Shannon After Dark: Money Still Matters to Me

April’s meeting was everything I think many of us needed.

A little room to breathe. A little room to slow down. Organic conversation. Women in the same room without performance, posturing, or trying to package themselves into something easier to swallow.

And I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

Because underneath the ease of that night was something else I could feel sitting just below the surface: how many of us are tired in a way that has nothing to do with poor time management and everything to do with contradiction.

We keep getting fed this message that we should reject hustle culture. Slow down. Stop striving. Stop measuring success by money. Be more present. Be softer. Be grounded. Care less about achievement.

And yet many of us are still living in conditions that require us to keep producing.

Pay the bills. Contribute to the family. Figure out what’s next. Stay employable. Build the business. Pivot the career. Keep going. Keep smiling. Keep acting like wanting security is somehow less evolved than wanting peace.

That tension hit me hard this month. Harder than I wanted it to.

The Moment It Hit

Recently, my SIL and BIL shared some huge, life-changing news. He had been given a major promotion, a relocation opportunity, a big salary increase, bonuses, a moving stipend, living expenses covered. The whole package. It was one of those moments where everyone is excited because, objectively, it is exciting. It was good news. Deserved news. And I really was happy for them.

But quietly, internally, I was a wreck.

As they talked about what this meant for their future, another house, an RV, retiring early, all the things now available to them, I could feel something rising in me that I did not want to admit.

I was jealous.

And then I was ashamed that I was jealous.

And then I was ashamed that I was even having that reaction in the first place.

LW called it emotion stacking, and that’s exactly what it was. One feeling on top of another until I could barely sort out what was actually happening. It wrecked me for two solid days.

What hit the hardest was not even the opportunity itself. It was that the number was said out loud. The exact salary. Just dropped into the conversation.

And it cut me.

Because once that number was in the room, everything else started orbiting around what money makes possible. What you can buy. What you can plan for. How early you can retire. How much more room you have to breathe.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I realized I wasn’t just reacting to their news. I was reacting to my own truth.

When LW asked me, “Do you wish it was you?” that was the moment everything got painfully clear.

Yes.

I did wish it was us.

The Truth Underneath It

And once I admitted that, I also had to admit something else:

I am still defining part of my success by money.

Not all of it. But part of it.

I caught myself feeling embarrassed by that. Then ashamed by it. Ashamed that money still matters this much to me. Ashamed because I have so much to be thankful for. Ashamed because I know how easy it is to sound shallow when you say any of this out loud. Ashamed because if the tables were turned, I would want my family to feel fully happy for me.

But none of that changed the truth.

Money still matters to me because security matters to me.

The ability to contribute matters to me.

The ability to feel like there is still time to build a financially secure future matters to me.

And if I’m being really honest, at this age, that part feels louder. There is pressure to it now. A sense of time. A sense of not wanting to get this wrong. A sense of wondering whether the window for true financial stability is getting smaller.

That is not greed.

That is not materialism.

That is not some flaw I need to spiritually outgrow.

That is real.

Money still matters to me. There. I said it.

And I think one of the reasons this hit me so hard is because women are still weirdly shamed around money. We are expected to care about it, manage it, stretch it, contribute it, earn it, but not talk too directly about wanting more of it. Not admit how deeply tied it can feel to freedom, relief, choice, or self worth. Not say out loud that hearing a salary number can land like a punch to the chest.

It is still taboo.

And maybe that taboo is part of what keeps money so loaded. So mysterious. So emotionally charged. So off limits. Maybe if women talked more openly about money, not in a flashy or performative way, but in a real one, it would lose some of its power to shame us.

The Soft Lie of “Don’t Hustle”

Because I also think a lot of the “don’t hustle” messaging aimed at women is out of touch.

Or at the very least, incomplete.

Of course women are tired of being told to do more, be more, prove more, earn more, optimize more. Of course we want space to breathe. Of course we want lives that are not built entirely around output.

But I also think a lot of what gets sold as “don’t hustle” is just a softer-looking version of achievement culture, especially in entrepreneurial spaces.

I see women saying they’ve opted out while clearly working their asses off. I see people selling ease while monetizing intensity. I see messaging that tells women to stop chasing money while being delivered by people whose entire business model depends on aspiration, visibility, and relentless effort.

That doesn’t mean the desire for a different way is fake. It means the messaging is often dishonest.

“A lot of what gets sold as ‘don’t hustle’ is just a softer-looking version of achievement culture.”

What Women Are Actually Chasing

Many women are not chasing excess. They are chasing breathing room.

Less fear.

Less pressure.

Less panic about whether one layoff, one emergency, or one wrong move could knock everything sideways.

“Some women are not trying to become millionaires. They are trying to feel less scared.”

Some are out of work. Some are looking for work. Some are trying to grow businesses. Some are pivoting careers. Some are trying to decide whether entrepreneurship is freedom or just a different flavor of pressure. Some are carrying households that depend on their contribution. Some are staring down midlife asking, very practically, how much time is left to build something secure.

That is a different conversation.

The Harder Question

And maybe the deeper question is not whether we have fully rejected the system.

Maybe it is whether we are pretending not to want things because wanting them would make us feel less evolved.

“Maybe we are pretending not to want things because wanting them would make us feel less evolved.”

Maybe we’ve been told that if we stop openly wanting money, stability, security, ease, or even nice things, then somehow we’ve disrupted the establishment.

But have we?

Have we really changed anything if we are still privately aching for the same relief, the same options, the same breathing room, the same proof that life can get easier?

That is what I keep coming back to.

Why TRT Matters

And it is also part of why TRT matters so much to me.

Because TRT is, and will always be, a place where you do not have to filter your thoughts or who you are to be accepted.

But even that has brought up a harder question for me lately:

Am I actually available for that?

Am I giving myself enough pause from the pressure and the performance to really receive what a space like this offers?

Not just attend. Not just participate. Not just say something thoughtful. I mean truly be there without the internal chatter. Without replaying every comment. Without measuring myself in real time. Without bracing. Without assuming I need to present some cleaned up version of my truth to belong.

Because showing up is one thing.

Letting it in is another.

There. I Said It.

Maybe that is the real work right now.

Not pretending money doesn’t matter if it still does.
Not pretending we are above ambition if security still matters.
Not pretending we have escaped hustle culture when many of us are still doing everything we can to survive inside it.

Maybe the work is smaller and more honest than that.

Maybe it is just noticing where we are still split in two.
What we say we value.
What we still ache for.
What we judge in ourselves.
What we secretly wish was ours.

And maybe healing some of that split begins by telling the truth about it.

Money still matters to me.

There. I said it.

And I have a feeling I’m not the only one.

I’m not sharing this because I’ve come out the other side with some beautiful lesson. I haven’t.

I’m sharing it because I’m tired. Tired of the contradictions. Tired of the messaging. Tired of acting like wanting security means I’m missing the point.

I don’t know how to fix that.

I just know it felt better to tell the truth about something I’ve never felt safe to share.