Broke As Broke Is

28 of September in the year 2009
Monday

Recently, I ran into a high school acquaintance that provided the Cliff Notes edition of her life post Class of ’85, and she said, “Ralph and I have been married eighteen years. Can you believe that?” I looked around to make sure she directed the question at me and then I rearranged my face to match her expression of wonderment: “Really,” I said with saucer-size eyes, "that is AMAZING.”

And really, I was amazed.

This led me to think about what I have done for fifteen or eighteen years consecutively.

That is a tuff one.

I have no record of long-term job placement.  I collect voter registration cards (you get a new one each time you move) like some people collect business cards. Marriages have been relatively short-lived: in wedding anniversary gifts, the first marriage made it to cotton and the second to candy or iron, depending on the anniversary gift list you reference, and the third—hold on, I didn’t marry that one.

On the bright side, a glance at the inventory of my life shows I’ve had five fewer relationships than addresses. I am able to commit to a man longer than I am to a roof over my head.

For years I have marveled at the long term successes of other people; people like me, my age and with similar childhood experiences.

I frequently hear from the people I care about (sometimes) and whose opinion I value (most of the time) that I am unable to commit to things; I simply cannot finish anything; and, that perhaps I have issues with attention span.

Blah, blah, blah.

They might be right some of the time and I may have bought into that nonsense for years—that is until last week, when I ran into Muffy-who’s-been-married-to Ralph-for-eighteen-years, and the chance meeting made me really, really think about this: what have I done for fifteen or eighteen years without interruption?

Poverty.

I have remained chronically poor for twenty years and by all accounts I have maintained this state exceedingly well. I have been AMAZINGLY successful at it—twenty years!

And it is not as if I’ve been bi-polar about my poverty—because unlike my personality which waffles between charming and despotic, there are no peaks or valleys in the geography of my state of want. This topographical map contains a very long and level plain region two decades in the making. Because it’s not like at one time I owned a house or a car or stocks or a savings account and then lost them.

No peaks, no valleys—just a nice, steady, consistent poor.