As Marshall Mathers once said, “I can’t tell you what it really is, I can only tell you what it feels like,”.
Being broke isn’t just a state of mind or a “poverty mindset”; it’s a harsh reality.
It’s the constant awareness that if anything unexpected happens, you might find yourself on the streets, in the hospital, or worse. It’s an experience—an event—that feels both fleeting and yet unbearably permanent.
I find myself here often, almost like it’s a strange addiction.
If there’s one thing people rarely call being broke, it’s abusive. It’s a dysfunctional way of treating yourself, likely stemming from a dysfunctional relationship with money. It’s isolating and neglectful, yet strangely familiar, like the mixed pain and relief of cutting. It’s almost comforting in its association with victimhood.
It’s never my fault. It’s not my choices that led me here; it’s the circumstances.
I’ve promised myself at nearly every stage of my life that I’d never be broke again, yet here I am. Without money, without resources—just dreams and ideas of what could be a beautiful life.
A fantasy where I never have to worry about money because my skills and talents finally pay the bills. Even as I write this, I half-heartedly believe it’s possible.There’s something uplifting, even inspiring, about declaring the possibility of a successful life. One that is within my reach.
Yet my relationship with money feels like all my relationships—distant. It doesn’t let me be myself. It doesn’t know me. There’s little intimacy. I know the solution is within my grasp, and I berate myself for getting to this state of total devastation.
Even when I pull myself out of the darkest times, which I’ve done countless times before, it’s as if I—or the person I used to be—was calibrated to this frequency. She seemed stuck there.
But I am not her.
Or rather, I am no longer her. She was always putting herself in the last place she wanted to be, then dragging herself out of the mud.
It was simply unnecessary.
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