> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.ashambirge.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Dear World: Sometimes "Making It" Can Feel Dirty - URL: https://www.ashambirge.com/dear-world-sometimes-making-it-can/ - Published: 2025-10-17T15:21:27.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-26T17:03:36.000Z - Description: The unexpected side effects of learn how to make your own money - Author: Ash Ambirge - Tags: Travel and Culture, Newsletter, #Migrated-1787600589806, #Import 2026-08-24 15:53 *I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.* --- The kids are stalking me now. Oh, shit. What have I done? $60 was too much. I knew sixty bucks was too much to give to a fourteen-year-old boy, but have you ever been overly generous because you feel guilty that you have things and maybe someone else does not? He had been there the week before raking the leaves. It was sweet. A nostalgic throwback to the 90s: when kids used to come by and politely ask if they could shovel your driveway for five bucks and maybe a Capri Sun. So when he came by again? I stroked my imaginary evil mustache and put him to work. Three tasks: - **Pile the old wood into the back of the pickup truck.** Yes, I own A PICKUP TRUCK. I KNOW. IT IS THE MOST RIDICULOUS THING. But, to be fair, it’s a Jeep Gladiator pickup truck. Not, like, one you’d find in Alabama. Does this make it better? I think it makes it better. ANYWAY: you remember a few weeks ago when [**I ripped out the floor of the cottage**](https://www.ashambirge.com/i-cut-through-my-floor-and-found/)? Well, all of that old, rotted wood was just piled up outside the cottage door. So, it had to go somewhere. And man, was I dreading doing that. This kid? Took him 15 minutes, and done. Isn’t it funny how you procrastinate things that never end up taking any time at all, but in your mind, it’s a giant??? - **Weed whack the garden and the bank.** Fourteen year olds can do this, right? They sure can with my cute little lightweight Ryobi battery-operated weed trimmer! \*Cue me with a deranged grin and a cartoon sparkle pinging off my front tooth.\* Needed the old, dead weeds waylaid so it didn’t look like a haunted house come winter. Gave him construction glasses. Took another 10 minutes. - **Break down the boxes in the garage.** The bane of my existence! I thought there was a burn ban in place so I’d been stacking them up in the garage like some kind of middle-aged hamster instead of doing what all rural Americans do: burn the shit. ([**Americans really like to burn things**](https://www.ashambirge.com/dear-world-i-am-trying-to-figure/), I have discovered. Like, anything. All things. Sofas? Sure. Dreams? Probably. Democracy? TBD.) So I asked him to break down the boxes and stack them up nicely so I could take them to recycling. Except by “break down and stack them up nicely” I think he thought I meant, “stomp on them aggressively and leave them strewn across the garage floor.” Wasn’t his best moment, I’ll admit. Afterward, he found me on the porch and that’s when he told me THE CRAZIEST THING: He had to go. Not because it was getting dark. (That was last week, how sweet.) But because—*he had to go to a homecoming dance*. What! You have a homecoming dance in, like, an hour and HERE YOU ARE DOING YARD WORK AT THE NEIGHBOR’S? My heart went full Hallmark. And that is why you hand a fourteen-year-old boy $60 for an hour’s worth of work: because how can you not want to reward such earnestness? (See also: being a sucker.) But now? He’s back. With *friends.* 🤣 They’re circling the house like well-dressed vultures with Venmo accounts. Every evening right around dinner I’m getting THE KNOCK. So now I’m going to have to do one of those awful adult tasks of being *the* *bad guy*. The *boundary setter*. The woman who looks a child in the eye and says, “No, Timothy, I don’t have any more leaves. They’re all dead now. Like my savings account.” I remember being young and wanting so desperately to make money so I didn’t have to bother my mom. My mom was always worrying about money. Where were we going to get it that month? How would we pay for the propane delivery? The roof repair? The electric bill? I got my first job when I was 13 years old. I worked to cover my own expenses. To feel less like a burden. Independence isn’t