sometimes I get scared about the amount of debt I carry, and the payments I have to make every month, and the gutters need to be fixed, and tax money I'm going to owe, and.....etc.
When I'm in that state of mild panic, I look around at the strangers I see driving their cars to work in the morning, and wonder if they are as twisted up inside about money as I am...or maybe they hate their husband and are living in pain....
Or are they bored? Just heading in for another day that will slip by like all the others. Or maybe they're all charged up with purpose, and can't wait to get to the office to enact the plans they're making in their head on the ride in. I guess it's all of the above out there.
I am glad that I did take the time to write down how I felt that warm night. It helps to calm me down some....and thanks to cram for reminding me about it...it's been over a year since I've read it, I think.
I used to stress about money REALLY bad. Crazy bad, all the time.
I'm not sure exactly what happened. Maybe it was when I decided to stop fighting to save a marriage that my husband clearly wanted to leave. I knew I'd be making a huge financial sacrifice, at a time when I had a $14k medical bill from an unexpectedly complicated tonsillectomy (long story), $12k in business debt from being unable to work during recovery, AND I'd gutted my business and gone to part-time so my husband could work full-time. Plus a $2010/mo mortgage payment. During a monumental recession.

I think that the day I decided I'd rather deal with the financial issues than keep fighting to save a doomed and stressful marriage, something inside me changed, and I stopped worrying about money. It's touch and go, but I don't stay up nights worrying about it anymore.
I'm not happy yet, but it's only a matter of time.