Top 20 Thoughts I Had The First Time My Student Loan Payment Came Out of My Account

So, I was blessed the first time around in undergrad with scholarships. But when I made the decision to go to graduate school, I said hey, I can do this. I can take out these loans. I work. I’m a good American. It will be well worth it to add a few fancy letters behind my name.

It’s soooo easy to take a loan.

However, paying them back, oh, that’s when you feel the pain.

Disposable income? What’s that? So long. Farewell.

I wanted to share with y’all my immediate thoughts when I noticed that my first major student loan payment came out of my account. Lord, it hurt. I started rocking back and forth like Miss Sophia from The Color Purple. All of the jokes and memes came to mind, and all of a sudden, they felt so real. So personal.

1. I’ve been robbed, let me call the bank.
2. Frantically looking for old emails warning me this was going to happen.
3. Profanity. Lots of profanity.
4. Panic. I will never do anything fun again until 2026.
5. Can I reduce the payment? I’m going to the site to FAQs to reduce the payment.
6. So, about that Uber thing… That’s not a bad side hustle right?
7. Short of getting married and having a two-income house, I’m never going to own a home anytime soon.
8. Profanity against my educational institution.
9. What can I cancel or stop buying?
10. The clothes I currently own will need to look good for the next 10 years.
11. Googling all of the meals I can make with beans.
12. Welp, I only have about 2.5 years left on my car payment, which seems like a blink in time, in comparison. I’ll get a few dollars back, then!
13. So, do I want to get back into school to finish, or just defer payments?
14. Current me needs a time machine to talk to old me who signed the loan papers. We didn’t exactly end up where we thought we would by now.
15. I REGRET NOTHING. I stand by my choice. I choose my choice, I choose my choice. (screaming in Charlotte York,)
16. Slow and steady wins the race.
17. Stay employed. Forever.
18. My boyfriend isn’t cheap because he occasionally vetoes splurges. He is used to paying student loans and is a responsible individual. I must absorb his ways.
19. Rethinking my stance on co-habitation. See 18.
20. Three things in life are certain, death, taxes and student loans.

When Grown Men and Little Girls Have Tea

I don’t know about you, but there are a couple of things that really bring joy to my heart and put an automatic smile on my face.

One of them, hands down, is seeing grown men take the time to play with their daughters, nieces, and/or granddaughters to have tea.

The little girls are absolutely ecstatic, and happy to serve water or air from their play set, usually surrounded by stuffed animals. The tea set fits their little hands perfectly, while their grown-up male companion, looking awkward, yet equally adorable, struggles with tiny cups and saucers, bringing said tiny cups to their lips and engaging in polite, tea conversation with baby girl.

I also think tea parties do something for men’s souls too. It reminds them of innocence and it provides them with memories that they probably go back to over the years, well after that little girl has grown into a woman. It’s a moment to be silly, it’s a moment where other men totally give other men a pass, because they know that warm feeling they’ve had simply drinking tap water or no water at all.

Just as when a baby passes you a pretend, plastic telephone, you have to answer, when a little girl invites you for tea, you must RSVP.

A conversation with a co-worker reminded me of the times my father and even my grandfather joined me for a cup of imaginary tea and how that image of two very strong, black men, who just couldn’t say no to me in my braids and big smile.

That memory is probably the very reason why, I just ADORE it when men take the time out to have tea and I melt when I see photos or video of these special parties.

I also think it speaks to something even deeper and the importance of little girls having an early image of a man spending quality time with her, paying attention to her and the mutual and very real doting that’s allowed to take place naturally. It takes root in your soul. I truly hope that all little girls, and every man who has influence in a little girl’s life can sit down for tea, because as simple as it is, it is truly a precious moment for all parties.

To this day, I love making tea for my loved ones. I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, tea-making is probably one of my love languages, truth be told. I don’t have tea with people I don’t like. It’s a moment to love on someone. You don’t understand the joy and satisfaction I have putting in just the right amount of sugar, based on the individual, or breaking out my best loose-leafs for my guests and then having a long conversation.

So cheers to the big, strong, tough men who take a little time out for tea with their sweet little girls.

One Of the Most Adult Things One Can Purchase

Probably the most boring yet necessary adultest-ass things one can purchase, has to, hands down, be a mattress.

That’s right folks a mattress.

When you need a new one, and you are in your 30s and beyond, your body is the first to tell you.

At first, it seems like a little ache here or there. And you think that you just need to go to the gym more. Stretch in the morning.

Then you get new pillows, or special memory foam cushions to put on the bed.

Then the aches and pains come more fast and furious. You can’t sleep and you find you have the best sleep ever on your couch and going back to that bed becomes unthinkable.

