Like a band-aid...

I woke up this morning and didn't want to go through it anymore. I didn't want to search for credit cards and past bills and remember to log-in and pay the minimum amount. I didn't want to log my progress in a notebook or put reminders for bills due on my calendar online. I wanted it done. I wanted them gone. In the past two months, I've received more "shut down your account or risk having an inflated apr" notices. Some, from my longest held credit cards. I felt like saying, "I thought you were my friends."

You arrived in the mail when I was at college and didn't get any other snail mail. You had fancy forms to fill out that made me feel like an adult. You lured me in and now, on the cusp of my seeming adulthood, you want to banish me from your record. Or sear me with a high apr. I'm not your piece of meat to play with. I understand your ways. I realize by me paying minimums and not really spending anymore, I'm not adding to your bottom line. I'm not making any one of your fat cat's parachutes a little more golden.

So I took them all and like a band-aid, ripped them all off. "Paid in full" is what will come to my little mailbox now. I have switched the roles. I have the leverage now. I will not use you anymore for my silly happiness. I will restrict myself to the bare essentials and enjoy myself by doing so. Your crutch is useless to me now. I don't even know where all of my cards are right now. True, this is not incredibly responsible, but in a way, it is. Instead of freezing them in a block of ice, I've taken to "losing them" around my house (really hiding them) so I cannot access them. When I do run into them, it's usually not during an online spending spree urge or trip to the mall.

Just in time for credit companies to make millions on others who overspent for the holidays, I will be rich with the free time and worry-free mentality that paying them all off has granted me.

There is no better late Christmas present.