Relentless Inquiry

That new books section at the library. I find all kinds of stuff there that I wouldn't find in the stacks.

Reading today “Rich Woman”, by Kim Kiyosaki. You know, the Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy's wife. Apparently, as he acknowledges in the foreword, she taught him a lot about investing. Anyway, the book is by and for women, to get them used to making good investment choices so that they have control of their own lives. Kim's motivation came primarily, she says, from hating to be told what to do, and she wanted the Golden Rule working in her favor (Got the gold, make the rules).

But this is a song about Alice, or a post about me. I got to wondering why exactly I have such a mindset that I've never even considered that somebody I'm going out with, or married to, was going to pay my way. I've asked for loans, and paid them back, but that's pretty much it. “Going dutch” was always my default, and I was surprised when someone offered to do differently.

Well, sitting there reading, asking myself that question, I got the answer. I heard a voice out of the past, of my primary abuser: “You better practice taking care of yourself, honey, because nobody's gonna marry a frigid bitch like you.”

Nice thing to say to a pre-teen, isn't it? Not. I've done most of my healing, made peace with the people who my abusers turned into as they aged, and forgiven them who they were when they were younger. Sometimes a snippet or two comes up to haunt me, but it's uncommon. As one might hope, after a decade-plus in self-funded therapy with someone very, very good. I fixed my head instead of buying a house, and occasionally need to remind myself of that.

I'm really glad I got the self-reliance part, and the financial independence part. Could have done without the other crap, oh yeah. But there's always a silver lining. Now the trick is to pass that on, without the cloud it came from.