money

money is a weird weird thing.

and i think being an entrepreneur on my own, i've gotten to
see it in a whole new way than when i was a stay at home mom
married to a guy bringing home a paycheck from a steady job.

there's so many different angles to it.
and the steady paycheck with the steady job only showed some
of them. the choice to not work, and to live on the one income.
all that stuff. it gave me one angle.

but the never knowing how much money you're gonna have,
the supportin' the guys when they were younger, the meeting
of people of all incomes thru your business, the incredibly
tight times, the times when there's extra to spare.

i feel like it's all given me a whole different perspective.

one i needed.
one where i've learned so much.
and yeah, one where there's still so much to learn.

and i had NO IDEA how much i equate success with money.

yeah.
i said that.
which is amazing to even me.

but it's not the obvious you have a nice car, nice house,
you're successful. it's more you can feed everyone, get the
extras that slip in during the days, and get something if you
want it.

so the scale's a bit lower than you'd think.

but i've had to wrestle with ego a lot thru this journey.
much more than i ever woulda guessed.

i haven't gotten it down.
i have to admit it.
i still have way too much ego tied up in it all.

it's hard for me to believe.
it's not that i want to keep up with the neighbors (thank goodness
i live in a blue collar community! that helps!) it's that i want
to not have to have the whole topic a subject that comes up with
friends.

or at least....that's what i thought.

until this morning.

it's always been awkward. and hard. and embarrassing.

and then this morning, in an email conversation with a friend who's
got some money, i saw what a fascinating topic it really is.

she has her own problems with dealing with having a lot of it.

her story's an entrepreneur's dream.
i live in a house of entrepreneurs.
we love stories of people who've made it big with their businesses.
those things fuel us and encourage us and keep us dreaming.

so her story thrills me.
and yet, she has to be comfortable in knowing how i'll be with that deal.

so this morning as i read her note, i thought about what an important
topic this is.
how this topic really really needs to get talked about more.

i thought of another friend of mine who has money.
it took her awhile to kinda let me in on that as she was worried
how i'd feel.
when she told me i laughed with delight and told her i thought it
was FABULOUS!

i like money.
i wish we all had tons of it.
every single one of us!

and look at this....we don't talk about all the strings involved.
all the good stuff, all the hard stuff.
and i know for a fact it's not the money that needs to be talked of.

it's the feelings AROUND the money.
the feelings of self worth - which interestingly enough show up on
both ends of the spectrum! it's the feelings of being judged -
on both ends! it's the FEELINGS.

never the things.
always the feelings.

and this morning it was like a door opened.
i don't want to be embarrassed about talking about it anymore.
i don't want to squirm about it.
wonder what someone's thinking.

i want to explore with that someone.
ask how they feel about it.
have they ever experienced this or that.
tell them how i've seen stuff in me i didn't even know i had.
and wonder if i'd feel that if i had money.

TALK ABOUT IT.

a door opened today.
and i'm so grinnin' about it.

it's a whole huge topic of life.
it's about time it became one for me.

and that in itself just feels so darn good.