I just read this and it’s like a punch in the gut: Being Poor. Right now I enjoy a comfortable life; in fact one could say it’s a wealthy life, especiallly when measured against many other countries. But there was a time — about the first 14 years of my adult life — where I lived in some of these conditions, and where my decisions were similar to the ones listed. Reading it now helps me remember not to become complacent or judgmental. I was there once. I hope I will not be again, but then, life is risk. I am grateful for everything I have.
[via St. Casserole]
I grew up in a poor family, as Steve Martin once said in a fav movie of mine. It was the kind of poor that Scalzi talks about here. I had a roof over my head and we mostly had food, though sometimes agencies helped out at holidays. But back in the 40s and 50s, even here in L.A., most people I knew in my small town were pretty much in the same boat. I guess there is a big difference between being poor–and living in abject poverty, always hungry, dirty and sleeping in boxes. I remember being in a Sunday School Christmas play when I was about 8 and how impressed I was that the dishes matched on the table prop–and commenting that nothing matched and that stuff was chipped and broken. I got a big-time life lesson from my teacher and I’ve never forgotten it–that a quality life wasn’t about “things.” It’s interesting, however, how growing up poor follows you through a lifetime. I do not have to do and act a lot of the way I do today because I am a middle class American, for which I am deeply grateful, but I enjoy (or can’t break the patterns) of buying in thrifts and following garage sales, picking up people’s discards from trash cans if they are visible when I’m walking the dog, etc. A lot of my crappy self-esteem I blamed on being poor as a kid, was about perspective, I think, in retrospect. I’m not knocking what Scalzi writes; it tugs at my heart, too, partly because his version of being poor was my family’s version of poor. But, I still know exactly how much everything costs; I comparison shop endlessly. I buy store brands versus name brands in grocery stores–at least for myself. The exception to the rule is my Mac equipment, cameras and peripherals. I can afford them and I have convinced myself I deserve them. However, I am constantly reminding my grandchildren who live with me to turn off lights, not to wash clothes until they have a full load, and to recycle. Some of what seemed “poor” to me as a kid, or to my mom who was always despairing on making ends meet when my dad was out of work, is now admirable as a form of ecology and recycling. My other four sisters were raised in the depression and their “poor” stories still curl my hair. Anyhow, you know what? I’m glad I grew up poor even though it felt pretty shitty at the time–especially when mom would serve horsemeat, and some unknown casserole shit, in bad weeks. But I was never, ever hungry. Somehow or other, call it karma or whatever, I fought and worked incredibly hard to rise above what seemed so crappy at the time. I am so sad as I look back that I gave my parents such a bad time–haranguing them for being poor, for not eating out, for never serving steak like it seemed all my friends had, for having to wear second-hand clothes or hand-me-downs. But, I was taught to fight injustices, to work hard to try to make the wrongs right, and to question EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY in authority. It has held me in good stead.