Nothing to See Here…

Love a girl who holds the world in a paper cup… Drink her up.  Love her and she’ll bring you luck.

You know that song, right?  It doesn’t seem that long ago I would hear that song on the radio and sing along with all of my heart, looking deep into my husband’s eyes (when maybe I should have been watching the road) to see if he could keep from cringing about how far off key I was (he couldn’t).

But I felt those lyrics all the way in the deepest cockles or maybe even the sub-cockles of my heart.  Even though we ain’t got money, I’m so in love with you honey.  That song reassured me that everything would be alright.  I needed that reassurance.

I spent a lot of years not having money.  I can recall eating a lot of peanut butter and buying pot pies four for a dollar and watering down kool aid to make it go farther.  I can recall re-gifting because I had to.  Or having a fun candlelight picnic dinner on the floor of the living room because the electricity had been shut off.  More than once, I scoured every room of my living quarters with a critical eye trying to determine what I owned that could be sold or pawned because my brakes were grinding so badly my car was undrivable.

I’m damn glad those days are behind me, but this post is dedicated to you friends (and even you strangers) who are still there.  I wish I could write out checks for $5,000 and mail them to each of you.  While I suppose I could actually do that, those checks would all quickly bounce so it would just be a waste of postage plus, back when I was po’, I bounced so many checks that there is a poster with my picture in the lobby at my bank, so I had best not bounce any more of them if I can help it.  

What I will do instead is reassure you that you can make it through to the other side.  You CAN - I swear!  You probably need to rack your brains and come up with ideas on how to get by.  You might even have to work harder than the average person.  But hang in there and you’ll make it through.  I just know you will.  I have faith in you!  And singing that song really loud and off-key while going 70MPH down the highway can help when it gets really, really bad.

I took my help from anywhere I could find it.  I qualified for the free lunch program for my two daughters at school.  I applied for summer camp scholarships so they could go to Girl Scout camp for free.  My mortgage was nearing foreclosure and I contacted HUD and entered into a “forbearance agreement” which allowed me to pay a significantly reduced amount each month until I could get my feet on the ground.  I took in a friend for room and board money.  In addition to all of that, I did sell things when I could.  I worked all the overtime I could get.  And still I sometimes called up my mom or my sister and asked for help.

They say money corrupts.  They say that it’s better to be poor and happy.  Poverty builds character, they say.  They say lots of stuff like that.  I’m not sure who they are, but I’m thinking they aren’t poor because while all those things might be true, the stress and anxiety of poverty is like carrying a hundred pound weight on your shoulders day after day.  It looms so large and immediate, that you can never take the time to look past it, to look ahead.  It takes up so much room that you can’t possibly relax and ignore it.  Poverty sucks.

So patooie on what they say.  A much more intellectually honest position is the one Dudley Moore assumed in the movie Arthur.  When asked about what it’s like to be rich, his reply was, simply, ”It doesn’t suck.”

Amen.