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Help me be NOT poor.

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Happy Mother's Day

I don't even think she'll read this, but I thought I'd do a sappy happy mom day scribe.

My early childhood, as far as I remember, was happy.  I see so many kids these days who are constantly getting yelled at or threatened by the people they thought were there to care for them.

My childhood was filled with laughter. My mom definitely comes alive around kids. Laughter is the greatest gift any adult can give to a child. 

My perspective as a non-parent observing parents is that their stress gets transferred onto the kids. In the absence of laughter is a scowl and stress and uncertainty.

Looking back there should've been much more to stress about. We hastily left lifelong family friends we were staying with in North Carolina. We moved numerous times. We were in a station wagon on the way to Kroger in the middle of what we later learned was a tornado.

It was my mom's demeanor that let me know it would be ok. There was rarely a scowl on her face. We played together. We laughed. I was never in tears thinking about money or where I would live and I was never walking on eggshells around her, afraid of being hit because I forgot a chore or I embarrassed her somehow.

I'm an adult now and I have had to worry about where I was going to live and I have wept while worrying about money. I've been to many funerals and  lost friends due to death or distance...

And through all of those hard times, I find comfort and security in memories of laughter with my mom and my sister, playing outside.



Saturday, February 20, 2016

Still Poor.

In case any of you were wondering...



I'm still poor.

God dammit. 

This isn't alimony, because I have no kids. This isn't delinquent taxes, either. This a credit card company and the debt collector they sold my debt to, wringing out interest charges and court costs. It's  squeezing blood from a rock.


P.S.

I got this in the mail a few days later...