*Excerpts from my (upcoming) book: The Mountain Moved Me
Author: Vanessa Wishstar

“Fuck baby boomer money.” There, I said it. I’ve found the corroded pot of gold, the drawknife that strips the dollar bill bark down to dust, baring the forest of a system in shame, imbalance, inequality and separation. Sure, money issues go back farther than Boomers, but holy hell it’s been doomsday since the dollar had a mouthful of opinions thinking one can give financial advice just because they have more green in their bank account of morals. 

Again, I had a shower epiphany. I stood there steaming mad, or else it was just Florida-temperature tap water, talking out loud though my lips were not moving, screaming inside my own head, “what the fuck just happened” and “holy shit, I can’t believe it is THEM who are my problem, not me!” The water stripped me naked, down to the bones of branded beliefs. I couldn’t even cry tears, just stabbing darts of returned blame and shame. “No, I don’t have a receipt for this shell-shock of a financial blow, but I’m returning this pain irregardless. And yes, I want my money back, but not by you. Can I see a manager, please?”

I no longer want to be rich. I don’t want that type of money. It’s filthy. Sleazy, spit-and-shaked upon. Fuck their dirty, white, whored bets on folks’ shouldering their righteous dream life. They didn’t earn it. They think staying in a job, working a 9-5 day, shirking their family and mowing the lawn gives them well deserved privileges. They populated a kid or two, patting them on the back when they ‘made it’ = repeating the patterns of their boomer behavior. This is laughable. Downright humorous. This is why Gen X, and their lineage, misunderstand love. At this point, I’m questioning its value. I’m now at Boomer-age and it turns out there’s no mystery in money. Except having to unschool myself from their very teachings.

Without spiraling into fixing the world’s monetary value placement and ‘living free’, there has to be mention of the stability of owning a home. Our boomer white *middle class parents didn’t have this dilemma. They always had the fall back and dilemma of living with their parents if they returned from the war-front not being able to fit back into expected ‘normal’. Fact is, they still had a house! The same house they grew up in, possibly the same bedroom and sheets. But as the Boomers love to share their fiscal wisdom, their misconception is that life is anything like life was and on top of that, they are not offering anything close to what their parents offered them. If you can’t offer us a place for me and my homeless family, then by all means find a way to financially support us, even if it’s a temporary inconvenience. But the fact is, they can’t. This is why they have money in the first place because they won’t let it go. They see us Gen X’ers, Millennials, and “alien” Gen Z’ers use money like it’s an energy transaction, which it is, but they can’t grasp it, and that’s primarily the pain in this situation. They feel they must grasp it, they have to hold onto it, they must feel it in a 3D world so they end up dealing out what they deem appropriate, with a side helping of an opinion in how to use it; or they don’t give anything – commentless, as if they never heard our problem to begin with. But the problem isn’t only with their behavior, but with the system in which it’s still activated. They’re being held at gunpoint, using their own gun. 

I got out of my sunbaked, chipped painted minivan and filled up with gas. The meter only ran to $63.46. I realized I was no longer in Alaska, but in Florida where gas prices were half the price to go places in life. My daughter kept begging for something to drink. Oddly enough, I forgot to bring my backpack full of water bottles – the same feeling as if I were to forget my phone. I kept repeating, “don’t worry, we’re almost home, we’ll get water as soon as we get there.” Her whining continued and there’s no sense in delaying this dehydration in “what feels like 99 degree” temperatures, my phone reads. I look over the gas pump at the convenience store questioning how convenient it could be to just buy liquid, feeling the wastefulness, my frugality, my childhood conditioned mind. I cross the white squares of reflective concrete anyway and I open the sticky door with one finger, tip toeing in, not really wanting to step inside, but then I announce, “who wants ice cream? Do you also want a drink?” “Yes”, is vocally sung in unison, shocked at my parental giving, “what did we do to deserve this”, written all over my childs’ minds. Which saddened me as I’ve been so frugal all these years trying to save us.

As I walked out of that convenience door, I asked my four year old if I could have a sip of her tall-no-dye-fruit-punch drink. I watched her black raven hair walk out in front of me on a mission to enjoy it all by herself, she murmured a soft but direct reply of, “no”. I realized I’ve forgotten how to live life freely. I’ve forgotten about the abundance of now, the convenience factor of it showing up and me denying it, thinking it’ll cost me. Always weighing its price. What a dumb spiritual game we play, thinking it’s not real. When it is real! All of this, in how we respond to life’s offerings, is rich with reward, if we’re paying attention. I might have forgotten to get myself a tall-no-dye-fruit-punch drink, but I didn’t forget to buy myself a lottery ticket.