So you suck it up. Off to the mattress store you go.
Well off to the mattress store I went.

Fortunately, I had the boyfriend in tow, and it seems that going with a significant other, salesmen tend to assume you’re married, and say things like, “Happy wife, happy life.”

Fortunately, for me I have a boyfriend happy to play along and agree.

As, most web site searches tell you, the life of a mattress is 10 years. And so, my cheap mattress, purchased when I was heading to my very own first apartment alone, is probably heading into its 12 year. It served its purpose. It served me well. It makes sense that it is old, and I have the temporary daily lower back pain to prove it.

I joked that the timing was right for several reasons.

1. It is old as hell.

2. Well, back and shoulder and neck pain.

3. I work really hard, and a good night’s sleep is non-negotiable. Yall, that’s another post. This job is challenging and requires me to be on from the moment I get there until I leave.

4. My new serious relationship.
As for number 4, there’s nothing like being in a new, serious relationship. One where you’ve had a disagreement or two, made up and continue to learn how to deal with each other, support each other and feel like the other person just may stick around. You think about the future, and you are ready for the past to truly be that. Tossing the mattress is totally symbolic of where I am right now and where I’m trying to go.

I joked with a girlfriend that this fresh start relationship-wise, would be a great cleanse of whatever ghosts of ding-a-ling past lingering in the coils.

See, coils, where they do that at? Now, they do memory foam or a hybrid with a few coils and still the memory foam. I’ve moved on to a Tempurpedic memory foam. Growth! Progress! And real talk, this new relationship was totally worthy of not having any remnants of the past and that feels good.

These days, the mattress stores use computer technology to match you to a mattress. You lay down and watch a video and it measures all kinds of things about you and your partner on the other side. And it spits out the top mattresses in the store for you.

So, there were four. Hand-picked by technology that should agree with my body the most, and provide a good night’s sleep for my partner too. I had a good laugh during our diagnostic session, because as the computer measured us, I couldn’t help but notice the deep valley my butt made on the screen. Clearly, my booty is a factor in the alignment of my spine, hence probably contributing to my lower back issues when I wake up. Heavy is the butt that wears the crown, right?

Mattress shopping almost feels like shopping for a car or appliances, or other furniture. You deserve ice cream and a nap afterwards. You have in your mind what you think you want, and you certainly have in your mind what you want to spend and then what you’d spend at the very most. But once you get there, everything you thought about anything really gets thrown out the window. We were certain a firm ass bed was going to solve my lower back issues. The computer said, I still need a soft bed. And after I told the salesman to let us try their firmest bed as a “control,” I realized the computer was doing the Lord’s work. I defer to technology.

In pure salesperson fashion, our guy gives us increasingly better choices. The last choice, was the top of the line. It felt ridiculously comfortable and if either my boyfriend or I moved, we couldn’t feel the other person shifting. Oh man. That was the Cadillac. But, in this case it was more like the Saturn sales model, where the sticker price was just that, no negotiation. No sales, son. And your girl was not even trying to drop $3,000 on a mattress, no matter how lovely it was. So, I went with my second choice. The second choice was probably the third of the ones we tried anyway, just before we got to the dream mattress. It was the best of the ones prior, and the price was expensive, but acceptable in my opinion for the quality.

It is ironic, though, trying out mattresses. We go to sleep every night, and sometimes we share beds with people. It’s intimate, but it’s something we all do. Even when my boyfriend and I tried the mattresses, by the time we got to the third and fourth bed, we kept it all the way real and spooned to make sure it was right.

Here I was, adulting big-time, spooning in public and decided to double-down on the grown folk talk, even broaching future life scenarios with the boyfriend.

“So, um. Since folks buy mattresses every 10 years. Say our living situation changes within the next 2-3 years. We’d be merging furniture and such. Clearly mine would be new, and that could be ours and your current mattress which isn’t very old, could be for guests. Should I buy the dream mattress now, as, say an investment?”

Him smiling at me. “If I were in your situation, and I’m totally not telling you what to do… but I would be thinking the same thing. So we’re on the same page. But, I think this less expensive bed still feels nice, you’ll be happy with it and that’s the one you should get. Because 10 years from now, we’d easily be able to buy that more expensive mattress, together.”

I wasn’t sure if I was floating on a cloud or still laying on the $3,000 mattress, but I made my decision and I’m the proud owner of a new mattress and box spring. And I walked out hand-in-hand with a man who was happy to spend an afternoon testing mattresses, and basically telling me, he’s in it way past the warranty. Yep, out with the old. Good riddance.