Shallow Overindulgence

"Why? Why have I done this?" "I want to laugh. I want to be free with my love and my money and my dreams. But I'm so afraid and there's the rub -- it's not fear of death for me but fear of lack that leaves me always feeling the pinch of never having enough."

"No," she said preemptively, shutting her daughter down in mid-sentence. "Whatever it is no. We're broke." I've lost my second job and God in Heaven I hate the fact that I feel the need for a second - a third - a fourth job even. I used to have eight back in the dark times during the divorce when fear kept her up night after night -- might as well work she'd thought.

"But..." her daughter began and then stalked out. Her bedroom door slammed, teenage punctuation to nearly every exchange.

She sighed and felt guilty. Always guilty. Always lacking. "Shallow overindulgence," she thought as she looked back down at the Three of Cups, Tepid enjoyment, chased by guilt, ruining the taste of any half-assed extravagance she mustered. She sighed, tears threatening. She had spent, too much she thought, but she'd also cut corners, saved, scrimped, and groused over every penny spent. It soured the whole transaction. She couldn't give with guilt. Shallow overindulgence stripped indulgence of every pleasure.

Here she was, fifty-five, counting calories, counting pennies, old and thin and pinched. "Why? Why have I done this?" "I want to laugh. I want to be free with my love and my money and my dreams. But I'm so afraid and there's the rub -- it's not fear of death for me but fear of lack that leaves me always feeling the pinch of never having enough. Enough of that!"

"Let's go," she yelled.

"Go where?" her daughter asked cautiously.

"Wherever you want to go. To the moon and back. To Paris for dinner. Let's go! Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die! That's biblical you know and damn good advice." That's the rub, she thought, not fear of death but fear of living past the celebration. Hangovers are a bitch.