Maturity 101

The judge had very little patience for me today.

It was sad, really. I watched him take the other tenants' sides against their landlord prosecution. Those lawyers wanted those people to pay up NOW, and the judge found reasons why they could wait.

He found none such with me. He read my request for furtherance and shot down everything. He said that he doubted I could make the amount I needed in three months (which is what I was asking for). He asked if I had anything to show the court to back up my request. Well, I had my license to prove it was legit and that I had earning potential, but he said earning potential meant nothing. He seemed most impatient with the fact that I hadn't paid anything at all since my last court appearance.

Of course, I have, since then, bought my comic books on the reg, since then.
I have eaten out regularly as well. No, not in restaurants, but on the run. Bacon and egg sandwiches here, Big Macs there. Pizza for lunch. I've maybe fixed four cans of soup and a dozen hot dogs in my apartment since September. Not to mention the candy and the pastries. Yes, that's what I did with the little bit of money I've made at my Starbucks job. Well, I paid my car insurance once, gassed up the car a few times. Paid a bills consolidation payment. Partially paid a tardy electric bill to keep the lights on. Partially paid the cable bill to keep myself able to play City of Heroes (and blog of course).

But the last time a man of authority, power, and respect disapproved of me this much was when I couldn't get back into Bible School one year because I was out of money. He was the man I respected most out of all the people I'd met at that school. The man that I most admired and wished I could be like. The man that, in hindsight, I fell in love with.

Gotcha!

Not 'in love' per se, but came to truly love as a father-figure. There were prayers that I'd sent to God just telling Him how much I regretted not being born this man's son.

That was the season that I gained a mentor. This same man took me under his wing and helped me do a financial plan through which I was able to get back into school the next semester. He cared about me that much. It was very much like a storybook romance. The guy that I admired so much took an interest in me. It was like magic. The father I wanted, wanted to treat me like a son. (More hindsight! Was that an answer to prayer?! TOTALLY!)

We spent a lot of time together. During that year I got stuck in Missouri because of the evaporation of my finances. I couldn't come back to New York because I had to sell my mother's co-op and received NO money for it. So this man would make time to take me out to dinner, or play checkers with me, or anything really. When he could, of course. He had two sons and his wife to serve, and he was the assistant pastor of the church I was attending and stuff, so he did what he could. But what he did was totally unneccesary on his part, and he did it anyway. A true prince among men.

These days, our theologies are worlds apart. I'm not even faithful to ATTEND church, let alone want to be in the ministry anymore, while he has his own pastorate now in Oklahoma. If I never EVER see a prarie again, it'll be way too soon. I don't even want to go to New Jersey to WORK, and he lives in Oklahoma. So we've 'grown apart', but I still love him the way I've never loved or appreciated any father in my whole life.

It is easy, now, to grasp at other men to plug into this role the way I got to do with my mentor, and this housing judge today was just such a man. I thought he was going to defend me today the way he did those tenants before me. I saw him as kind, tolerant, sympathetic. A champion of the people.

Until I got up there.

Well, when this happened in Missouri, I was crushed. Hurt beyond the description. Before my mentor decided to show me love and help me salvage my financial situation, I felt ground under his bootheel. I felt diminshed and eviscerated. Very much, I think, the way women decribe their heartaches when they are dumped (hence i believe I will forevermore understand it).

So why wasn't I as crushed today, when the judge not only disapproved and rejected me, but judged against me and ordered me to be evicted if I didn't come up with the money today? Well, I was bothered, make no mistake. As soon as I saw the judge going against me, I felt weak and ineffectual and not at all confident anymore. I felt like a broken child, defective, damaged. Everything asked of me from that point, I stumbled over answering. My confident plan dissolved into pathetic excuses.

So why wasn't I as crushed?

Because the judge was right and I've already known that. My previous posts will attest to this. I know I'm irresponsible with money. I know I've made poor, poor choices in the past about my employment. I know I left Trenton a tad too early, and my mobile therapist job without a good plan. I know it. And so the court did not give me a third and fourth chance to skate along the thin ice of my stupidity.

Why am I not crushed?

Because I'm learning to accept myself as I am. Oh, I WANT to be a financial wizard. I want to scare Wall Street to death. I want to do what my friend, the soon-to-be-doctor has done with his life in making smart financial choices, keeping his resolve and commitment at his one successful plan at life, and seeing it through until it works out. Not jump all over the place like a demented rabbit, hopping from one plan, to the next, to the next, to the next. Spending countless years wasting time on assinine improbabilities. Head in the heavenlies.

So today the judge ruled that I need to reap the consequences of my foolishness.

Yeh, I can do that.

This is what I've learned.

I've learned that I've got problems and faults with finances, and I make poor choices, but I'm an okay fella with other qualities and I'll get through this. This may be the end of my blog, of course--until I get back into a place with internet. Or, I might just blog from an internet cafe. (That'd be fun, right? My life as an intermittently homeless New Yorker?)

This is my fault, but I'm going to be man enough to own it, adjust to it, and correct it for future endeavors. That's good, right?

Sigh.

Still, I'll be alright.

Me at 12/21/2004 08:47:00 PM

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