always a luxury. \*\*\* Recently I ran out of toilet paper so I stopped at this place that’s literally called “The Six-Pack Shack.” There’s this teeny, tiny general store attached to it. They only take cash. I only had $5 on me. Which is why I was relieved to find that they did, in fact, sell toilet paper. As soon as I brought it home, I was instantly transported back to 1997—to the gold-and-white trailer, the winters we barely kept the heat on, and the only toilet paper I knew: The individual roll. The Scott brand. The one-ply. I tore off a piece to blow my nose. It smelled like fryer grease and chicken wings. Remember when you were just a fourteen-year-old kid trying to make sense of the world? To be your own person? To hurry up and be an adult, so you could take care of your own self—without anybody to tell you what you could or couldn’t do? \*\*\* Yesterday I called the hospital to pay a bill. Emergency CT scan. $3,100. “Hi, I’m calling to make payment on this invoice,” I said. “Oh! Well first, let’s check to make sure you aren’t eligible for assistance.” I paused. This is a reality of rural America: poverty as the default setting. “That’s kind of you to check,” I said. “But I wouldn’t qualify anymore.” She pressed on. “Well, let’s just see!” “No, really, that’s not necessary,” I said, trying to be tactful. “Let’s just SEE,” she encouraged, trying to be helpful. “How much do you make?” *How much do you make* is such a loaded question; one that feels wrong to answer. And perhaps wrong to ask? I am backed up against a wall. I don’t know how to dance around the question more than I already have. How do you get out of this moral theater? Hang up the phone? Lie? Fake a heart attack? I seriously thought about just hanging up the phone. Instead, a staggering number comes out of my mouth—one that my fourteen-year-old self would not have understood. “Oh my! I guess not then!” she laughs awkwardly into the phone. YOU HAD TO MAKE ME SAY THINGS I DID NOT WANT TO SAY. I cannot help but feel guilty. I hate this reality. I hate that success can also feel strangely wrong. I want to tell her that I know what it is to worry about heating the house, and repairing the roof, and paying the electric bill. I want to tell her that I had free lunch at school. I want to tell her that I used food stamps to buy milk. I want to tell her that I grew up on assistance. I want to tell her that I was raised on one-ply. Instead, I mumble something about the blessing and the curse about having your own business. Almost to imply that I was not handed this; to make it known that I’m not…one of *them*. Whoever *they* are. The ones who have always had. You spend your whole life working toward security, and then the moment you have it, you start apologizing for it. I still look at people who struggle and feel a twinge of survivor’s guilt, as if I slipped past the guards while the others were still asleep. And that’s the strange thing about making it out: part of you never actually leaves. You carry both worlds inside you—the one that taught you fear, and the one that taught you freedom. \*\*\* Next week, I will probably hear *the knock* again. It will be him—back with that same earnest grin, asking if I have any more work. And for a split second, I will think about saying no, about protecting my boundaries, my budget, my “adulthood.” But, I won’t. Because maybe the real privilege isn’t the money—it’s being in a position to say yes. And to keep the door open for the next kid who knocks. And to remember that the climb only means something if you send a rope back down. …Even if it’s only a $20 rope this time. 😉 [Leave a comment](#ghost-comments-root) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/16/e5/16e58068-cf89-457e-a7c9-2fae65c69386/content/images/2026/08/73d9a1cb-44b1-45aa-84c4-6d38b4632575_3000x3000.png) ### Come Take My New, Sensational, Fun, Wonderful Writing Workshop, / Crowbar / (!) **How to Write Online with Spunk, Guts & Gravitas—And Finally Show the \*\*\*\* UP (So You Can Stop Settling and Start Doing What You Were Meant To Do)** A Fearless Writing Workshop for Internet People, Marketers, Newsletterists, and Brands Who Want to (Finally) Show Up Online and Share Their Ideas in a Big, Bold, Brave New Way [Check It Out!](https://ashambirge.com/crowbar-writing-workshop?ref=ashambirge.com)