Until exactly five years ago this month, I had always been able to say that every problem plaguing me could be quickly solved with a large influx of cold, hard cash.  And I said that with reverence as I knew how fortunate that made me.  My health was good, I loved where I lived, my relationships and friendships were rewarding, and I loved where I worked, even if the nuts and bolts of what I did weren’t rewarding. When I let my Inner Writer free, life really got good.

Except for money.  I am not good with money.  I have never been good with money.  And I’ve never had enough money for this weakness to be that big of a factor. 

But after the almost five-year bout of COVID and Long COVID and back problems, I have a new appreciation for health.  For a while, the situation seemed dire, and I mourned everything I wasn’t going to be able to do if physically disabled by these problems.  The good stuff would still be there – my relationships, my writing. But I might lose the financial security of my job, and I would be plunged into abject poverty without the means to ease it.

Oh, how I mourned the life I had envisioned for these closing years. 

Well.  The Long COVID seems to be gone (hallelujah!), and we are handling the back problems. I am physically and mentally much better and still able to work. Hope ruled my psyche once again. But I am still hamstrung by financial matters.

I’ve read countless accounts and statistics about big lottery winners. It’s almost a universal experience that they end up broke and miserable.  I always read this with interest, trying to glean the why.  It always boiled down to greed combined with philanthropy.  They invested in risky projects, spent uncontrollably, and bailed friends and family out of their financial hells. 

I developed a plan.  Never mind that you have to actually buy a lottery ticket to win the lottery; I had a plan in place.  I had chosen the investment advisor I would use.  I had chosen the person I would hire to handle mundane matters like paying the bills, hiring the housecleaning staff, and dealing with pleas for money.

Me?  I was going to live a blissful life of the arts and travel.  I was going to see it all.  They say if you go to Paris, you need a month to see all the Louvre has to offer. Rome requires even more time.

My life of poverty has left me always short of time.  A lottery win’s gift of time would be the greatest blessing. Time to write, time to travel, time to garden, time to cook, and time to nurture my loved ones. 

Oh, I have it all planned. All of it. 

At a very young age, I first quipped: I was genetically predisposed to be one of the idle rich. I’ve repeated that line like a mantra my whole life in tandem with more time, more time, more time.

I’m in the last twenty years of my life.  To be given every minute to do as I choose would be a luxury I can barely even process.  And to spend that time with family and friends with lots of travel, art, and fine food thrown in would be so so so… something. I’m at a loss for superlatives. 

So, the trick now is to figure out how to do most of this in tandem with the daily problems and responsibilities of my normal life.  I’m working on it.