(Letters from Karny to Carney)
Editor’s Note: Written on a dying laptop, financed by optimism and one very rude car payment.
Dear Mr. Carney,
This morning my laptop died in the dramatic way only electronics and ex-boyfriends know how. The charger split open like it had finally decided to tell the truth, and Amazon charged me ten dollars for “free shipping tomorrow.” Capitalism said good morning and I said unfortunately back.
I had $305 in my bank account and a car payment lined up like a bouncer with a clipboard. The kind of math that turns you into an accountant, a philosopher, and a crisis poet before breakfast.
So naturally, I applied for Ontario Works.
Government forms are written by people who have never met a real problem. They ask questions like, “Do you have money you can get to quickly?” As if I’m hiding a secret treasure chest under my bed instead of a Tim Hortons Mastercard with a moral superiority complex.
There was no checkbox for:
☐ I made decisions under pressure and now I’m paying tuition on them.
☐ I stress-ate Uber Eats like it was a personality.
☐ My nervous system has been doing overtime without benefits.
So I selected “situation not listed” and hoped a kind stranger on the other end would read the subtext: I am trying.
While I waited for the form to load, life offered free background entertainment: unsolicited lectures about how hard university is, how serious some degrees are, how other people’s struggles are apparently a competitive sport. I took my tea and performed the ancient ritual known as leaving the room while someone is auditioning for the Olympics of Self-Importance.
Thick skin is trendy these days. Everyone online claims to have it like a designer jacket. Real thick skin looks less aesthetic. It looks like applying for assistance while sick, ordering a charger you can’t afford, and still believing you haven’t peaked yet.
I’ve reinvented myself at least three times — possibly more if we count hairstyles and questionable eyeliner eras. Student on buses. Corporate girl with a lanyard identity. Beauty hands, writer brain, future bartender loading screen. I collect versions of me like Pokémon and refuse to apologize for the evolution.
People love the phrase “self-made” until they meet someone who actually had to assemble themselves without instructions. Then they call it attitude. Or “ghetto.” Or whatever word is in fashion for women who don’t shrink on command.
What they mean is:
You didn’t ask permission.
You survived rooms that weren’t decorated for you.
You laugh too loudly for a script that prefers whispers.
Today was not glamorous. A charger died. A form asked me to summarize my dignity in 400 characters. I paid extra for shipping like a woman funding her own rescue mission. And yet underneath all of it I still recognized the same annoying, hopeful creature I’ve always been.
I daydream about Maison 129 on stages it hasn’t reached yet. About flipping off my haters on television with tasteful lighting. About receiving flowers for essays written in bedrooms like this one. It feels achievable, not delusional, because I know how far a person can walk with almost nothing in their pockets.
The plan is simple:
Cancel the car, cancel the shame, keep the charger alive long enough to write the next chapter.
There’s only one of me — and she’s historically very bad at staying down.
Respectfully chaotic,
— Karny
P.S. Please don’t tell the Bank of Canada I wrote this during business hours of unemployment.