Four Things

I got this post from The Ramblings of a Crazy

Four Jobs I have had in my life:
Hudson County Welfare (Fraud Department)
A&P Front End Manager
Care Source -Claims Processor
Board of Elections - Registration Clerk

Four Movies I would watch/have watched over and over:
Coming to America
Cooley High
Love Jones
A Thin Line Between Love and Hate


Four Places I have lived:
Clinton, NC
Jersey City, NJ
Pittsburgh, PA
Dayton, Ohio

Four TV Shows that I watch:
The Big Give
America's Next Top Model
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Gossip Girl

Four Places I have visited:
Atlanta, GA
Memphis, TN
Nashville, TN
Detroit, MI

Four People who email me regularly:
Leisan
Juanita
Mark
Tara

Four Favorite Foods:
Shrimp Lo' Mein
Dewey's Pizza
Crab Legs
Shrimp

Four Places I would like to be right now:
Cincinnati
On a beach
Day Spa (Getting a massage)
Canada

Four Things I am looking forward to this year:
Free time to spend traveling
Seeing Leisan more
Festivals and amusement parks
Canada

Unafraid of the Dark

I am currently reading Unafraid of the Dark. My girlfriend's friend just bought a new house, and she was selling some items. This book is one of the items that my girlfriend bought. I came across a section in the book that made me think about my childhood.

"One of the truths that seem to elude most welfare reformers is the pervasive sense of fear and tension that accompanies that monthly check. I learned to decipher that look of tension in my mother's eyes: it's the fear of knowing that the best you can do is to give a little something to everyone you owe. Not enough to pay them, sometimes not enough to placate them, but just enough to remind them -and you- that you can never really catch up. When I listen to one of the periodic television spectacles on reform -in which people who have enough money to pay their bills, but not enough to get a new car, take out after welfare recipients for buying steaks -I have to laugh. Not one of them could survive for a week on what my mother raised four children on every month for more than twenty years. And steak was not part of that equation. Even if it were, is that what welfare reform is after -keeping cheap, tough steaks out of the mouths of the unworthy? Not one of these bitter people understands how hard it is simply to live with the money any state provides. There is no money to plan ahead, to shop cheaply, to prepare for an emergency. There is no ability to set aside a bit for the future; the present occupies all the attention of anyone on welfare."

When I was a child, I can remember living in an apartment with no gas...thus no heat or hot water. I can remember winter days and nights where it was so cold in the apartment you could see your breath. I remember having to boil water on a hot plate to bathe in before I went to school. We were poor. Although my mother had a job, it was not a job that could sustain us. But, through all that we went through, my mother never went on welfare. I don't know why she never did. Sometimes I sit and wonder would my life had been any different if she had. Maybe in foresight she believed that it would be a perpetual existence for myself and her. That it would start a cycle that would not end. I don't know. I wonder if it would have made our lives easier, or would have just been enough to get by. Food stamps can't pay bills...thus they would not have cured the problem of not having gas. So, I guess all one can do is wonder, and keep moving on.

I talked to a friend about my past on several occassions, and she asked me if I had any ill feelings toward my mother. She also asked how I could talk so freely about what I went through growing up in Jersey. I do not hold any bad feelings against my mom. She was/is a very good mother. She did the best that she could do with what she had. You don't get to choose your hand in this life. And, although we struggled, I would not change any of it. If I had to go through it again with her, I would. I believe that what you go through growing up shapes the kind of person you turn out to be. My past made me, and that is something I would never be ashamed of. I can speak of it all so freely, because God brought me through it. How can you tell someone they can make it if you've never gone through anything yourself?!!!

quote

"...a word to the wise ain't necessary -- it's the stupid one's who need the advice." ~bill cosby

couple of quotes i fell in love with

"I've learned to trust myself, to listen to truth, to not be afraid of it and to not try and hide it.”

“It's not enough to have a dream unless I'm willing to pursue it. It's not enough to know what's right unless I'm strong enough to do it. It's not enough to join the crowd, to be acknowledged and accepted. I must be true to my ideals, even if I'm excluded and rejected. It's not enough to learn the truth unless I also learn to live it. It's not enough to reach for love unless I care enough to give it.”