. with distance. with a callous attitude and a plethora of dirty words. i distract myself with netflix and fall asleep with the noise on to block the sounds in my head.

i don't invest in relationships, as much as i want to, because no one sticks around during the hard stuff  and what is life besides a string of hard stuff?

bizarre to think that last one was from the great before. june of 2017. before the last child left. before the world changed. before so many things. before so many more hard things.

moments on moments, nothing coherent or cohesive or concise enough to send out into the world.

even moments that explain my absence:

"what's even the point of writing? a blog? screaming into the void in a random corner of the internet? nothing important. nothing impactful. nothing lasting or virtuous or inspiring or enlightening. just drivel. whining. lessons from the universe the basic toddler had a full grasp on before even understanding words. maybe it's best to just keep NOT writing. what is it they say? don't contribute to the conversation if you can't improve it? and holy roller skating jesus knows i'm not improving it."

whew. no one can ever be as mean to you as you are to yourself. i had a friend call me on that the other day. she said "you know, if i heard anyone else say the things about you that you say about yourself, we'd have issues."

but. here i am. again. shaking the dust off. returning to the thing that bites and scratches and draws blood from the inside. like a siren song, the words call out. to write. to be written.

maybe this weekend will relight the flame. incite a riot of thought. reignite the passion literally carved into my skin.

i don't know what i want to write, but the last few years of relative silence have built up a flood of words behind a damn of isolation. i need to say things. i need to get the thoughts out of my head. i need to stop worrying about who or if will read. stop dreading criticism and rebuttal. stop dismissing and doubting before the ink even has a chance to stain the parchment. write first, reflect later.

so. here is to a return. not grand, by any means. but a return none the less. perhaps even more the less. a few words. a few sentences. a few thoughts. less is at least some. and some is more than none.