Friday: Paying for All of the Things

[walkitout]

I Paid for All of the Things today — estimateds for Q1, a credit card bill, an invoice for services. It is weird, because I can afford these things, and I did all the work ahead of time to make sure I knew the amounts to pay and how, and yet somehow, no matter how simple, there is something emotionally tiring about the process. I think it is largely because of the inevitable mismatch in the amounts one is accustomed to when young versus in middle age. I understand how that can lead to excessive penny pinching (especially in the wake of the decade of inflation in the 70s causing a much more rapid change), and I am conscious of the need to push against it, and yet, that sense of depletion is real. This is in no way a request for sympathy ; it is more an acknowledgement of the things I heard adults complain about when I was young that I had no empathy for, but now actually get. Altho as always, I continue to notice as I go through these processes of, oh, hey, that’s what was up with that, that they were surprisingly shitty at explaining themselves and, even more shocking, seemed to have no recollection of what it was like to be young, even tho presumably they once were.

It’s a really pretty day, and there are more flowers out every day.

Comments

[ethelmay]

My parents were a little better about explaining themselves, I think, but they had a major taboo about discussing money matters with kids. They had certain things that were Not Discussed, and that included people's salaries and how old grownups were. But I never did understand why Dad groaned over the bills and took whole evenings filling out forms and writing checks and stamping envelopes. It made sense that he got into a horrible state trying to fix plumbing when he wasn't good at it, but as far as I could see everything to do with paying bills was stuff he was perfectly competent at, and I couldn't see why he couldn't do it all in about ten minutes. I now suspect "paying bills" also meant "keeping track of spending," and pre-computer that was (a) a lot of work and (b) a depressing reminder of the state of his bank balance (which in those days was much iffier than it later became).