can't buy me love

i don't care too much for money
money can't buy me love

ah me. somehow i always manage to mismanage my money. every month. almost every single month. i had to beg my roommate to hold on to my rent check for just a couple more days until i get paid again on thursday, lest the sum total of my bank accounts hover around $11.

i can blame christmas shopping, i can blame ridiculous sales and tempting coupons, i can blame a cruise booking with money i should have slapped into my savings account. i can even try to blame my lavish dinner party prep that went just a *little* over the top.

but no, really, i'm pretty sure that all of those things are just the gloss and sheer of one big hairy disgusting un-pretty truth about myself: the vast majority of my spending foibles can all be traced back to the prickly sin of trying to buy myself some love.

i mean, really, what else is this obsession with the Marketing and Packaging and Branding of ME?

it is, in short, the grasping desperation of someone who is wrangling her clothes and shoes and bags and makeup and hair gloss and yes, even my cooking and yoga and book reading and going- out into an army of "love me!" minions.

how will a boy ever know how fabulous i am on the inside if he looks right past the outside of me to the thinner, prettier, better-read, shinier-teethed glamazon right behind me? how will my friends want to spend time with me and admire me and feel affection for me if i do not woo them with fancy food and wow them with my witty banter about world travel and 'the omnivore's dilemma'? and, when i get right down to it, is that all just the peg leg that i hobble around on, trying to make myself into a Sparkly, Well-Rounded, Much-Loved Friend?

ok, ok, maybe i'm being too hard on myself. i LOVE to cook. and i LOVE clothes. and i consider both food and beautiful things to be a good gift from God, and i do believe they can be enjoyed and savored. and i LOVE my friends. whether we are dining on quasi-gourmet tasties or watching TV and munching on cheetos. i'm not really trying to buy their love. and yet, there is some sort of weird connection, i think.

anyway, i'm not obsessing over this or anything. it's just something i always think about when i watch my bank account dive precariously close to $0. where does it all go? and why? what kind of happiness and security and love AM i trying to buy? and, spiritually, what does my spending say about my values and my discipline.

the fact that being single and not having someone else in my life to help me make decisions or support the rent check and the loan checks and the gas money is also like a scabby scraped knee and is a topic for another time.

money? love? happiness? joy, abundance, discipline, peace.
money can't buy me those things either.