Student loan and I go way back. We met at the end of my senior year of high school, and at first, everything was picture perfect. I fondly remember all the times we would hang out on a lazy Sunday afternoon in my parent’s garage: she would get me drunk on vino, we’d put on a Friends rerun, and then she’d ask me to sign some really lengthy documents she told me I didn’t need to read. She was just a free spirit, I told myself. And maybe she had one of those portable printers.
Student Loan was the kind of girl people gravitated to, the kind of girl who always seemed to be there when times were toughest. She was one of those people who went by their full name. Elton John. Student Loan. Doja Cat. She just fit in with that crowd. To put it plainly, she was a celebrity. Everybody knew her, everybody relied on her. On top of that, she had a huge online presence and was so politically active; even president Biden couldn’t keep her name out of his mouth.
Because of her I made lifelong friends, was allowed to push myself academically, and was finally able to move out of my parent’s house and into a new city. Sure, there were some red flags. But as I’ve always said, when you look at someone through rose colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags. People would ask me things like, “How can a human girl be friends with an economic construct?” But that didn’t matter to us. That didn’t matter to her. At least that’s what she told me.
As soon as I graduated, she became a whole different person. She was no longer as flushed with cash as she first made herself out to be. In fact, she started demanding large sums from me, more than I had ever even borrowed from her. She wouldn’t leave me alone, sending crazed emails to me and my family members and calling me drunk at all times of the day. She told me even if I was bankrupt, with nothing but my hopes, dreams, and love of two part-names to my name, she would still come for me. She would find me. And she would kill me.
Why did I drink that vino?