Growing up in a very low-income family, money was always an elusive and mostly absent family member.
When my school shoes wore through, I knew there wasn’t any money to buy new shoes. That was an Emergency. I remember the worry of having broken shoes and not wanting to tell my mam because it would add to the burden. So, I kept it hidden. I tried to walk in a way so that no one could see the sole of my shoe, and the huge split across the sole. I sucked at covering it up, and was ridiculed by the other kids as we walked to the bus.
I felt ashamed. Through no fault of my own, I felt shame because I was poor. I felt poor. The oppressive weight of uncertainty and willing for things not to go wrong because we simply had no money.
When getting new clothes depended on what we were lucky to get second hand or from a jumble sale. That was an Emergency.
When the 3rd-hand cooker we had been using for years broke, you guessed it. Another Emergency.
Car broke down again… Emergency!
Text books for school…Emergency!
Frezer broke…Emergency!
Existing in a constant state of emergency, where the anxiety levels are sky high. It constantly drains your mental energy. Any small thing is enough to tip you over the edge and into what feels like despair.
Everything, was just too much.
Roll forward a bunch of years and I grew up. Managed to build a career, and yet still I was living in an Emergency. We didn’t spend lavishly. We barely spent at all. We never had any money. But boy did we have Debt.
Debt, you cannot see it. But it is everywhere. The ever-present best friend of Emergency. They go hand in hand. Skipping along to a sinister tune.
I avoided Debt as much as I could. But it was inevitable. Or at least it felt inevitable. From the moment I managed to get into a good university and up until now Debt has been and continues to be a part of my life.
I am working on removing it altogether. I want to break up with Debt for good. I want to kiss goodbye to it (truth be told I want to slap it in the face and walk away), in the hope that it is never a part of my life again.
I have been working on this for a long time. Only now can I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am heading towards the fresh air of a debt-free life.
It will probably take years to reach debt-free, but at least I see that it is going to happen.
I look forward to being debt-free and then also Emergency Free.
Because when you are no longer in debt, you can work towards having breathing space.
Space to think. Space to live rather than just to exist. Possibly even the space to dream.