I'll finally be getting back to work next Tuesday with a contract job. It's at a company I've contracted with several times already, so there's no real surprises in store and should last "several months" according to the client. Mind you, last time I worked for them it was supposed to last several months and ended after only six weeks. Still, it's much needed money. As it stands I'll be unable to pay my rent on the first of the month, so this will save me from homelessness if nothing else.
Anyway, with the prospect of some money finally coming in for a little while, it got me to thinking about the things I could buy that I've been doing without on the tight budget I've lived most of the last year on. Then I got to thinking about the things I would have bought over the last year had money not been so tight. The new iPod, digital camera, guitar, stacks of records and CD's, and so on. Then I got to thinking about whether or not my life would have been any different right now had I bought those things. Would I be any happier? Would they have made any real difference? The answer was no. They're just things, when it comes to what really matters, they're irrelevant. Stuff won't make me happy, that can only come from inside. I think I finally get it.
Still, life itself has me pretty beat down right now and I've got an awful lot of sadness coming from inside. "So maybe I'll buy some stuff to distract myself with," he says with a consigned grin on his face.