But even if everything went swimmingly in media for the foreseeable future—hardy har—television and film writing certainly pay much better than journalism and publishing. Either way, my uncle went from bugging me to burn him DVDs of downloaded movies to seeing me as someone with the ability to make one. What a journey we’ve been on together. At first, it was “Fuck you do for work? Get a real job, nigga!” and now we have blossomed to “Oh, I saw that nigga on TV. Something’s coming.”
Uncle Terry’s surprisingly sound unsolicited advice then shifted to words of encouragement.
“I always believed in you,” he added. “I’m proud of you.”
Words of encouragement, that is, driven by a motive.
“You know you gon’ take care of your uncle, right?”
Ahh, there we are. It all makes sense now. This man is hilarious.
My dad then promptly snatched the phone away and said of his brother, “That nigga got brain damage, Mike.”
Maybe, but when I told my mom, she laughed.
“He meant it, too.”
He absolutely meant it. I have two friends back home with the same expectation. I almost feel sorry for taking so long to get out of the hole I’ve dug myself into. They had plans; I hate being late, even if it always takes me just a little longer to get to wherever I’m supposed to be.
As far as he goes, I’m not taking care of that man, but I will hand him some cash every now and again and a bottle of Paul Masson on a very special future Christmas. Nah, I can do Crown Peach. That’s family, distant or not.
I never got the chance to ask him what Spike Lee did to offend him, but White Lee and Tyler Perry may differ in terms of skill set, each share the trait of arguably being heavy-handed in terms of the messaging they want to deliver to their audiences. You want people to understand where you are going from. You want people to take away certain lessons from your story. Yet, while I don’t want to don a gray wig or make a weird, ahistorical argument that’s going to piss off The Blacks of Twitter in order to do so, I want so desperately to follow that example and nudge the direction of the takeaways from what I’ve laid bare in this space.
I feel so anxious and concerned about what you—the reader—will take from this. I am not concerned with being canceled. I am not fretting about being taken down. What I do worry about, however, is not being whiny, self-indulgent, or self-pitying, or forging excuses. But there is a shame that comes with not having enough money. We still live in a culture that demonizes people for not having money, like there’s something wrong with them. I have carried so much shame with me for so long. I have never wanted to talk about it.
It’s easier to write about one’s troubles getting to suck dick than it is to reveal how deeply you’ve questioned whether or not you are sucking at life, or just the mere fear that you are.
I hope I have explained my own bouts with that shame convincingly.
It’s just that I have read so many stories about people that have conquered their student loans that only stoke spite from me. If you are to believe what you read, massive debt is not as insurmountable as it sounds. All it requires is discipline, sacrifice, and sheer will.
Stories about how someone paid off $70,000 in loans in nine months. Another one that paid off nearly $30,000 in loans in three years in spite of making $30,000 a year. There’s someone else who paid off $87,000 in two and a half years. And a couple that managed to pay off $200,000 in combined loans in nineteen months. I’ve even read about a guy that took care of his $47,000 in loans in a single year.
They sound like superheroes in the headlines. Their journeys are depicted as both miraculous and attainable—if you just put your all into it. You can will away it all!
I’m supposed to be inspired by their stories. They’re supposed to make me believe I can pay it all off faster than I know if I really, really try a little harder. Then you read how they managed to achieve this feat. Mind-shattering tactics such as having a high-earning job that allowed them to make substantial payments toward both the interest and principle of the debt; applying whatever monetary gifts they receive toward their loans; using their bonuses to pay down their debt; make more money.
If I could find a time machine and go back to April 12, 1984, I would whisper the big lotto numbers to my mom right after the umbilical cord was cut from around my neck so that she could be rich and make my life a lot easier. If not that, I could at least return to high school and tell myself to become a lawyer who eventually becomes an anchor that argues with people on prime time like Chris Cuomo. Yes, I will get right on that.
The other methods you read in the stories are no less discontenting.
It’s one thing to ask people to go cordless or consider a gym-less life, but should we be giving people platforms to share how they paid off their loans by forgoing health insurance, owning a car, having a place of their own? Why are we highlighting people as success stories who felt compelled to stunt their lives to this severity? I’m sure the financial institutions who buy ads around these stories are satisfied, but it comes across as propaganda for lenders. As for the participants, they have every reason to be proud of themselves, but there is no surefire way to pay off massive student loan debt, and to exploit anecdotes in this manner is misguided for all parties involved.
