ell good morning blogger world. Hope this
finds you all waking up to another morning in a nice warm bed in a home
surrounded by the ones you love. I'm sitting here this morning, looking around
my home, at the things we have acquired over the years. All of which was
gathered when we moved to Maryland from Alaska. Living in base housing life was
very different and I didn't think of it much, well not until I hear some ladies
behind me in a Safeway yesterday discussing their futures. It's funny, as soon
as I diverted my listening to the conversation behind me, I could hear my
family saying, "Why do you do that? Why do you have to hear what every one
is saying?" Well to be honest, it makes for good and sometimes bad, story
ideas. Life is where I get all of my ideas. Television is too boring these
days, with the exception of the newest made for television series, "The Hatfield’s
and McCoy’s". If you don't know the story, or know parts of it, it's a
must see. Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton are just two of some familiar actors,
that many of us knew growing up in the 80's and 90's, that make this very interesting series, I guess there is something that brings it more to light when you recognize the people. Warning it is a bit graphic.
Clearly my topic for today, is not about a
new television series, however it is an old and continuous, well – problem for
all. As I stood in the Safeway waiting to cash out, three ladies of multiple
nationalities, one pregnant, one holding a child and the other constantly
worried if her hair looked good, were chatting about what life was going to be
like after High School. Yes, I said it, High School. Holy Crap! I graduated in the 80's, and you didn't even mention
babies let alone get pregnant without knowing the hellfire that your family and
friends would cast down on you. But if by chance you found yourself to be one
of the unfortunate ladies that found yourself in a situation because you got
caught in the moment, it usually wasn't known about until you bumped into them
pushing a baby stroller two years later and find yourself feeling like a total
fool when you think the baby with them, is a brother or sister. Yes,
I've been there - Remember people I was a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
These three young ladies went on to discuss
their application for public housing and how excited they were that Friday was
"WIC" day. If some of you are not familiar with WIC, then let me
share this information with you before we go on. WIC is a federally-funded
health and nutrition program for women, infants, and children. WIC helps families
by providing checks for buying healthy supplemental foods from WIC-authorized
vendors, nutrition education, and help finding health care and other community
services. Participants must meet income guidelines and be pregnant women, new
mothers, infants or children under age five. I will say that this is a
wonderful program as I once had to take part in this when I was diagnoses in
1994 with cancer when I was 7 months pregnant with my oldest son. Being in the
military, you'd be surprise how many families have to take part in some of
these programs due to the limited income and the inability to work two jobs due
to your obligation with Uncle Sam. However, any federally funded assistance is
supposed to be limited and for us, as soon as our income exceeded the allotted
income amount or our son turned five, we would be removed from the program. I
am happy to say, our income finally exceeded the allotted amount. Wow, I can
hear some of you now "It was free, why would you make more and loose
it?" NO FEDERALLY FUNDED PROGRAMS
ARE FREE! Take a look around you; many of those nameless faces are paying for
the so-called "FREE" to you programs. For us, we personally felt a
sense of guilt and embarrassment for having to ask for assistance and did all
we could to get off the program. Now I totally get that there are reasons far
beyond me as to why people are on various funded programs - I get it and I
understand. Every situation and circumstance is different and there are people
who are genuinely in need of some support.
But what about those out in the world, who
abuse these programs, you know the ones who repeatedly have children so their
checks can keep coming in and boast about their free ride in society. I’d say
that is the first perfect example and don’t get all worked up I know you’ve
thought it too, but just kept it to yourself.
I stop and wonder, “Where is the pride?
Where is the pride in owning your own home? A sense of knowing, that you may
have struggled through life, but you have something to call your very own and
something to show where your money goes.”
Now we lived in base housing when we were
both stationed in Adak, Alaska, but trust me, even though the only thing you
paid for was your cable bill and food, your check seriously reflected it too.
