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#188 - $$$
September 23, 2001 @ 12:34 am

I hate money. Talking about money always makes me incredibly anxious. I have this innate fear of "becomingmymother". A phrase repeated so often in my head that it's one long word now. A mantra. A prayer for protection. You get the point.

I've always thought I had a horrible childhood because of money. Or lack of it. But really, with my family, we would have had to have won the fucking lottery to have had a happy time together. And then prayed that neither parent got greedy enough to try and claim everything as theirs, because the divorce still would have happened. But I think if there was a ton of money involved, if my Dad got his fair share, he might have left us alone after that. Maybe.

So money upsets me. Because we never had any. Because my mom was a welfare mom. No skills, married to a man because his Catholic family demanded he marry the woman carrying his child. And when she tried to leave, she didn't know how to support her family, and every time she tried... She failed. Her psychological problems & physical ailments growing worse and worse over the years. For a long period, she had just given up. Only a few years ago did she find a job that she's been able to keep for longer than 3 months. And when she was fired because her memory was failing her, she soon found another job that she's been at for about 2 years. I thought it was impossible by this time. Yay mom!

But still. I have that fear of "becomingmymother". Laying on her bed 24/7 reading books and eating junk food. Trying to commit suicide when she woke up and realized what a cesspool her life was.

All throughout my Freshman year at Evergreen, there was one guy in our big class (you only have 1 class that is one year long your Freshman year, covering lots of different topics) who was a redneck in a sea of hippies. Everyone had problems with him, and alot of people had shouting matches with him in class. Except me. Tolerance and all. Until he started blaming welfare moms for being welfare moms.

I can understand the idea. That welfare isn't good for people. That most people should be able to take the hand given them to lift themselves up off the ground and put their lives back together. The bitterness Republicans feel at the people who just use the hand year after year, leaning and crushing the helpful.

But I can't listen to someone just making a broad, sweeping claim that all welfare moms are horrible, evil people, abusing the system, having too many babies. Someone like that just doesn't understand what it's like to adore this poor woman who tries so hard to leave her husband, but he verbally (and sometimes physically) beats her down until she crumbles under his advances. Who tries to stay only to get the same result. Who tries to stand on her own and finds her body and mind incapable of supporting herself, let alone her children. Because the Church outlaws birth control, dontchaknow? Abortion bad. Birth control pills bad. Condoms bad. God, the diseases he could have given her with all of his sleeping around...

She tried. And failed again and again and again. Until she tried to take her own life. That was it. The day I found her, I was a girl who had become an adult when she was 6 and her mother left her father, so she had to worry about what it meant when the food stamps ran out a week before the next batch came. You know: don't ask for toys when Mom is worrying if we have enough beans and rice to last 6 more days. But on that day, I grew even older: I became my mother's parent. And I still quake when I try to figure out how to continue in that role. Because my mother didn't deserve to marry into this family and have her whole life taken away from her in every last word and beating my father gave her.

So I shouted at the redneck at Evergreen. And cried too. And ran out of the room. I felt humiliated. I was so flustered, I hadn't even made my goddamned point, so the yelling had been for nothing. It was a sad day.

But maybe, just maybe, it was the day I realized that money wasn't everything. It was my family that did this to me. She didn't mean to be weak, but she was. And he didn't mean to be the asshole son of satan himself, but he was. And short of a miraculous amount of money, nothing would have helped the situation.

But I still fear. So when Sweetie tells me he's going to call a meeting tomorrow to discuss the finances of the company, I quake. Here it comes. Unemployment in the middle of recession. No, he says we do not meet the definition of recession. What about Depression. Can you go straight from normal economy straight to Depression just because of a little war amongst enemies? Bread lines. I didn't need that fucking picture in Time magazine. I'm paranoid enough. I didn't need a fucking article titled "Are you worried yet?", with a GIANT picture of soup lines from the Great Depression taking up 3/4 of the page. Nosiree. I'm already fucking paranoid.

But you know what I realized? Not everyone's family is fucked up. I married into an amazing family. If Sweetie can't find another job right away and we lose the apartment, it will hurt, but we won't be homeless. His parents live right across the water. With enough money to buy a jacuzzi to put on a new deck. They would be happy to take us in. Ferries right there to commute to work. A friend from high school does just that.

It brought a little peace to my world. It will take alot more than this to get us to the point of being in food lines. Thank you, God, whoever the fuck you are.

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