I used to be a right-wing conservative.
Twenty years ago I'm not sure that was the term, but that's what I was.
Then I married an abusive idiot.
(Of COURSE I didn't know he was an abusive idiot at the time.
What kind of question IS that?)
Then I got poor. Really poor.
Too poor to get out, poor.
So poor, I woke up one morning to go to my two jobs to find that a correlating number of my tires had gone flat overnight.
Worn to the belts.
Literally too broke to go to work, now there's irony for you.
There's more, and if you know me you know a lot of it.
If you don't know me, the story is too long. I cannot sum up.
Read the rest of the blog, some of it is there.
But I wasn't lazy, or uneducated. I wasn't raised in the system.
My parents were upstanding, responsible members of the community.
My childhood was awesome.
Fucking awesome.
Amaze. Balls.
And I realized the difference between me and most of the people I grew up with.
I got poor, and they did not. I won't say they didn't have their rough patches or their financial woes, but I will say that a rough patch or a financial upset is not the same thing as
being
poor.
Being poor is like being in a boot camp only it's your life.
Everything revolves around it and there is no time limit.
It's not a sixteen week course. There's no end date.
You are broken and, if you're strong enough, rebuilt,
but you are not the same as you were before.
Your skin is thicker and your attitude a little tougher,
and you probably swear a lot.
But...
your heart is kinder,
and you don't think the way you used to.
You see the human element in every person,
and you are stunned by the inhuman elements in other people
because
your brain is wired differently now.
There is no point, here.
I can't demand that everyone spend a certain amount of time poor.
I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.
I mean that.
I'm just saying you'll never get it.
Maybe it's because you can't.
Just don't let it be because you won't.
Twenty years ago I'm not sure that was the term, but that's what I was.
Then I married an abusive idiot.
(Of COURSE I didn't know he was an abusive idiot at the time.
What kind of question IS that?)
Then I got poor. Really poor.
Too poor to get out, poor.
So poor, I woke up one morning to go to my two jobs to find that a correlating number of my tires had gone flat overnight.
Worn to the belts.
Literally too broke to go to work, now there's irony for you.
There's more, and if you know me you know a lot of it.
If you don't know me, the story is too long. I cannot sum up.
Read the rest of the blog, some of it is there.
But I wasn't lazy, or uneducated. I wasn't raised in the system.
My parents were upstanding, responsible members of the community.
My childhood was awesome.
Fucking awesome.
Amaze. Balls.
And I realized the difference between me and most of the people I grew up with.
I got poor, and they did not. I won't say they didn't have their rough patches or their financial woes, but I will say that a rough patch or a financial upset is not the same thing as
being
poor.
Being poor is like being in a boot camp only it's your life.
Everything revolves around it and there is no time limit.
It's not a sixteen week course. There's no end date.
You are broken and, if you're strong enough, rebuilt,
but you are not the same as you were before.
Your skin is thicker and your attitude a little tougher,
and you probably swear a lot.
But...
your heart is kinder,
and you don't think the way you used to.
You see the human element in every person,
and you are stunned by the inhuman elements in other people
because
your brain is wired differently now.
There is no point, here.
I can't demand that everyone spend a certain amount of time poor.
I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.
I mean that.
I'm just saying you'll never get it.
Maybe it's because you can't.
Just don't let it be because you won't.
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