Class

Last night I went to dinner with Craig's family at The Phoenician Resort's very fancy steakhouse.   There were hordes of classy, wealthy-looking people there.  At one time in my life, that would have made me shrink in my seat just a little.  Because although I've been to many upscale places over the years,  it's only recently that I've begun to grow comfortable around people with money.

I think that discomfort goes way back to when I was a little girl.  Financially, I guess you could say we were an impoverished family.   We didn't have a whole lot of material things. 

We usually had the necessities, but truthfully there were times when we didn't have even that.   I remember hard times when we really had to stretch the grocery budget.  My parents worked very hard and never once took welfare, so we made do on our own.  I remember times when I'd wash my jeans every night because I only had one pair, or times when I'd take noodle soup in a thermos to school every day for lunch, or times when our after school snacks came from whichever fruit trees in the yard were ripe.

When you grow up poor...really poor...it affects the way your mind thinks.  Very young kids don't know any differently, but as you get older an awareness of the world opens your eyes.  You learn that everything other people have is something you don't.  You begin to understand that everything you want in life will probably never be,  and anything you see is something you will never have.  And you begin to question your place in the world.

Some people grow up bitter, others grow up driven to succeed.  I grew up shy but resilient.   Shy because I knew I was out of place just about anywhere I was.  Resilient because I learned to accept what was, even as I strived to improve my future. 

But I would not change my childhood.  I think it made me strong on the inside.  I'm glad I didn't always get everything I wanted.  I think people who do never learn to appreciate life.  They don't learn to bounce.  Sometimes things are wonderful, and sometimes I struggle, but through it all I appreciate what I have, and I'm happy and secure with my life.

So after decades of learning to be happy with myself, the shyness has almost melted away.  I still feel a twinge now and then, but mostly I feel comfortable in my skin.  I figured out that money is just...money.  It doesn't make you a better person, it just buys things.  If you have a lot, then you can buy a lot of things.  If you have a little, then you can buy less, but so what?  A $40 steak and a PB&J all come out the same in the end. 

What a person does with the space they take up on this planet, and how they treat their family and how they treat strangers and the world...that's the measure of who is important and who is deserving, or not.  Having more things doesn't make a person more entitled to the air they breathe than me.  Once I realized this, I began to relax around people...whoever they are.

Still...I can't help but I wonder if on the inside I will always be that poverty-stricken little girl I was growing up.  Sometimes she's there beside me, looking scared and feeling out of place.  Sometimes she is more comfortable making chit-chat with the waitstaff than with other diners.  I just hold her hand and tell her to smile and breathe, and that we're okay.  Most of the time she believes me.