Letter to a Finder-Keeper

Dear Whoever Was Behind Me At The Bank Yesterday,

After a few (13ish) hours of kindof-frantic panic and stressed-out dreams and deliberation… I’ve decided: it’s okay.

I’ve decided that I can make that money back. Teaching summer school and eating out a few times less often and getting PBRs instead of cocktails. I’ve decided that something must’ve happened at some point in your life- if not yesterday- that made picking up that money that I'd accidentally left on the counter seem like a justifiable thing to do. I mean- I have plenty of my own moral slip-ups; I’ve probably contributed more than $300 to heartless companies that outsource their labor to impoverished children abroad- and I’ve definitely eaten my share of food that’s produced by treating live animals like products on an assembly line. Who am I to judge anybody?

Actually, I know that I am incredibly fortunate to have all that I do- even $300 dollars lighter in the proverbial loafers. A couple thousand of dollars in debt to a credit card and my ultra-supportive-parents- both of whom helped me to survive while I have been trying my hardest to do something I feel is really important to try to do.

So I’ve decided I'm not going to let you get to me.

Because there is already enough bitterness in the world- especially in relation to money. It glares at me in my work everyday. I see the ugliness brought about by having too much or not enough- and I don’t want to be any more a part of that than I have to.

And sure- that was a lot of money to me. I am a teacher just out of college living in a new town… but I have it better than most. I’ll get over it. I am over it. It’s just like having lost a dollar to a vending machine during a really worthwhile event. Three hundred times.

I hope you did something you needed to with that money. Fixed your car to take your daughter to the movies. Registered your son for summer school. Took your mom and grandma out to dinner. Whatever you did, I hope someday- when you can- you pass that on. Or when you lose money somehow one day (and you probably will), I hope that you don’t add any extra bitterness to the world because of it. Because there already is enough of that.

And if everyone had just been a little bit sweeter to begin with- maybe you wouldn’t have needed that money so much. Maybe then you wouldn’t have smiled like that before you took it from me.

Life goes on, though, you know?