It’s been 49 years and I still can hear the laughter, the taunts and sneers of children my age teasing me for being on Welfare. It didn’t matter that my mother was challenged to raise ten children single-handily or the quite clear fact that I was not able to choice to what family and to what situation I would be born to. Honestly the memories were only whispers until Newt Gingrich reminded me with his comments of poor children cleaning the school bathrooms and mopping the floors. The arrogance of those who believed as a child and now as an adult that getting financial help from the government was nothing short of charity and making all those who receive it lazy. I used to think that way.
I had made up my mind that I would never beg the government for help and this also made me quite defiant to asking anyone for help. As I think back now, I believe that this has served me well. I’ve paid very close attention when it came to learning something new every day. I’ve made it a ritual never to just accept things without checking them out first. I’ve achieved quite a bit in life and most of it by depending strictly on just two people, my God and myself. Well that was how I saw it then because my vision and version is much more different now.
I used to see my new development as a curse. Yesterday I saw only a family struggling as a child but today I see it as gaining expertise on how to survive with very little and be grateful for what you have. Yesterday I saw myself being used by our government to put our life on the line so that those left behind can enjoy their freedoms, make their millions and rise as high as they wanted to go but today I see it as learning what is more important than money and that money is and always will be a necessary evil but holds little to no other viable reason for existing. Yesterday I saw my business growing and expanding with the addition of new ideas and inventions but today I see it as only a suspension instead of a closure which gives me more time to test my new ideas and inventions.
I still have issues, some days, trying to reconcile how I got to where I am today. I’ve gone from owning my own home, business and destiny to waking up with nothing. I’ve gone from provider of substance to digging through people’s ash trays looking for cigarette butts. I’ve gone from provider of security to hearing the words “over-qualified” at every job interview. I’ve got from waking up each day hoping it would be better than the last one to applying for food stamps. How did I get here is what I am asking myself today but tomorrow I will find the answer. I am here because this is where God wants me to be.