Found Money and the Specific Joy of It

There is a jacket hanging on the back of my door that I haven't touched since sometime in March, maybe February. I pulled it down this morning because it's actually cold now, like, legitimately fall cold, the kind where you breathe out and it means something, and I was already halfway to annoyed about summer being over when my hand hit something in the pocket.

Three dollars. Crumpled. Slightly sad-looking. Completely mine.

I know it's three dollars. I know that is not a significant amount of money. And yet I stood there in my room for a full thirty seconds feeling genuinely, unreasonably pleased with myself, like I had discovered something. The lopsided pottery bowl on my dresser was right there watching me and I felt like I'd earned a place next to it, small trophy for doing the deeply unglamorous thing of finally putting on a jacket in September.

the moment of discovery

I've been in a weird headspace lately. There's a comment sitting in my inbox that I keep opening and closing without responding to, a phone folder I keep adding screenshots to without naming, and a fall that feels like it's asking me to make a decision I haven't finished thinking about. And somehow the three dollars helped. Not because of the money. Just because it was a small, complete thing that went exactly right. I found it, I kept it, done. Some days that's the whole win.

three dollars. life-changing.