Monday, September 05, 2005
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
this was a place I blogged for a very long time. in a way it helped me to put in words a very significant transition in life... from being not the person I wanted to be, to starting to become the woman I want to be.
2 comments:
I can remember being bussed to school and going to friends' houses after school in nice neighborhoods but never having friends over to my house because their parent’s would never allow their child near my neighborhood. I had “reduced” lunch. Among the poor this was a step above free lunch because it acknowledged that you had enough money to contribute to the cost of your lunch although the cost was only a dime . What was bad was that I sometimes had to count out ten pennies to get lunch because we were so broke. I got many of my clothes from thrift stores or as hand-me-downs from family friends. This was before vintage was in and store like Crossroads Trading Company and Buffalo Exchange made thrift stores chic. I actually think in some weird way this inspired my creativity. If I couldn’t have new clothes and stuff that was “in” I could at least put together or make something I thought was cool. At one point while growing up, ten of us lived in a three bedroom apartment. We had cockroaches so bad when I was growing up that you could not turn off the kitchen lights or else they’d totally take over. I know the feeling of being judged and treated in a condescending way due to being poor. People have responded with surprise upon discovering that I am poor and yet have a brain.
There was a time when I never would have admitted this. Was it shame? I don’t know. I think it may have been pride and not wanting pity. I still don’t want pity. I want understanding. I am not in the same place as I was as a child and yet in the back of my mind I still have the same perspective. When my life gets hard now, I look back on where I came from and I gain perspective. And even though I am not in the same space financially, most of my family is. This perspective is not foreign to me. In fact, knowing what it means to be poor is contributes to my heartbreak over this situation with hurricane katrina.
wow kristine, thank you so much for sharing that.
Post a Comment