In the red.

There comes a point in every Manhattan girl’s life when the process of checking ones bank account becomes an altogether horrifying task, inducing gasps, nausea and overall denial. I am not a big spender and never have been, which is a good thing because one can’t afford to be in this city. I have clothes from high school (the classics never go out of style) and eat modestly (it’s amazing how long a jar of peanut butter can last you) and have never cared much in the way of designer handbags or fancy jewelry (how much for that silver bracelet?!?!).

But after nearly three years of living in a city that refuses to pay me what I’m owed and charges me way too much to live in what most places would refer to as a walk-in closet, it was inevitable that I would, one day, look at that dreaded bank account, despite all my efforts to be frugal, and see staring back at me not just any number, but a number in red. With a negative sign in front of it. (The horror!).

It’s a scary feeling realizing that while you are (in most regards) a grown woman capable of holding down a high stress job in a higher stress city, that you can’t always live within your already meager means.

Yes, New York is the greatest place in the world. No, I don’t have any plans to ever leave it. But there comes a point when you can’t help but ask yourself what it means to be in this financially freaked out fragment of time, and recognize that everything you’re working for, everything you have worked for, for forty-five plus hours a week for the past three years of your life, has at the end of the day, not really amounted to much of anything at all.

Oh, and donations are welcome.