Tink*abell

 The isolation of the move to a different town had convinced me to make lots of friends and be popular in highschool.Of course, I’d dress me up scantily and sing in front of my moms mirror like all girls my age at that time. Money became quite a frustration, now. I had convinced my mom to give me a montly amount to buy my own clothes. Finally, I had the 100 guilders a month that had seemed such an insurmountable amount before. But alas! It turned out a feeble amount for my goals. In my highschool – an upper class white one – which I chose because my brother went there and had, through his entreprises and big mouth, attained a very good status, of which I hoped to benefit -in vain as it turned out – dressing myself popular was definitely not an option, then.

Remember, this was before H&M: we had to make do with affordable but ugly C&A and V&D stuff. The only other option was labels: Levi’s, Esprit, Mexx, Bijenkorf, Nafnaf, Nike – but all of these were way out of my reach. The sex infused gear like Madonna was sporting was not even on sale – but I did not realize then, that that was what I really wanted. Fruitless and depressing afternoons on the highstreets followed. If only I had more money… frustration grew. I was a nerdy A-grade student, bored with my friends, my life and my image, desperate for change, but clueless. How to find the thrill or fulfillment I wanted? I tried a boyfriend, I tried ballet, I tried singing in a band – nothing. Maybe if I had the money to dress me up?

I thought long and hard about getting a job. The humiliation of working the till seemed insurmountable for me. This was before Gilmore Girls with cute Dean working at Taylor’s, making it seem like an option – two of my teen neighbours work in supermarkets and I think non the less of them, even admire the girls’s cheeriness on her job; she’s a cute one, too. Even a cousin of my husband works at AH just because of the colleagues. He was one of those amazing kids who started his own computer bizz, some kind of Internet thing I truly have no clue, so he’s managed to save up a real serious figure – but still he took the supermarket job for saturdays, for fun.  Come to think of it, even some friends my age worked in a supermarket in their teens – friends that I really like and respect, too.

For me, I am not proud to admit, something else came into play, however. Working for lowly wages seemed beneath me. I guess I was afraid of what my brother would think, because he’s the main source of this disdain. I mean, of course minimum wages at age 15 in those days would amount to something as low as 3 guilders and some cents, just short of one and a half euro. But I can still hear the sound of my brothers annoyed droning voice, doing the math: how many hours, minus taxes- I’d end up making something like 10 euros for a whole day’s work. Of course, he was rationalizing why he did not want to work at a supermarket. I guess he minded other people’s opinions, too. I admired him to no end – he was my cool older brother. Unfortunately, in his speeches he did not at all consider the effect on me, and my lack of other resources (hm, that does sound a bit pathetic).

The only option I seemed to have left was not working. So I earned nothing at all, where work might have earned me some self-respect, possibly some nice colleagues, and if nothing else, a sense of the value of my own free time. That I was now spending emptily, wasting away in front of the TV, wondering why my life was so empty. Why I knew no-one to babysit (that seemed like a nice way to make some extra pocket cash). Why I had no entrepreneurial ideas. And so on. No wonder I started feeling depressed.

 As soon as I could, my mom took me to open my own bank account. I remember initial excitement at using all those real adult forms. Also some disappointment when she explained how there would only be as much money in the account as I put in. No magic there. The initial excitement returned when my brother explained the idea of interest to me – but when he’d calculated the amount of ‘free money’ that added up to – in my case, I distinctly remember a figure of 3 cents a year – the disappointment returned.

Still, I put as much of my allowance (een “kwartje” a week, equivalent of 10 eurocents) as I could manage not to spend on sweets (two smilies and a small licorice and gone was the weeks’ worth) into the saving account. I remember the nervousness of effecting a withdrawal – did I fill out the form correctly? Will she trust it is really me who set the signature? Will real money issue forth when I give her that peace of paper and that bit of plastic? Holding on tightly to the precious bankcard, sweaty palms. While the cue moved forward slowly.

It never amounted to much, though. I’d ogle my mom’s wallet and the 100-gulden bill she’d pay the weekly groceries with jealously, wondering how I’d ever possess that impossibly high figure. How many “kwartjes”? The idea dazzled me and the task seemed insurmountable. How ever does anyone make money? How is money made? I wondered over and over again, without any real answers coming even vaguely in sight. I felt powerless, a mere pawn in a game grown ups seemed to play so effortlessly. Windowshopping made me depressed, because there was never anything I could buy.

