I come from a place where middle class was the rich and the wealthy were just unimaginable in the first place. Where one was going after high school didn’t expand far past the oilfield. Now I’m sitting here folding towels on a black leather couch that costs more money than my monthly rent when I lived on the bayou. Not bragging-I don’t even care for this couch. I’m sitting across a piece of furniture that’s sole purpose is to hold multiple wine bottles and wine glasses because you know, the glasses can’t be too far from the bottles heellloo! If you think about it, wine itself is like an ode to people with money. Like you paid extra money for rotten fruit?. You’re probably waiting for the typical stigma of having a better life but being unhappy and missing the old days but that’s so far from true because this is reality. My reality at least. Some people say I’m a snob, just by default, for not missing a life of struggling. Growing up, anyone who just wasn’t poor was automatically a snob. If someone just went to a fancy dinner I heard “oh they’re rich now, they’re too good for everybody.” It wasn’t until I was older that I realized that the snobs were mostly just normal people who…liked good food sometimes… My different perspectives made me the black sheep of an ironically contradictive family. They didn’t like being looked down on for being poor but talked down about people with money. They instantly categorized people with big houses as snobs but would take a better house if they could, etc. I’m a snob because I stand by my belief that too much of our “misfortune” was justified with “that’s just the way it is” instead of encouraging the younger generation to do better. It’s ok to want more when you have little. I know it’s fine because I know it’s more than financial reasons that I’m happier now. If I had to live in a shack I would if that’s what it took to continue spending my life with my best friend, but that’s a rant for another day. Liking Starbucks drinks and bath products that you don’t really need doesn’t make you a bad person. Wishing bad on others makes you a bad person and I don’t wish bad on anyone.
I can tell you that logic of the poor life doesn’t coincide on the other side of the tax bracket. (Other than the occasional waste of things and expected ways of life of not living paycheck to paycheck.) There are towels, and then there are the towels that aren’t to be used and pillows that aren’t meant to be slept on despite looking just like regular pillows. When a towel is torn, it gets thrown away (I guess like normal people?) But the trucker’s daughter in me is standing there like “soooo, we’re not going to cut it up for shop towels?” Nah, Amazon prime is the go-to solution in this world. Another weird thing that some probably don’t think of is when you’re driving through a nice neighborhood, everyone waves. I remember riding through my now fiance’s parent’s neighborhood of people tending their lawns and walking their dogs and they’d all stop and wave, and he would wave, and everyone was smiling and I was just like “do you know all these people?!” Also, it’s going to take a lot longer to cut your grass dude stopping that many times, just saying. Where I’m from if you waved that many times at that many people, the other residents would be like wow, that’s person’s thrown off, cool, cool. Much less if you were in a really bad neighborhood. Like, is waving a way to imply “Hiii, I’m not here to rob you, I belong here!” Take it from someone who has seen the difference from passing in my finance’s BMW from my old 2004 Chevy Cavalier with a broken dashboard from where my mom tried to fit a broom in the front seat. The looks were quite different- not in a rude way, but more just confused. Telling you, one day there’s going to be one of those movie-like scenes with the caution tape around the house and a herd of police and investigators and as they’re booking the criminal, Debra from across the street is going to come out in her swimsuit cover and be like “But he waved! How could this be? I just don’t understand!” Did you imagine Debra with a wine glass in hand or was that just me?Now, even if I attempt this foreign wave notion, I just look like a bad traffic cop. My mind is saying hi but my hand is saying stop, just stop. I swear, any place with an H.O.A. is an introvert’s nightmare. Yeah, I come from a mess of a life, but it’s also why I won’t judge you when your life is a mess. I’m happier now and I’m glad my kids don’t have the same worries as I did and I do get a little spoiled sometimes but a part of me will always be or remember the girl from a trailer park whose dad rigged a broken dryer with an electric heater to prevent buying another one (I couldn’t make that up). Or the girl riding in an old pick up truck with no air conditioner listening to country songs. I’m glad for that because that’s the kind of person that anyone can fall back on when times get hard. My intentions and heart were true then till now and that’s what I’d never want to lose sight on. In the end, rich or poor, we are all just people.
