At the end of each month, I enjoy reducing the weeks’ happenings to a set of numbers.

Honestly. Mostly. I do!

Particularly if they’re robust digits, maybe more rotund than I expected them to be last time I sat down to my beloved spreadsheet. I get to feed them to next month’s numbers and the ones after that and the whole exercise feels like anticipating a really good meal.

But sometimes, I have to do Projections that head WAY out into the ether – past next year, and the year after – towards future projects and possibilities rather than what’s immediate and real.

This kind of number play comes with other feelings.

We all have autobiographies told through the language of money. They’re as contextual as any family history, and their resonance shapes our financial esteem.

If I play too far into the future, murmurings fill the cells of my sheet, taunting me…

‘you don’t know what it means to work hard’, ‘you’ve got caviar taste’, ‘you’ll never make what you need’, ‘you’re a dreamer’, ‘you’ve always got a fall back’, ‘you’re an idealist’, ‘you made a foolish decision’, ‘you must be brave (as in you must be dumb)’…

When I’m playing in the present and the figures are plump, I don’t Hear these voices at all. I hear mine. And it’s saying, fuck youse all, I’m on a learning curve.

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