Recently, Real Life has propelled itself into me kind of hard.  It's been sort of like an event that occurred when I was in preschool and playing near a tire swing.  I don't remember exactly what I was doing, but I think I was digging around in a particularly captivating pile of sand.  This particularly captivating pile of sand also happened to be near a very big tire swing that everyone liked to whiz about on.  There was often a line for it.  

I think I was about 4, and whatever was going on in the sand was so interesting that I lost all awareness of my proximity to a very fast moving object that was also probably about three times as big as I was without a full load of riders.  I'd just gotten up to inspect my sand pile when, WHOMP, I was blindsided and went airborne.  Literally.  That tire swing lifted me off of my tiny little feet and gave me a brand new perspective as I flew through the air.  Then three seconds later I hit the ground.  I had a deep, bloody gouge in my knee (I still have a scar), but I didn't care too much because 1) I'd gotten a taste of what flying would be like and 2) in those days, if you got to get a bandaid, you were pretty much considered to be awesome, and I got about 6 bandaids that day (as a side note, this may be why, when I hit elementary school, I was convinced that that high level of status was extended to people who got to get bags of ice from the nurse, and, subsequently, I was always thinking about how I could get a bag of ice).  All that said, if you understand the tire anecdote, then you understand my current relationship with Real Life.

What Real Life has done is make me poor.  This is interesting, because it happened so easily.  I don't think that I'd had any concept of just how expensive living in the real world was before having to do it.  Strike that.  Not necessarily expensive, just…full of expenses.  Subtle distinction is important here.  Budgeting becomes a whole other game when you're having to worry about more than a cocktail or two at the local bar, chex mix and noodles from Sunoco at 2 in the morning when you're still awake and are munchy and you haven't quite finished actively procrastinating on your thesis,  and an odd dinner and night out in Philadelphia.  Suddenly there are rent checks to write, utilities to pay for, and groceries to buy.  Let me tell you, there is nothing quite so disillusioning as seeing hundreds of dollars leave your bank account in one fell swoop.

The other day, I was at Wachovia, which is where I bring my banking business, withdrawing money so that I could get a money order.  I had to get a money order because my apartment's management no longer accepts personal checks due to there having been one obscenely forgetful chick on the lease at one point who bounced something like 4 checks.  Her general cluelessness has completely besmirched our good name, so now we have to pay by money order.  This is concerning for several reasons.  Foremost among them is the fact that using this place as a future reference might be difficult.  In theory.  I'm vaguely concerned that my next place of habitation is going to take one look at the account for this place and think that I am some kind of delinquent check-bouncer.  And if I don't list my current apartment on the reference list, it's going to look sort of suspicious.  What am I going to say?  I could say that I squatted for a year.  That I was trying out homelessness to, you know, see what it was like.  That I was in witness protection and simply was off the grid...

Anyway, I was at Wachovia waiting to take out my money, and the teller was like, "Do you want a balance with your money?"  

I was conflicted.  On the one hand, I like to know what is in my account.  This way I know whether there is enough money to buy myself string cheese at Wawa, or whether my last dime is going to have to go towards refilling my antibiotic prescription at Rite Aid, or to toothpaste.  On the other hand, I've quickly learned that being responsible breeds stress, and reading that innocuous-looking little print out will cause severe mental discomfort and conflict.

"No, thank you," I said.  "I check my balance pretty regularly."  This is mostly true.  Only online, though.  I don't like opening my bank statements when they come.  A) They include way too many pieces of paper in the envelope that say things that don't matter and that tire me out, and B) I have an aversion to seeing numbers on paper.  I have my most recent statement sitting in front of me, unopened, on the coffee table.  I managed to open last month's, but never got around to taking anything OUT of the envelope.  It's sitting on my bookshelf on top of my credit card statements (which I DO open) and some recipes (which I haven't gotten around to making).  I think I sometimes think that if I don't actually SEE something, it doesn't actually exist.  It's like the way very small children think that something really and truly disappears if you cover it with a blanket, or your hands, or pretty much anything.  I'm like that.  Except I'm 22 years old.

Anyway, suffice it to say that paying for rent, utilities, and groceries, and wanting to have some kind of monetary cushion in order to be prepared for the potential and undefined future disaster (like when something spilled on my computer and I had to drop $800), is making me poor.  I guess, this experience is actually like having been hit by a tire swing and then flying through the air and landing on a trampoline.  There are a lot of moments of flight and a lot of moments of bruising and gouging.  But just like when I was 4, having those metaphorical bandaids of experience make you cooler and more readily respected, and those metaphorical moments of flight give you some serious bird's eye views.

(See what I did there?  I made the attempt to be literary and profound).