It’s never made sense to me. But these stories keep getting presented year after year. On TV and in print and across the internet.
Those people do not need to be mythologized; they need to be listed as more examples of how a corrupt system has soiled the lives of so many. I always want to turn into a Teresa Giudice table-flipping GIF whenever I see these fables pimped out into the zeitgeist. And it’s not lost on me how more often than not, when I read these types of stories, the subjects are all white. That does not absolve them of strife, but it majorly provides certain degrees of privilege and access that others reading won’t ever have. It’s so devoid of reality.
I’ve gone without everything I’ve been encouraged to go without. I’ve done numerous side hustles. I’ve done every type of writing imaginable—some people simply never knew it. I never understood why Hannah on Girls was complaining about advertorial writing—which is basically you writing ad copy. It pays well, and well enough for a person to get their opinions out there for much less, to satisfy their creative urges. I’ve also done plenty of non-writing and non-media-related jobs—side hustles to my writing and media side hustles. I’ve done everything I can think of to try and stay afloat and on top of my loans.
I still owe like shit.
I wouldn’t say I have a plan to pay off my student loans, but I have an idea of how it’s going to go.
Of the low-six figure debt I graduated with, much of it was tied to a consolidation of several loans taken out from one lender per semester that amounted to about $80,000 in debt. I was placed on a twelve-year plan that I had no means of changing. That twelve-year plan is nearly finished. Unfortunately, the rest of that debt—the small private loan and the government loans issued—has ballooned due to interest after several instances of deferment and forbearance. As much as I tried to pay all of them at once, the private loans alone were often too much to tackle. That minimum debt is now substantially more than what it was. So, while that private loan will be paid off in 2021 or 2022 if I’m only paying the minimum, I now owe tens of thousands on the originally low loans.
I may be able to pay them off sooner. I might sell more books. Working in television may go well for me. Someone could pay for my studio time, I could drop bars, and I could pay my loans off and those of my kin (immediate) with the tour sales and #influencer money I plan to scam if I get even a .10 of a hit. Ironically, speaking to college students is the most probable means of me getting out of student loan debt faster.
If none of these options pans out, I will explore other avenues.
I will try to meet a billionaire. I won’t be obvious and go to a graduation ceremony anytime soon. I’ll think of some other place billionaires hang out. W
here is the billionaire let out? I’ll go there the second I am sent the location.
I’ll start playing lotto regularly. It’s no less a gamble than the one I am paying off now. Scratch-offs are fun and make for great birthday gifts in select circles.
I’ve been told that in order to really, really get ahead, one needs a magic white man to help set you on the right path. Are they supposed to be lying around somewhere just waiting to become the inspiration behind some film that makes white people happy enough that it wins Best Picture at the Academy Awards? Or is this the reality show I should have been pitching all this time? Never mind. I never asked follow-up questions.
Maybe I can go work in tech. I have a few friends who left their fields to go work where the money is. I don’t have a lust for wealth, but it would be nice to lead a life no longer dictated by debt. I do not want to die poor, but if all else fails, I’ll make sure to get life insurance so that in the event of my untimely death, I won’t have to deal with letters going to my tombstone. I suspect Discover Student Loans, my arch nemesis, would find a way to contact me on the hour every hour even in my death. I’d rather be safe than sorry.
Somehow, some way, it will get done. I have to believe that. It’s not like I have much of a choice not to believe that. They want the money I owe them in full regardless of whether or not I am physically present to pay it.
But I really, really want to pay them off sooner rather than later. I do not want to be one of those old people paying off their student loans in their seventies. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, of the more than $1.6 trillion owed in student loan debt, more than 3 million over sixty are paying off $86 billion of that figure. So they are working or having their Social Security benefits garnished. Granted, I doubt we will have Social Security by the time I’m old enough to receive benefits, but that is terrifying.
Your elder years are supposed to be spent in white linen dancing to Charlie Wilson on the Tom Joyner Cruise. I don’t want to be seventy-six and unable to go see Cardi B on the boat because I have to go to Walmart in order to change the charger on the robot that manages the distribution center. I read one older person say of their debts, “This will follow me to the grave.”
There are older people who find work to keep busy and those who have no choice. Some of those older people working are paying off the loans of their children and grandchildren. I will not do that to my mother. She is retired. She will stay that way.
