Lady Poverty Paid me a Visit Once
I first met Lady Poverty in 2007, when she came barging into my house. She took my dad and left with the furniture. The first time I slept on a mattress with no bed frame, cuddled to my mom and brother one winter night. My mother did a good job making us sausages for lunch the next day. They were cheap but we loved them all the same. So in the end it felt like a treat.
It wasn't tough then. As a kid. Well, it is always tough no matter what or when or who. But you know, as a child you will cry in the aisle of a supermarket, your butt on the cold floor right next to a candy or a doll you decided you needed to live. And then your guardian will come and beg you to quiet, or slap your bottom, or drag you out without another word, and that will be your biggest injustice. All the other things, the big things, the elephant in the room things, won't hit you until the hormones do, until your boobs ache and blood paints the canteen chair. Until pimples are your nightmare and so is the oil that drenches your hair. Then, you will start to gain awareness, because others will too.
Where is my dad? Why hasn't he come back? Why hasn't he helped more? And depending on how your mother answers, you will either beg for his attention or hate him just as much without ever meeting him.
Why don't I like how I look? How do others look so good? But then you notice they can buy makeup, and cleansers, and exfoliates. They can buy the clothes that fit them, the clothes whose colors match their skin, their hair, their vibe. So you will pick black, or white, or blue, because all the other options at the church are from the 80's and 70's and smell ghastly of your grandma's perfume, the one that paints her nails the same color as her lipstick and acts rich but is poor, like you.
Why is it so hard to focus at school? Or to behave? Or to be normal? Why can't I just be normal? And then you'll get puzzled at the times you've spent in free government-approved therapy with professionals that were only doing it to fill their resume or because they are stuck in a small good-for-nothing town like you. You will struggle with being alive, and feeling useful, and argue and berate and yell and cry, and wonder where or why these feelings are the way they are. Without a diagnosis you will be lost and lonely and scared, but had you one at that time, you wouldn't have known what to do about it either way. And neither would your guardian.
As you grow, and you move away from your little town, you get accepted into college, and live on your own, you will find that the world is vast and big and diverse. That life is worth living and you are not confined to the white walls of your bedroom for all three months of school summer break because your mother can't afford to go anywhere or send you places.
But sometimes, in playful banter, or interesting conversations, or deeper topics, something will slip from someone's mouth, something they find harmless, mundane, normal, but that for you will shift the narrative completely.
Suddenly, your best friend was a suburbs kid with gaming consoles and taco tuesdays. Out of the blue, your kind coworker will be confused as to why you don't just go to parties or travel more than once a year. Your partner will introduce you to their family, and it will feel like one of those Disney shows you used to watch, with an island at the center of the kitchen, a mother with hairspray on, a dad with his armchair watching football and the extroverted siblings. And you'll feel like a barrier was raised. Even if you don't want it to. The sea will be parted, the earth split in two. And you'll see Lady Poverty again, walking around the room, smiling at you, sucking the air from the room and wetting your eyes with salt water.
I was poor, and in my poverty I grew hungry, cold, quiet and hurting. And its still here. Like a well whose walls are wet and slippery, where the dark bottom waits for me to fall, again and again. Because nowadays, wealth is not built. It is either gambled, or it is inherited.
So I adapted instead. I accepted, or pretended to do so, because it is easier than being frustrated time and time again at my own situation, or bringing it up in conversation just to have people try to fix it quickly with a word or two of what you should do.
I buy second hand, go to the cheapest supermarkets, accept living in a room where I pay 60% of my income. I have hobbies, but free ones that don't require me to pay a fee, or a subscription. I pay my taxes in time and order, and sit idly by in my four white walls, in my room, for months and months and years on end, because in the end, I still can't go anywhere, and sleep on a mattress with no bed-frame.