Things have been tight financially lately. Tight like my pre-pregnancy jeans, bursting at the seams as I wriggle and squirm, trying to squeeze in a leg - if they’d even go over my hips, I wouldn’t be able to breathe. So I pretty much stick to leggings, better for the baby.
(The lengths I’ll go for a simile...lots there you didn’t need to know
A decade ago, the weight gain would have concerned me much more than the shriveling bank account…I was vain like that. Back then, I was perpetually broke. Like wake up in my NYC East Village tenement, with the crumbling red walls, and renegade mice, with $75 to my name, and a bottle of Evan Williams (couldn’t afford jack) and a candy dish of illicit treats, and my little black book if I wanted company…
Money doesn’t matter when you don’t have it. You’re used to the struggle, or at least I was. By the end of my trainwrecked 20’s/early 30’s, I’d managed to straighten myself out enough to think of the future by freelancing and jane-of-all-trading… I squirreled away savings, and left the city.
Fast forward to the now, and that terrifying image of house sized me failing at wearing skinny jeans…and I’m at the point where the last year was rough enough to have dipped into savings. I’m not delusional – I realize I’m fortunate to have anything at all to ‘dip into’ in the first place. But once you’ve been broke – as broke as I was for my 20’s – nothing is more terrifying than being there again.
What I have now could easily be gone in a few months if I have to live on it… after my baby is born, when I need it the most. Work is slow, scarce. I’ve spent a long time freaking out, and then finally turned back to meditating, and focusing on abundance instead of scarcity.
I can totally be that glass-half-full-of-poison person – but noticed as I changed my mindset I had more positive days money wise. A big freelance project came in, my neighbor knitted me a hat for soon to debut baby, an aunt and uncle called to say ‘what do you need for her? We’ll send it’…my boyfriend’s mom showed up randomly (she never does that) and cleaned my house.
I don’t know if life improved because it DID or because my perception changed – were all those blessings there all along? If so, I couldn’t see them.
But then something really big happened – I started paying attention to the crypto charts – and logged in old accounts, and realized there was serious money there. I mean, not six or seven figure serious – but down-payment-on-a-small-fixer-upper-house serious. Pretty major gains for only putting in a few hundred here and there over the years.
Thing is…I haven’t cashed out because I know it could continue to grow more. It could end up paying for my daughter’s college one day. Or, it could go to zero. Both are possibilities…though something in the middle is more likely.
Back when I put the money, it was ‘extra’, and I continue to think of it that way. And in light of so many small things starting to go ‘right’ (knock wood), I feel like I don’t need it as desperately as I thought I did. (Though, since paying all my bills, and damn car insurance earlier….)
I’m grappling with my decision…wondering is it the spiritual equivalent of flipping off the Universe? Am I being greedy by hoping that my crypo-folio grows, and not raiding it now, when I could use at least some of it? Did I ask the Universe for a gift – and reject it because I want more?
I’m not sure.
At the moment, I’m taking it as a sign to start pursuing my ‘passions’ post baby as opposed to the business I created, that no longer fulfills its purpose, and is becoming a financial drain. I guess I’ll meditate on it…and hope I don’t get an immediate answer, in the form of a popped crypto ‘bubble’ anytime before baby’s birth.
This is really long and unedited. But, I told myself I’d post something at least once a week – and this is what the ‘muses’ brung me today ;-) – though my bed looked much more appealing. I promise, once I’m in the habit of following through, then I’ll work on my editing to create more digestible, succinct, posts.
Life is "funny" sometimes... well, actually... quite often. Having lived at the edge of broke for a really long time, I started noticing that my wife and I are actually "blessed" in some weird way.
We'd have a really good week with our businesses... and then the car would need a new transmission. We'd have some little windfall... and it would be just enough to pay for something unexpected. And it kept happening.
"Why can't we ever get ahead???"
Without trying to be too Pollyanna-ish here I turned it around, and realized that without these bonuses, we'd have been totally hosed each time the subsequent setbacks arrived. We were actually taken care of. We didn't actually FALL off the proverbial cliff.
This year, we got screwed by a part time job loss (my wifes) in an economy where there's pretty much nothing to be had. But we found Steemit this year... and even though I hated cashing out some of our equity, again we were kept from falling off the cliff.
Not sure what I am really trying to say here, other than... things tend to work out.
Yes!! Too funny (in that laugh after the fact kind of way!) My freelance project ended up paying for a new car battery and the rest went to bills today - but you're so right... I think we often forget money is (or should be) the vehicle to get us where we're going...not the end itself. And the Universe (our or mindsets, energy, god, insert personal belief here) is always there to remind us of that ebb and flow.
I'm sorry your wife lost her job - but glad you found Steemit - and from what I 'know' of you on here - that attitude, and that perspective - will continue to ensure that things work out for you!
I'm a slow learner - but I think I'm learning that when I'm a miserable B-word, who wallows in misery, and expects the worst...things don't go nearly as well as when I embrace the more positive POV. (Maybe I should treat some of my crypto stash like your equity situation.... )
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