Friday, August 05, 2005

On a more serious note...(or how I wish I was a monkey)


Being an adult sucks.


There are moments of joy, granted. Most of the time, I thoroughly enjoy the freedom of living on my own, having a relationship and now understanding all the jokes in Disney movies. The knowledge of the world is a wonderful thing. However, what is not so wonderful is debt. Why, oh, why did the world see fit to create the concept of credit cards.

10 years.

10 years of struggle and barely making payments or not being able to make them at all and I am now done. Well done with a side of ketchup.

I used to think I could handle it, but as time has continued to expand away from me, I have noticed I have no concept of money or a budget

Hence, today.
Today I decided to screw it and get help.
I called an agency to help me consolidate my cards and pay them off. If I never see a credit card again, it will be too soon. The plastic makes my skin blister. They repulse me. This feeling of inadequately and shame has hounded me for years. Seeing all my friends move forward to their new stages of life and I still can't even get to the show.

It is pathetic and it hurts. Bad.

These are the moments I wish I were a monkey. I took an anthropology course last spring and we watched a movie about monkeys on an island that had been converted to a sanctuary. Watching them swing from branches, giving each other hugs, cleaning them and even snubbing them was amazing. There were a bunch of monkeys with a complex hierarchy, strong family ties and intelligence. They swung from trees, had sex, tried to impress the head monkey, then die. No house to maintain, no bills, no credit cards.

What are we doing to ourselves? Why are we creating modes of anxiety and frustrations which are not even part of our makeup? Why can’t we be like the monkeys?
I don’t know, but I wish I did.

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