Financial hiding: You're Not the Only One

I’m sitting here at 2:38 AM staring at 12 separate loan applications and a half-eaten bag of lukewarm takeout fries.

I have exactly four hundred and eighty-two thousand, six hundred and eleven dollars and forty-two cents sitting in a private account Mark doesn't even know exists.

my feet ache in these $120 shoes i had to save 4 months for...

Kitchen light hums in the middle of the night—it’s that same buzz from thirty years ago when the rent was late and the truck wouldn’t start.

I just wired the rest of the tuition for my cousin Luis. …

You know that feeling when you’re sitting at a table with people who spend more on a single bottle of wine than you spend on groceries for a whole week and you’re watching the candlelight flicker… …

I know this is probably stupid, but I spent another eighty dollars on face cream tonight that I’ll never even open.

Like the water is always running and the floor is always slick and I can’t even remember what my hands looked like before they were constantly prune-y and smelling like lemon-scented bleach and old… …

I think I’m maybe becoming a ghost in my own life, or something like that. …

I don't know if this makes sense but I've spent my whole life trying to be an artist and now I'm a junior marketing executive which is a title that feels like a joke I'm not in on and I think I just… …

You drive the old Toyota but you park it three blocks away so the boss don't see and you walk the rest of the way in your red bottom shoes that ain't real and they pinch your toes but you smile… …

I am sitting in my car at 2:14 AM and the dashboard lights are a cold, medicinal blue that makes the hair on my arms look like static. …

i’m sitting in the back of the parking lot at the club right now and my hands are shaking so bad i can barely hold my phone like i’m looking at the big stone pillars and the valet guys and i just… …

I'm sitting here at 2:14 AM and the city is still humming outside my window, that constant low roar of the expressway that I pay four thousand a month just to listen to while I stare at these old… …

I am sixty-one years old and I spent four hours today pretending that my life hasn't completely fallen apart. …

I stood there with the laser pointer trembling against the white board and all I could think about was the salt on the rim of a margarita I couldn't afford.

She had this EMOTIONAL LABILITY—one moment she was a storm, the next she was glass. …

I look at the balance in my private account—the one my father left me, the one Mark will never see—and I feel this white-hot surge of adrenaline that I haven't felt since I was in uniform. …

But looking at the digits in the banking app, I’m experiencing a distinct tightening in my chest—a localized pressure that feels more like a physical malfunction than a sense of achievement. …

I just looked at my bank account and its 2:14 am and there is exactly $142. …