Originally published at Blogging Monique Renae. Please leave any comments there.
My mom often tells a story of how when I was around 4 I wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and she told me we didn’t have any. I then turned to her and asked “Are we poor?” To this day my parents practically fall on the floor laughing whenever they talk about it.
Last night, my neice did the exact same thing to my sister. Except she wanted some pepsi and all they had was water.
It’s funny how our perspective on things change over the years. To me now, poor is living in a cardboard box. Anything else, I’m living gooooood.
When I was around 18, I went to live with my birth mother for a bit. I wanted to spend some time in her world and get to know her as a human versus some lady who gave birth to me and walked away. Boy was I in for an awakening.
I went from ritzy town to the projects… literally. In all my life I had never seen a rat, or roaches. One roach yes. Roaches? No. We barely had hot water, and we ate a lot of bread. Bread and cheese. Cheese and bread. They liked adding butter to it. Me, not so much.
We did our laundry at a laundromat… and that was a challenge in itself for me. I was very used to walking my happy ass across a house and putting it in my very own washing machine. I most certainly did not want to share a washer with the general public.
We walked to get groceries. We walked to get breakfast, lunch and dinner. We walked our sick selves to the hospital. We walked to the corner store for Loosies – (1-2 cigarettes because we were too broke to afford a whole pack). We walked everywhere. I really missed my little Honda back at home.
We couldn’t afford a home phone. All calls were made from payphones… which we had to walk to. That was very strange to me since my parents had phones in every room. Including the bathroom. And if we were expecting a call, we had to camp out in front of a phone and hope no one tried to use it.
We watched TV from an antenna. I didn’t even know what an antenna was before then.
As you can see, life wasn’t easy then for my little spoiled self. I didn’t complain much about it then… but I certainly was not a happy camper. It wasn’t until I got out on my own that I realized how good I had it in both worlds. I learned a lot about myself and who I was which allowed me to become to woman I am today…
A really cranky woman who spends her days pissed off and complaining. 
I’m blessed though… and very much loved.
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