I Shrugged

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With $26.00 in my bank account, I walked into the $1.25 Store to picked up a few things we needed and some we wanted. We don’t get paid till next week and while we probably have enough groceries to hold us do till then. With my electric and trash and water bill as big unknowns, who knows how much we’ll have for such luxuries next month. My family grew up poor with the expanding “gig economy” and my ongoing mental health issues. I can understand why my two oldest kids are still a bit paranoid about every penny they spend.

As for myself I’m just used to being broke. I mean there were days when our kids were small, when it wasn’t nothing to hawk a wedding ring or a few guitars just to keep them in food and shelter. A number of people I know used to look at us as “white trash” or “lazy”, or “retarded”. I know those are not polite words to use in modern company, but they were words I heard clenched between the smiles. After years of battling depression, OCD, anxiety, not to mention my ongoing chronic health issues. I seem to have made it to a point of fixed income stability.

With an unused MBA diploma sitting in a box I’m watching “CNBC’s Closing Bell”. The usual newscasters seem to be wetting themselves talking about the days record stock prices. Casting their crowns to the gods of gold and commodity, while people even worse off than me, do their best to survive. But I know better than to complain I shouldn’t be jealous of other’s successes. Still it’s hard to watch those with a lot of worldly success seeming put down those without. I was reminded recently by an AI Language Program that not every successful person is shrugging their shoulders at others. But they all seem to have caught the attention of the powers that be. But I don’t know, maybe I’m just too low on the ladder to see any mountain tops from here. So I turned away and shrugged.