Scarcity No More (For Real This Time)
 |
| Within our minds is the power to choose how we see and shape our world. For me, I've grown tired of seeing my world dark and scarce. |
For me, the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It's enough. I'm enough. My kids are enough.~ Brene Brown
Money
Wealth
Being Able to Provide especially as a Man
Resources
Im tired of when (right before another work paycheck) I look at my bank accounts knowing damn well they are low, and I stare at the single or double digits, wide eyed like a deer that got shot point blank.
The panic floods me from my heart and neck to the rest of my body.
The calculations for the bills I still had left to pay.
The food I still had to get somehow, someway since mines (unfortunately) is the only stable income in a five finger household.
The numbers promote panic, the coming of a psychological monsoon but not with tears, just crippling fear.
I estimate how many days til I get paid, what's left to get, what could slip through the cracks at any given time...
A reflection of the real reality I've grown accustom to, and yet hate so much because it seems impervious to the positivity I try to inject like a medical testing of a catalyst. False mantras ain't really the cure.
Then, I verbalize the agony, counting down what was spent and what remains like thousands at Times Square watching the ball drop...
Except I'd be home, face in my hands not even able to watch it because there's no TV or cable, another expense avoided.
Energy drains like a sip from an empty cup, taking away any source of joy, happiness, or relaxation... Because that's how I release the shame (Or at least try to). The shame of having to hold down the fort alone...
Not because I want to...
Not because she even wants it that way...
But because we've been dealt a lopsided hand like we're playing spaids on a ill constructed or supported table, deformed and shaking under the pressure to conform like everyone else trying to make it. Killing my family and myself softly through the embodiment of what every responsible adult in past generation tells you...
That hard work pays off... Only for your hard work to pay someone off while they smile and discard you for the consumer you are.
You make a grand and mini celebrate, only to see a week later you have a single finger of funds left to your name with three bills left unpaid.
If you don't know what it's like to be in a tug of war against scarcity... Good... This isn't for you.
This is for me... And those like me that are tired of scraping the plate doing several gigs sometimes all at once sacrificing sleep to break even. To the ones that are on welfare or taking under the table jobs to have enough for their kids to eat, legal or otherwise.
I'm so tired of being scared because of scarcity, the false reality I've come to create because I'd been forced to do it for so long all alone for the household.
What started as a strand of hair that tickled my neck became a snake by the time I was eight. Homeless, a son to a mother that knew all about the struggle while raising two boys to men without a father (and no hook to honor her). The experience alone coupled with a few moves from place to place embedded itself deep in my psyche, ready for me to take the reigns as a parent myself.
I'd end up facing the same scenario, yet different. I lost it all minus a death in the family or divorce which nearly became a repeat of my own Mom and Dad. But my family was in a place to call home, I slept in my last remaining car before the end of that struggle tale meant the end of it too, all to cover down on rent for a new place before I even lucked out for work.
All of this came not because I was an idiot with money, but because I verbalize the negative reality into the story embedded in my psyche, the one that said I was no good.
The one that said my family would always struggle because I wasn't good enough, ambitious enough, man enough.
Shit, I couldn't even save myself from being homeless twice in my lifetime.
The torment for everything going for broke reminded me of the day the apartment next to my mom's burned down, and the day we lost the home I bought to foreclosure after I bled sweated and teared up to serve this country.
Lately, I've felt the need to kill this shit, after I dampened my lady's spirits talking about how much it was taking a toll to cover everything. My money was disentigrating faster than a stoner takes a hit after a long day full of nothing but stress.
The I realized it. It all stemmed from I... I created this narrative... Reinforced it with the words of dismay writing scripts in my psyche, the same ones that would wake me up at night. The same ones that would play everytime I got a notification that one of my accounts was on the verge of being overrun like the Spartans in 300...I had to fight back somehow. In the darkness, the letter 'I' opened my eyes, put a crack in the sediment of scarcity and let me know that it's WE not just ME. I'd been a survivor provider for so long I numbed myself while projecting woes my lady already knew took a toll on me.
So I pulled back... Regrouped... Got teary eyed, but couldn't find the strength in me to release and cry. But I knew one thing, I needed to make this right before everything about me and around me died.
It was time for me to say goodbye to the intoxicating mind of scarcity, for real this time.
I needed to re-learn teamwork, partnership with my spouse. I needed to honor the fact that she too, was trying...and soon enough with both our efforts, we'd forge the life we wanted for all of us.
Most of all I had to really let go, of all the pressure I absorbed and enchanted on myself. I didn't have to carry all this weight anymore, or damn myself when things fell through the cracks.
I had to learn to look at wealth and abundance not just as income, but also who and what we have.
Way back when I wanted to be married, to have kids. I have that, but where did all my joy go? Did I spend that too? I had to get that back. I had to realize that it wasn't just my money, but rather our shared resources.
It's not that I was losing or what I didn't have that drive me bonkers, but rather how and what I perceived and not what I actually already had... Who I already have.
So I'm making a pact with myself... With her... With our Kids... And my closest people... Including you.
I've decided to take each moment a day at a time and enjoy the life I have. Embrace who and what I have including the moments and the memories.
To appreciate over forty years of wake ups and breaths that could have ended even from the moment I was born (it almost did happen to be honest). Gratitude is an overused, and yet underappreciated concept. I just want to honor what is and to do it with who I am present with.
It's We, Not Me. Wealth is found in the presence and the unity. The unfolding of the mystery of our lives.
Wealth is, more importantly, in knowing that everything up to this point has been enough. That as I amright now, I am enough and will continue to be enough. The knowledge that everything, every moment, every relationship has its own cycle of seasons. I may be down, but there will always be a bounce back. This is nature in full effect.
So I will kick scarcity and hardship in the ass, and bid it adeiu. With a bigger appreciation for what is, rather what isn't or hasn't yet come to pass.
The fear of not having enough and being enough has put me in a psychic wheelchair since childhood. But for real this time, it's time to stand up.
#OpenLoops #SocietalShadows #StillHere #Wealth #IAmEnough
Comments
Post a Comment