Rebuilding Rob

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Enough (A Rumination On Money, Family, And Late Night Drives).

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A man with a tired but determined expression drives a car during the early morning hours. The dashboard is dimly lit, showing a GPS navigation screen and a paper coffee cup in the holder. Outside the windshield, a long, wet highway stretches into the distance under a gray, overcast sky. A text overlay in the corner reads: "ENOUGH (A RUMINATION ON MONEY, FAMILY, AND LATE NIGHT DRIVES)."

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

I wish I had enough money to…

I don’t need to be filthy rich. I don’t want more money than God, or more than I know what to do with. For me, I would just like to have enough that I don’t have to worry about it. I don’t want to live paycheck to paycheck anymore. I want to know that if one of the boys needs something, I can just get it—or if I want to plan a trip, I can budget it out and make it happen.

Money does weird things to people. I remember the old VH1 Behind the Music series where musicians explained that once they “made it big,” everyone they ever knew came out of the woodwork. Some asked for money; some asked for jobs or business investments.

I remember a story about a doctor who was out walking his dog when a neighbor spontaneously approached him on the sidewalk and asked for $12,000 to buy a car. I still wonder: if that neighbor was so broke, how were they living in the same neighborhood as a doctor? I have no interest in having the kind of money that makes people think they can just ask for things like that.

A lot of the time, I handle my finances the same way I handle my work ethic: I procrastinate. When I don’t plan ahead, I end up doing everything at the last minute.

It’s ironic that I’m writing about this today, because on Thursday night, I drove out to Wisconsin to pick up my oldest. We haven’t talked much the last few weeks, and I think he just needed to get out of Madison for a couple of days. He’s using the excuse of wanting to see his cousin and another friend, but I think he just wanted a break from school. I totally understand. When I visited in October, I offered to bring him back to Detroit for a few days, but he wasn’t ready then. Now that he is, I’m happy to oblige.

The fact that I’m also picking up my youngest this weekend is a bonus. Having both boys for a few days so they can spend time together is a win all the way around.

I mention this trip not just because it’s what I’m doing right now, but because I’m doing it on a shoestring budget until I get paid tomorrow morning. My oldest had the idea for me to drive to Madison Thursday night and then have both of us drive back overnight—basically a massive round trip. It’s ambitious, and I’m already tired even as I voice-dictate this, but it’s better than trying to stretch it over three days.

As long as I can afford it, I plan on getting him a bus ticket for the return trip to Madison. Doing that round-trip drive twice in just a few days is a lot to ask of anyone. Besides, a bus ticket has to be cheaper than what I’m spending on gas for this haul.

Update: Check back today at 10:00 AM ET for my full Season 1 review of Starfleet Academy. I’ll be diving into the season as a whole and sharing my final notes on where the series is headed. See you then!

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AI art created by Google Gemini

The article ”Enough (A Rumination On Money, Family, And Late Night Drives)” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.

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