26 June 2014

My spine cause I have none

I am a big baby when it comes to other people and money matters. I could be asking others back for my own money and still feel profusely guilty about having to do. For some reason, this aspect of money matters is awkward and uncomfortable for me. Perhaps I am a conservative spender as I do not like being in debt. I do not like people owing me money either I suppose, yet I have less experience asking for money back bravely than say, straightforward rejecting a guy.

Which of course is utterly ridiculous, you and I will both agree on this, so we will not harp on that and get on to today’s point.

I have been hosting Manuela for almost a month now. It is a long and unexpected duration, but more importantly, very costly. Long hours cooped up in my room resting means the air-con is used for many more hours every day. This topped with previous expenses for her domestic travel and hospital visitations, it was quite a sum of money.

As she is leaving in a couple of days I began considering asking her if she could help with this month’s utility bill. I know very surely that Manuela will have no problem or discomfort about it, but I did. I very much did. It was so difficult for me to even think of bringing up the topic to her. I wanted to avoid this imaginary confrontation and simply pay for all the expenses on her behalf.

I shared with anxiety about bringing up this subject with Julian. Naturally, reasonable Julian chided me in doing the right thing, and doing it courageously. He was gently but firm. Don’t delay, you will quiver. You will not have any free time to discuss other than tonight. Do it. You need to think of your expenses too. You can say something like this…

He became my spine when I did not feel like I had one. Maybe it was his pep talk, or the sternness in his voice, or the logic that he spoke, but from him I gathered enough courage and the determination to face my fears.

Finally, I walked into my room to talk to Manuela. Of course it was not like a dramatic showdown. In fact, it took another half hour of small talk and helping her figure out flight logistics before I brought the money topic up. I was straightforward, she was good with it, and in 2 minutes we agreed on the amount.

Completely painless. And Julian was right.