My brother, on the other hand, managed to accumulate stuff. I never knew quite how he did it – to this day. He’d enter competions, and win: I remember how he won an Atari game computer. He bought records (impossible expensive at 25 gulden) and even singles (5 gulden, slightly less daunting, but still a lot. And I  figured out, that was a lot less music to the cent compared to an LP, so in fact, they were more expensive than LP’s. I guess you could call it a quality, consistency or perseverance, that I never bought a single. But I felt marvelously jealous of people who would, and could). He managed to collect a whole box full and gave DJ-ing a serious go. Then, he started up his own catering business with a friend. Quite the entrepreneur. And I was sitting at home, alone, pining away at MTV’s Maiken Wexo, marvelling at the glamorous life and how that could be me. I even wrote MTV a letter. But this was later, when I was in highschool… stay tuned for the follow up.

“I want to be rich” my brother, 4 years older than me, would proclaim proudly at any time, prompted or not. His eyes glowing with, what my parents deemed condescendingly, greed. What I see now, is how this flame was fueled by a simple but burning need for love, attention and recognition by them. An unfulfilledness that nearly consumed me, too. But I was the good girl; he was fighting it out. I thought I had the easy part – well, my dues came later.

It is probably no coincidence, that in the same period my mom went back to work. The wind of neglect began blowing through our big, nice house. Everyone was always busy doing things elsewhere. My brother – up to no good with friends my parents didn’t approve of. But I was there. Waiting for the sound of someone coming home. Hoping. I remember playing with dolls, on my own. Learning to read, and reading, alone in my room. The cats kept me company. Standing beside my mom’s desk, while she was writing. Waiting for her to give me some attention. Settling for a bit of paper and a pen, “writing” myself, too. Petty fights about me having to use a mouthpiece that was supposed to help me stop sucking on my thumb and set my teeth straight in one go. It was embarassing. The outward part looked like a pacifier – I was 6 by now. I had to wear it to school – I refused, I “lost” it, it broke. Fights about cleaning our playroom. I would scream at my mom, forbading her to say the word “clean”. On the other hand, these same tuesday afternoons were holy: mom would be at home. All bets were off – no friends coming over, no playdates at some one elses: just enjoying her presence in the house. She’d do laundry. I’d watch, help some. Waiting for that special look, a cuddle, a kiss.

Back to me and money: things were heating up between my dad and my brother. He would angrily erupt into an: “If I am rich, I’ll…” – buy all the candy I want, get the nice toys: live the life I really want, instead of the deprived one you are making me live now. Door slamming exits. I associated their anger with money – I learned to hate it. Looking back, I can put into words that I hated the depencendy and powerlessness it created in him, because he did not have it. I would shrug myself, feeling I did not need money to buy me love, convincing myself my parents did, in fact, love me, since I was not giving them a hard time. Being sweet, quiet, invisible. Don’t talk about the money thing. Don’t make them angry. Distance yourself from the fire and explosions destroying the love. But it hurt me too, even before… An innocent bystander, I felt ill at ease, sensing something amiss. I sensed my mom and dad suffered just as much from the faltering relationship, even though they did have money. Well… they separated when I was 8 years old. The first clear cut. The suffering, the pain, the nonprocessing, the delay of all that – an entire story, to be told another time. The concrete effects on my life were a move to a new house, a new school, new friends. I was a mess – crying in class for no apparent reason, nothing I could put into words. But me and money – stay tuned for how that relationship evolved.

I have been trying to get to grips with money. I found some interesting blogposts and a fascinating discussion ensued here. What does it mean (to me)? As regular visitors here know, I am looking for work. There’s many things I could do, and that would make me very happy – but sometimes it seems, the more fulfilling the job, the worse the pay. Well, that just won’t do, will it? Like most, I am looking for a fulfilling job with a satisfying paycheck. So, what makes a job fulfilling and how does that relate to a paycheck? I have been held hostage in jobs that were absolutely not fulfilling, because of their excellent paycheck. I do not want to get back into that situation. I have been looking around in the blogworld at alternative views on money. In the end, I decided I need to take a personal journey through my life, looking at how I have related to money over the years. In hopes of unravelling which ways to get rid of and which to hold on to. To be able to look at it fresh, and be ready and waiting to negotiate my way into that well-balanced job offer. To be able to know what makes for my personal ideal balance – what do I really need, in terms of money and other values, what can I sacrifice easily, and what is the negotiation space in between. And maybe gain some other valuable, unexpected insights along the way. Hope you’ll enjoy the trip and travel with me, sharing your views!

I cut up my life in peaces to make for a series. Here comes part I (quickly written, short and sweet): at age 0 to 4, I was (blissfully?) unaware of money or the role it played in my life. Mom was at home taking care of me and my 4 years older brother; dad went out – to work. That’s it!