My Debt Sits at the Table With Me

Dear Delyara, Debt is with me all the time. It’s there when I wake up and check my balance before I fully open my eyes. It’s there when someone invites me somewhere and I start calculating before I start feeling. It’s there when I buy groceries and hear a small guilty voice even over normal things like bread or coffee. I hate how much of my emotional life has been shaped by numbers. People who haven’t lived like this think debt is just a financial inconvenience. They don’t understand how it enters your sense of self. It can make you feel smaller, less free, less adult, less hopeful, all at once. It has sat at the table with me for longer than I want to admit.