“Oh, money’s easy to get,” my friend laughed, laying her heavily-jeweled fingers on my arm. “Anyone with half a brain can get enough to get by. You don’t need to worry about that.”

“But…”

“You can get rich if you want it,” she said firmly, and the way she said it seemed to indicate that there were piles of money lying around every corner, waiting to be scooped up.

At the time, I was twenty-seven and living in a crappy apartment, living from paycheck to paycheck and barely scraping by. I had no college degree, and was working at a job that seemed to aggressively enjoy passing me by for good raises. At the time, I thought she was crazy.

But with each passing year, I’m more convinced that she’s right.

Not that I’m rich, mind you. But I keep looking around at the people who share her attitude, that large loads of cash can be found everywhere with the proper amount of digging… And by and large, they seem to do pretty well. In Alaska, there’s an entrepreneurial boy who is half my age earning four times what I do. In New York, a group of folks seem to be making fortunes every week. Heck, even my boss Pete is doing pretty well.

What they all have in common is that they expect to see places where some bold man could get an opportunity, and lo! Because they’re always on the make, they find them. Not all of ‘em pan out, of course, and some of those folks have had some pretty rough patches along the way. But the fact that they’re both continually on the hunt and confident enough to go for it means that money really is more of a fluid quantity for them than it is for me.

Deep in my heart, I believe that money comes from paychecks. The idea of money coming from something as nebulous as an independent business or an investment scares the shit out of me. So I don’t look, and even if I do see it I don’t go for it.

Here’s the funny thing: My prophecies assert themselves. I don’t get the big bucks, and because I don’t leap in with both feet, I don’t get rich. Heck, I hate to ask for raises at work because money is scary, you know?

Yet I think of my friend’s confidence. That’s probably one of the more influential talks I’ve had with anyone, because watching her shrug off the whole “cash” thing as something trivial has clued me in to a few possibilities I hadn’t seen before. That opened my eyes, and I am notably wealthier because of it.

But my fundamental footing is still that money is a scarcity. And I think, to a certain extent, that drives what actually happens. If I believed that money was everywhere, damn, I probably would find more of it hanging down than I ever believed.

Interestingly enough, the one thing I do believe in an abundance of is sex.

I think that sex is easy to get; the trick is finding someone you actually want to have sex with. People have noted my ability to find crazy sex at the drop of a hat, and been amazed at the number of fuck-buddies I’ve had over the years; hell, I still find it. After eight years of marriage, I still stumble across kinky situations with a fair regularity, even if I don’t partake.

But I talk with people who sit, terrified, when the flirting comes around. You can see them tense up; sex is scary and full of rejection, and you don’t bring it up unless you absolutely have to. They claim they’re cool with sex, and they are – in theory – but when any actual sexual tension breaks out they either find an excuse to leave the room or start cracking jokes to distance themselves from it.

Then they tell me, sometimes with envy, that they don’t know how I do it.

“It’s easy,” I say. “Sex isn’t hard to find. It’s pretty much everywhere.”

I can see the look in their eyes: It isn’t for them. And because sex is something that’s hard to get, they overlook some of the places where sex could happen, and shy away from other places where it does happen, and then it winds up being a non-starter for ‘em.

There’s nothing wrong with that for them. You don’t have to be a crazy fuck-nugget in this life or any other. Yet if they feel like they’re missing out on something, the sad truth is that they are.

Or maybe they’re not. I think of Gini, who’s internalized some of her own clumsiness because her Mom used to yell at her for stupidly knocking things over. And I think of Gini’s daughter, Erin, who is graceful and athletic – and I think of the way she used to knock things over, and the way Gini said, “You’ve got a new body. Your arms are longer. It’s going to take a while for you to get used to that, is all.”

Some days I think that there’s nothing true in this life but what we make of it. If we see it as easy to find and are willing to work to get it, maybe everything’s within reach. Maybe all we ever wanted would be a little closer if we just had some more faith and better eyes to look for it.

An encouraging thought for the New Year, to be sure. And I can hope.

(63 shouts of denial | tell me I'm full of it)

pjammer

(8 shouts of denial | tell me I'm full of it)

(8 shouts of denial | tell me I'm full of it)