Wallet.

I never knew that money equaled love until the first time my boyfriend forgot his wallet on a date. I was 24 then, grown up enough to know that when a man asks you on a date that he should prepare to take you on a date. I smiled graciously and insisted that paying was no trouble at all. I assured myself that I didn’t care about money. It was just paper after all. There were more important things in life. Like…big brown eyes. But, behind the sweet brown eyes a darker complexity grew. Was I now paying for the eyes? Are the eyes somehow obligated to me? Am I involved in some kind of ocular prostitution ring? Have I sinned against God? The spider-web of thoughts that ensued were enough to tangle the cast of Cirque Du Soliel.

I was sure that money wasn’t important to me. I lived modestly, below my means. Gave generously, above what was called for. Yet, I could not let this one forgotten wallet go.

The relationship dissolved for reasons unrelated to the wallet and I moved on. From the relationship. Not from the wallet. I didn’t tell anyone what happened, but it was there, the wallet, in the back of my mind, having a latte, (that it probably didn’t pay for), surfing the free wi-fi, waiting to resurface.

I fell in love again and out again. Time passed and the wallet nursed it’s master plan to re-enter my psyche.

I fell in love a third time. This time with someone who seemed to have invented the misplaced wallet. The wallet couldn’t have been more pleased. I constantly reassured myself that I wasn’t in a relationship with the wallet. I was in a relationship with a boy. He had a name. The wallet was just a thing. A temporal thing. A thing that no one would remember 100 years from now as long as this boy was important in the life of another human being. I quoted that from a poster I read in a generically Christian Bookstore. I also quoted the Beatles. You can’t buy me love. I can’t be bought. I can’t be persuaded to believe that this one thing could tank a whole relationship. I was, after all, 28 years old. In my small Midwest town, that was way past marrying age and my friends were all procreating by now. I was not going to let the wallet blow my last chance at love.

Then I bounced a check. Hard.

Checked my savings. $2.61.

This particular boy with a name & no wallet had been in my life for about 6 months. In that time he had paid for exactly none of our dates. Although love keeps no record of wrongs the Bank of America kept an incredible record of the $2,194.76 that I had spent on gas, food, forks and toilet paper for his apartment. Because, believe it or not, even toilet paper wasn’t something he provided for me.

So it hit me. Like a ton of bricks. I absolutely care about money.

Oh God. I am a horrible person. I am hollow and selfish and I’m like one of those reality TV people, or the Housewives of Atlanta or something. I’m over privileged with a sense of entitlement? Am I looking for a sugar daddy? How could this have happened to me? I live a life of faith and love. I believe in justice and mercy and rainbows and unicorns. How could I have come this far to remain this shallow?

All of a sudden I remembered my father.

I was seven years old when my dad instituted the five-dollar-per-A-on-your-report-card rule. The day I brought home my report card in the 2nd grade, he took me to see “The Land Before Time” in the movie theater & he gave me thirty dollars. He didn’t tell me he was proud of me. He didn’t tell me he loved me. He took me to the movies and gave me something from his wallet.

Then I remembered asking him for ten dollars to go out with a friend, I was fourteen. He gave me twenty. I remembered the day he bought me a new car. It was a surprise. I didn’t even ask for it. It wasn’t my birthday. I didn’t get my report card, but the car showed up. A couple days later I asked for twenty dollars for gas, he gave me fifty. I racked my brain to remember a time when I had asked him for something and he hadn’t given it to me. I couldn’t remember a time that he gave me less than double what I asked for. He didn’t tell me he loved me. He didn’t tell me he was proud of me. He gave me something from his wallet.

He paid for school. Lots of school. The best schools. Clothes, the best clothes. Cars, multiple. Constantly he opened his soft, gently worn wallet and gave me folded dollar bills. He didn’t tell me he loved me. He didn’t tell me he was proud of me. He gave me something from his wallet.

I realized that day that the wallet didn’t show up for the first time on my date. The wallet had been there all along. Cloaking love in it’s leathery skin. I had been confused because I hadn’t loved the wallet, I had loved my father. But the wallet had constantly assured me that although he couldn’t say it, my father loved me too.

The empty wallets of my gentlemen callers were speaking to me as well. They were telling me conversely, that the gentlemen didn’t love me. They didn’t care for me. They did not desire to cherish me as a person. These wallets were less truthful than my father’s. Because while my father meant to share his love through his wallet, these men were unaware of what their wallets were sharing. Both men, however unprepared, did love me. At least they said so with their words. But words were not the way in which I was accustomed to love or be loved. Thus, I was also unprepared for them.

When I walked away from that last relationship feeling crushed and alone, I wasn’t crushed by the weight of the loss of relationship. I was crushed knowing that I had only just learned that love and the wallets had little to do with each other. I felt like I should have known better. I should have known sooner. I was crushed with the weight of the responsibility of what I had to do next. I knew that I would have to reconcile the relationship between love and the wallet in my mind. I would have to carefully dismantle their ties and recover the model of love that can only be found in the one who created it to begin with.

They say that money talks but it would be more accurate to say that money reveals. It can show the character of anyone who holds it. My father’s money would tell you that he loves gadgets, technology, churches & his family. My mother’s money would tell you that she loves missionaries, children without parents and carbohydrates. I’m afraid of what my money would tell you. It would tell you that I have fallen in love with many things. Temporal things. It would probably tell you that I am prone to over commitment & Starbucks coffee.

I know that if I end up sharing my life with someone, it will need to be someone who handles his wallet well. However, I also know that when his wallet speaks it will be of his character and his discipline not necessarily of his love and I am prepared now, to know the difference.