I Never Regret Spending Money on Travel
Monday Money Check-in: Nov. 13, 2017
I know, my top priority should be rebuilding my Fuck Off Fund. I know, I can hear Dave Ramsey’s voice telling me I need to learn the word “no.” I know, I know.
And yet.
When I’m paddling around a lake behind a mall in Abuja in a boat shaped like a swan, laughing; when I taste something I’ve never tasted or I see something I’ve never seen and I’m just so filled with the reality of the world; when I strap on that backpack and it feels like I’m home, dammit that just wins every time. I have never regretted a trip.
I’ve suffered, after a trip. After Peace Corps, that biggest trip of all, to Buenos Aires and Punto del Diablo in Uruguay and the beaches of Brazil and the biggest waterfall in the world and toucans and churros and Colombia and roosters and sunrises from the dance floor on the beach. Two days after I got home, there was the phone booth-sized cubicle and listening to Florence sing the dog days are over in my mom’s car, wearing my mom’s shoes, a lunch packed with my mom’s groceries. There was The Crying, and The Reckoning. But still, you couldn’t have taken those nights from me. I would have done it all again.
I don’t want to be that bad, anymore. But I will never be entirely good.
What is my rule of law, I wonder. Who is my ruler? I think about the woman I’ll be in the last year of life, in the last moments of life. That’s my boss. I answer to that bitch. I hope she smiles, and thinks Job Well Done.
Weekly check-in:
Personal Checking Balance: $36 (But I have $300 in cash from extra just-in-case money from the trip. Ooh but that will have to pay my health insurance.)
Business Checking Balance: $0
Discretionary spending this week: $325. Not bad considering it included international travel. I bought a few gifts for people I love, some earrings and a little purse.
Fuck Off Fund Level: $2,044 (More like a Please Reconsider Your Actions Fund)
Weekly wins: I’ve been to Nigeria.
