November 9

I got a call from a woman, Katherine, who is very interested in the office. She’s my hottest lead yet, out of the 20+ inquiries I’ve had in the last six months. Maybe Katherine will take the lease over, and I can pay Susan and the ladies what I owe them, and be done with this.

Increasingly, I feel I should just pay Susan and her colleagues what I owe them, regardless of what Katherine does. They’re obviously not going for my $5,000 offer, so it’s not much of a bargaining chip. I’m starting to feel there’s no point in hanging on to it. I feel called to pay them; when I’m quiet and still, it’s what my instinct tells me to do. Ethically, I should pay them. I know this. Slowly, I’m feeling less stubborn about it.

It makes me nervous to think about it, because I would have no money left to defend myself in court, or pay a bankruptcy lawyer. Nonetheless, I’m beginning to think I’ll just pay it. I’ve resisted doing this, because I wasn’t sure I really owed the money. But now that I know I do, I know in my heart I have to pay it, in order to make room for something to happen to resolve the situation. God willing, Katherine, or someone else, will take the office off my hands.

My wife and I are also having some stress, and I can’t help but think my money issues have a lot to do with it. I wonder, “If we didn’t have debt, would we be okay?” The $470 a month we pay to creditors could buy a lot of babysitting and housekeeping services, not to mention massages and getaway vacations. Also, the $20,000 I inherited has mostly gone to creditors ($8,500 to American Express, $5,000 probably on its way to the Dana Ladies), and we could have had a lot of fun with it, or socked away a nest egg, or both.

My wife brought some debt into the marriage, but most of our debt is mine. I can’t help but worry that my money issues are a big part of our stress. We just paid $1,400 of her bad debt with my inheritance, but we’re still fantastically stressed due to the situation with the Dana Building, and residual stress from worrying that American Express was coming after us for all that time. We have never, in the three years we’ve been together, been stable financially. I feel like that’s my fault.

As I write this, I feel so drained. Being broke, with a small child and a troubled marriage, is a bit too much to take sometimes. I know that I’ll get through it, one day at a time; my recent breakthrough with American Express has given me that faith. But it’s very, very tough sometimes.

Maybe you’ve noted by now that a debtor’s mind, or at least my mind, is like the surface of the ocean, heaving back and forth in waves of hope and anxiety. One minute, I seem to know exactly what I will do, and the next minute I seem to be full of doubts. This is something I want to move beyond as well, though I know it will take a lot of work.

My little son has toddled up to me, and is smiling at me as I write. I’m going to knock off the writing, and go spend some time with him. One thing I love about being a parent is that it gives me something else to focus on; it gets me out of my head. And I love that my son loves me, regardless of my troubles.

The best things in life really are free. Regardless of how much money I have or don’t have, regardless of how much I owe or don’t owe, and regardless of how well my wife and I are getting along, no one can put a price tag on my little boy’s laugh, and no one can take that gift away from me.