I’ll humble myself as many times as need be to get past this. I’m almost there, but I’ve always understood how fragile my situation has been. If not for better off friends helping me pay my rent after I stubbornly rebuffed their offerings multiple times, I might not have been able to swing an actual book tour. And if not for being given a hotel gift card from an executive, I might not have made a bookstore stop in a city where I not only got to promote my book, but got to meet with people who can change my life.
Above all, if not for my mom, who doesn’t even understand my choices but supports me, there are times in my life where I might not have been able to eat. And this is working day after day for as many people who will have me work in multiple capacities.
So many of the stories about overcoming debt are singular, but there is always the help of others in the backdrop. I hope I have made that clear.
One of my very first published pieces was an essay entitled “Is College Worth It?” Barely out of college, I was already openly weighing my choices: “When I returned home to Texas for a while, several people who had criticized my college ambitions welcomed me back with ‘I told you so.’ So what do I say now, when people ask me if it was all worth it? My answer is still, ‘yes.’ College provided opportunities I couldn’t have gotten elsewhere. My only regret is that I didn’t think of a better way to pay for them.”
I have told myself this, but I probably would have skipped college if I could have, or at least, dropped out midway though. Actually, it doesn’t matter. That’s been my problem this whole time: I wouldn’t stop looking back.
I hope I have made plain how burdensome it can be constantly looking back.
I spent more than a decade letting my loans have a much greater hold on me than I ever should have allowed. The debt was going to be there, but I didn’t have to let it drive so much of my thinking. I did not have to convince myself that I did not deserve a certain type of life because I believed that I deserved more than I was told I could have.
I denied myself significant breaks from work, much less real vacations. I have denied myself all sorts of things in the name of fiscal responsibility, or more aptly, not ever defaulting. I sacrificed a lot to stay on top and found myself letting years of my life go by that could have been more favorable to me if I didn’t prioritize the interests of my lenders who had no concern over my well-being or over those of my own. And then I punished myself in other ways. I was a person already with demons who piled on myself for having ambition. If I could take a lot of that time back, I would.
I can’t, but I hope that I’ve been convincing enough for others not to ever let themselves stay so stubbornly low.
When my loans are paid off and there are calls for a testimony, I hope I’m as honest as I tried to be here. It’s not the preferred route, but it’s a more realistic way of how people are living.
I hate those narratives about millennials almost as much as the student loan slayer stories. Year after year we get accused of killing off things.
I’ve read that we killed porn. I hope you know that I have done my part to make a contribution. But there is a lengthy and ever-expanding list of things we’ve purportedly killed.
CREDIT CARDS: LIKE WE NEED MORE DEBT IN OUR LIVES.
MARRIAGE: WHO WANTS TO COMBINE DEBT? LATER IS GREATER. WEDDINGS ARE EXPENSIVE AS HELL.
DIVORCE: IT SOUNDS ALMOST AS EXPENSIVE AS THE WEDDING, SO MIGHT AS WELL CONTINUE SPLITTING THE BILLS.
AMERICAN CHEESE: EWW.
BREAKFAST CEREAL: TOO MUCH SUGAR, AND NO ONE CAN AFFORD TO HAVE DIABETES WITH THIS HEALTH INSURANCE MARKET.
EXORCISMS: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH NEEDS TO TEND TO ITS LIVING DEMONS THAT INAPPROPRIATELY TOUCH CHILDREN.
PRINT MEDIA: BITCH, THAT’S NOT OUR FAULT. AND IT’S NOT OUR FAULT EITHER THAT ONLY TWO COMPANIES CONTROL MOST OF ONLINE ADVERTISING.
GOLF: BORING, AND TIGER WOODS WAS NEVER MOTIVATING ENOUGH, BUT GOOD FOR HIM.
BEER: WINE IS A MORE SOPHISTICATED WAY OF BEING DRUNK, AND HARD LIQUOR IS A MORE FUN WAY OF DRINKING; STOP TRYING TO SQUASH EVOLUTION AND TASTE.
CHAIN RESTAURANTS: APPLEBEE’S NEEDS TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR ITS OWN ACTIONS.
SOAP BARS: VINTAGE, BUT LESS CHIC THAN SQUEEZING LIQUID SOAP OUT OF AN ELABORATE DISPENSER.
THE BUSINESS SUIT: MIND YOUR BUSINESS.
LUNCH: THEY’RE PROBABLY WORKING THROUGH LUNCH ’CAUSE MASSA GOT THEM WORKING.
