Money Has Made Me Harder

Dear Delyara, More quickly irritated. More defended. More suspicious of ordinary life. More likely to hear “we need” as danger instead of simply as family. I hate that. I hate how money pressure has taken up residence in my tone, in my stomach, in the speed of my thoughts, in the way I stand at the checkout, in the shame attached to normal spending, in the fact that I now cut from myself first almost automatically because it feels like the least disruptive place to begin. This is not just a financial condition. It is emotional weather. And I have been living in it too long.