“If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.” —Harriet Tubman

Realizing your life situation is not…amazing

I grew up in a working poor upbringing. There was struggle for and in my family. I didn’t have insight into why the struggle was happening, and happening for so damn long. I just understood my stepdad had a job that paid really well, and then he didn’t have a job that paid really well. Struggle was how it was.

My perception of what was happening around me was through a child’s lens. And what I saw was, both of my parents worked…a lot. They worked shift jobs, my stepdad’s job was on his feet all day in boots; same for my mom until she got a different job that allowed her to sit part of the shift to do paperwork. Knowing what I know now, I’m grateful that their main hours were consistent. My mom was home a lot for dinner. Together, they just didn’t make enough money in the 40 hours they worked each, so they more often worked double shifts and extra hours to hold onto the life they had built.

Dignity for workers is a choice

When my mom would get nickel raises, I remember how shitty she, my sister and I felt with such a small increase in her pay. She deserved more than that! After taxes from her paycheck, the nickel didn’t amount to anything that was significant to her, or for us, and therefore for our family’s financial well-being. Sometimes, her raise would be an entire quarter, and that was good. A quarter, after taxes, still bumped up her paycheck. A quarter was a whole hell of a lot more dignified.

In the moving picture of my life, I look back on my childhood, and see my family sealed and sucked into airtight mucky mud of working poor status. And I hated it. I was very aware of being working poor. I’ve heard that phrase throughout my life, “we were poor but I didn’t know it.” Oh, I knew it alright. I was aware, from what I perceived through seeing and hearing, the kind of working poor we were. I also knew it could be a lot worse. But I also knew from what I observed through seeing and hearing, things could also be a lot better. And, at some point, because of the day in and day out of my childhood into my adolescence, I began to formulate one singular idea, and then one singular plan that didn’t have much of a blueprint to it, and that was to not be poor. I didn’t know how that was going to happen. For the longest time, as an adolescent, I just relied on my New England Capricorn stubbornness that I would will my plan into existence.

Growing Power

I did become unsealed from the muck of being working poor. Fast forwarding the moving picture of my life, with intentional support from very specific and dear people in my life, and with the random acts of kindness from others at just the right time and in just the right intervals, education and community volunteering, work experience, sheer damn luck and with opportunity, came better jobs, better paying jobs, better paying jobs that I really loved. Slowly, slowly, slowly over years and years I began to be unsealed from the physical grip of the working poor strata. Physical, meaning I had more money in my bank account, or, really, I had any money in my bank account. Unknown to me, it would take me further more years to unseal myself from my working poor strata spiritually. And there are days I know I’m still connected, and I always will be.