Photo prompt #3: Take a picture of the most expensive thing you own.

Quite frankly, my parents never told me how all-consuming student loan debt could be. And I’m sure that before they had two kids to put through college, they didn’t really know. They are accustomed to living with debt and going without when need be, as I’m sure I will be when I have a family and a home of my own.

The difference between my parents and me is that I don’t have to wait for kids and cars to be living from paycheck to paycheck with thousands of dollars hanging over my head. To my mother’s credit, she did try to warn me. She always told me that I should just choose what I want; she and my dad would find a way to pay for it. At that time I didn’t think “find a way” would be such an operative phrase and that when she said “me and dad” she meant all of us.

This is the most difficult question yet for me because the subject matter inherently brings up all kinds of negative emotions. I am angry and confused, and sometimes completely overwhelmed. When I got out of college and into repayment, I didn’t know which of my five loans were private or which had been sold to a different servicer. Nor did I know if the amount of my payments was in any way negotiable or normal. To this day I am not as informed about my own debt as I know I should be, and I am just too scared to really find out what I am up against. What if it is too much?

When I say that student loan debt is consuming, I don’t just mean it ties all of my money up in principle and interest payments, I mean that loans are the measurement on which I gauge family wealth and the lens through which I perceive someone’s financial hardship. I sometimes feel bad even thinking it, but it is hard for me to commiserate with another’s financial situation if they do not have student loan debt.

Maybe I just don’t know enough about how things can be hard, but I do know that I won’t be able to have a car, that I am nowhere near having my own apartment, and during the summer when I have just one job instead of three, I won’t even be able to keep current on my payments. To me, this is as bad as it could be for a gainfully employed person in my age bracket. I did what people always told me I should — I went to a good college, did well, and got a job. I am angry that what I have to show for it is debt, and that it’s not like this for everyone.

In comparison, credit card debt has little to no bearing on my financial situation or outlook on my situation versus someone else’s. Those payments are manageable.

I know that I have credit because I chose to have a credit card, and my relationship with Capital One is not nearly as wrought with animosity as my relationship with Sallie Mae. However, it is exceedingly annoying to have only paid off 7 percent of a credit card balance, which I reached buying a laptop that I accidentally knocked over when trying to reach something high up. Even though I am not far along in the process, I am optimistic about paying off my balance; I take any opportunity to make a payment over the minimum due.

Debt is hard for me to think about and discuss.

When things are hard I have always fallen back on comforting myself, and others, with the assurance that these things don’t last forever. I have always been one to just put my head down and trudge along until I reach the finish line. But in this case, I am genuinely worried that my debt and the hardship I feel because of it will last forever and that, no matter how many payments I make on time, there will always be one more lined up directly behind it.