Three Arrivals In Five Days

Dear friend,

Three arrivals showed up this week and I did not go asking for any of them: a package I forgot I ordered, a Zelle for $45 from my cousin, a Venmo for $87 from a client I had written off. So today's letter says one thing. The money comes in before I ask for it, and all I have to do is see it when it arrives.

By Friday morning my checking account had $132 more in it than it did on Sunday, none of it from a shift I pulled or a client I chased. The Zelle on Tuesday was from my cousin who finally paid me back for the concert ticket in July. The Venmo on Wednesday was from the photo session I booked six weeks ago, after the client stopped answering my messages and I had already given up.

The ring light I ordered on Tuesday showed up on Thursday. The plastic circle that clips the bulb into the stand had cracked and I had been shooting with it propped against two books. I used $42 of the $132 to replace the ring. The other $90 is still in checking, and I am leaving it there.

I used to think money only came from whatever I was working on hardest that week. Now I notice how little the arrivals have to do with my chasing. The package was a candle I ordered one Sunday night at 11 p.m. The Zelle came the morning after I had bumped into my cousin at the grocery store and did not ask about the forty-five dollars. The Venmo came after six weeks of silence, with no DM, no reminder, no invoice chase.

All three worked the same way: I was not asking when the money came. That does not mean I never ask. The invoice went out eight weeks ago. The ticket I bought in July. The candle I checked out a week ago Sunday. The ask was already made. All three arrivals this week were simply the asks coming home.

Here is what I am not doing with the $90. I am not throwing it at the card. I am not spending it on a candle to celebrate the Venmo. I am not sending it to savings in a way I will reverse by Wednesday.

Here is what I am doing with it. Nothing. The $90 is sitting in checking as a cushion for the next $42 that cracks. The next tool failure. The next invoice that comes a week late and makes rent uncomfortable. I know a cushion of $90 is laughable to a financial adviser. I do not have a financial adviser. I have a $1,247 card balance and a ring light that works again, and ninety dollars I did not spend inside twenty-four hours is a kind of record.

The arithmetic on scarcity has to meet me where I am. The old lines never did that.

I will not give you an assignment at the end of this letter. You do not need one. You already know what arrived at your own door this week. Three or four small ones, probably. The kind you forget by Monday.

Here is what you are allowed to receive today. The DM from the client who went quiet in August and showed back up this morning. The refund you forgot you applied for in July. The twenty from the cousin you had written off. The Etsy sale that posted at 2 a.m. and sat unopened until breakfast. The invoice that cleared without you asking twice. You are allowed to receive these the way they came in, which is quietly.

You can leave the cushion in checking. You do not have to send every arriving dollar to the card the day it arrives. You can pay the broken tool first and let the balance wait a week.

The money is already on its way. I notice it when it comes.

Keep the door open,

MONEY MAGNET

P.S. The candle in the forgotten package is labeled Fig Noir, which is a scent I do not remember clicking on. It is sitting on my desk still wrapped in the plastic bubble, and I keep walking past it and not opening it, which is itself a kind of permission.