MIDDLE CHILDREN: AS A MIDDLE CHILD, THIS HURTS, BUT CHILDREN ARE EXPENSIVE.
CRUISES: YO, PEOPLE DIE ON BOATS.
THE CANADIAN TOURISM INDUSTRY: THIS CAN’T BE TRUE; THEY HAVE LEGAL WEED AND DRAKE.
RUNNING: I’VE RUN FROM ENOUGH BULLETS IN MY LIFETIME.
MOTORCYCLES: I KNOW SOME PEOPLE TOOK THE ENDING OF SONS OF ANARCHY HARD, BUT THEY DID GET THE MAYANS M.C. SPINOFF.
THE MOVIES: STOP REBOOTING EVERYTHING—INCLUDING REBOOTING FILMS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN REBOOTED BEFORE.
MAYONNAISE: NOT MY TYPE.
CANNED TUNA: NOT MY MINISTRY EITHER.
GAMBLING: WE’VE ALREADY DONE THAT WITH OUR STUDENT LOANS—IT HASN’T WORKED OUT AS WELL AS WE’D LIKE.
DIAMONDS: DROP DEAD.
BRUNCH: BY RUIN, YOU MEAN DAY DRINK OUR SORROWS AWAY TO NUMB THE PAIN? YOU’RE WELCOME, AREA BUSINESSES.
NAPKINS: CLEAN CLOTHS ARE BETTER THAN WASTING PAPER?
GROCERY STORES: IT’S NOT OUR FAULT SOME OF THESE STORES CAN’T KEEP UP WITH TRADER JOE’S, THEIR SISTER IN FOOD SALES, ALDI, OR AMAZON LOWERING PRICES AT WHOLE FOODS.
HOTELS: WHO TOLD THE
M TO OVERCHARGE FOR SO LONG?
MALLS: THE AMOUNT OF RETAIL SPACE IN THE UNITED STATES HAS ALWAYS OUTWEIGHED THAT OF OTHER COUNTRIES.
GYMS: NOT ACCORDING TO MY INSTAGRAM.
PATRIOTISM: SEE TREATMENT OF COLIN KAEPERNICK COMPARED TO THE 45TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
THE OLYMPICS: TAPE DELAYS JUST DON’T WORK IN THE INTERNET AGE, LOVES.
HOME OWNERSHIP: MY APOLOGIES FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO COMPETE WITH THE ULTRA-RICH. AND Y’ALL DON’T THINK HOMES OWNED BY BLACK PEOPLE IN BLACK NEIGHBORHOODS ARE WORTH MUCH ANYWAY. I HEARD HOME OWNERSHIP ASSOCIATION FEES ARE HIGH, BY THE WAY.
HOME IMPROVEMENT STORES: THAT’S MY LANDLORD’S PROBLEM.
DEPARTMENT STORES: MACY’S SHOULD HAVE EXTENDED THEIR ONE-DAY SALE FROM BEGINNING TO END, 365 DAYS OF THE YEAR, TO COMPETE WITH FASHION NOVA, FOREVER 21, ASOS, H&M, AND WHEREVER ELSE THOT GEAR FOR MEN AND WOMEN IS SOLD.
SEX: MILLENNIALS ARE FUCKING; THEY MAY JUST CRY LATER WHEN THEY’RE ALONE.
BANKS: LIKE MOST OF US COULD GIVE A FUCK IF THEY CRUMBLE.
THE AMERICAN DREAM: WE CAN FIGHT.
Meanwhile, we’re drowning in debt, void of meaning, and the Earth is dying.
In a 2018 report released by economists at the Federal Reserve, they found “Millennials do not appear to have preferences for consumption that differ significantly from those of earlier generations.” The problem was that “Millennials are less well off than members of earlier generations when they were young, with lower earnings, fewer assets, and less wealth.”
Not to start an intergenerational beef, but I’ve long found it grating to read piece after piece lamenting millennials ruining everything without acknowledging that baby boomers are directly responsible for many of the challenges faced by Generation X and millennials. I hope that I have offered a narrative that speaks to that, free from the caricatures we’ve been fed from the minds of the grouchy and deluded. I hope millennials feel heard about entering a job market when employment opportunities were few and far between—resulting in many of us being stuck on lower-paying career trajectories. I hope you can see I share the frustration of being expected to keep up with all that’s expected of us—adults—without the wages to do it. I hope I’ve made the struggles stemming from this palpable.
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