When I finally made Third Class and my husband was a Third Class as well, between
the two of us we were only bringing in approximately 29,000 a year. NO JOKE! So
imagine my shock when we arrived in Annapolis, Maryland, I'm 7 months pregnant
and the list for base housing is a two year wait. You know what that
means...now you have to pay rent out in town. Now the military would offer an
additional housing allowance but an extra $500.00 a month didn’t put a dent in
a $1,800 rent payment so we opted to buy a home and our mortgage was about
$800.00. Still $200.00 short, and now we
have acquired additional expenses to boot - electric, homeowners insurance,
water, taxes, and then an unplanned illness to accompany our pregnancy. Wow, honestly I have not thought about all
of this in sometime and it makes me shudder to think - how the hell did we get this far and not lose our home? I know why – My
husband is a hard worker and will work his fingers to the bones to take care of
our family. I can only hope that he truly understands how grateful the boys and
I are to have him in our lives and how much we love him and appreciate what he
does for us.
So, as I continued listening to these three
young ladies, one of them remarked about her stint in public housing and
harbored a sense of pride with an attitude that she expected she would get her
place too. Her reason as to why they would approve her application, her family
has lived there more than forty years and both her grandmother and mother grew
up there. Yet what saddened me the most was her next comment that if she didn’t
get her place she was going to get in someone’s face because three generations
have lived there. (If I recall correctly, I remember hearing this
type of situation being called – Generational Welfare, when I attended a
community safety meeting in Baltimore, many years ago). She didn’t have any
money except for the welfare checks she would be getting soon, and she didn’t
know who the father was of her child. WOW, if I had closed my eyes, I would
swear I was watching LMN’s Real Life Thursday movies.
What happened to the days when people brought
children into this world after graduating high school and were married? Now
young men and women are out there engaged in sexual activity starting at very
young ages. As a teenager, life is hard enough dealing with hormones, and
changes both outside and within the body, but then try adding sex into the picture and all
the emotions that are stirred up in the mind. Why am I trying to speak on behalf of some of our teenagers? Well not only was I a teen many years ago let me add a bit more
to my story - here is a shocker that even my own mother doesn’t know about. I
was thirteen when I engaged in my first sexual experience. My initial reaction –
I felt nothing, no love, no connection, no wild tingles, I felt no emotional connection
except used. When you are that age, you are not mature enough to even realize
what you’re supposed to feel, but it was after that one moment, that I was not interest in anything sexual until my senior year in High School
and during my dating years after graduation, but again – I always found myself thinking, "OK this is what It looked like in books and magazines, but why can't
I feel a deep connecting love? Where is the earth rocking, take your breath away experience?" I was only feeling infatuation as I would try to keep convincing
myself I was so in love with this guy and that guy…but I wasn’t in love with them at all. I often feared that
maybe I was broken or had put way too much emphasis on what sex was. It was in early January of 1992, I remember a conversation while at work one day in Adak, that the men and the women got into one of these kinds of conversations in the paint shop. They all agreed that when your in love with someone one the sexual feeling becomes magical and for some life altering. Wow, life altering, could you imagine? I couldn't until I met my husband that I
learned the difference between sex and life altering. (I can’t believe it I’m blushing - TOO FUNNY!) The best way to
describe the feeling – Complete love, a connection so deep that it makes you
want to cry, a bond of togetherness and trust, and trust me when I say, once
you have felt that connection, you’ll do everything in your power to protect
it.
After hearing yesterday’s conversation, it
was very clear that these young ladies looked at their future as more as a golden
road of getting to stay home while at the same collect a monetary reward for
each child they produce that was intertwined with numerous passing men, or heck even
one man, in their lives without a connection of a deep love and self-worth. Their
main goal was not what college they got accepted into, or that they had been
hired for a summer position to make some extra money. Their happiness and
smiles were because they had applied to get into public housing and if they did get in,
they could start collecting their welfare checks. I guess their goals were already in the works, the girls that where mom's/soon to be mom's, were already getting their
monthly WIC Checks, free medical, and dental while living with mom who already had her place in public housing. Honestly, I actually started to feel bad, but people chose their life paths. It doesn't matter how I feel or what I believe, I can only hope that I can make a positive difference in the lives of people and young people that I meet, while at the same time I must also understand that what I chose to do in my life does not mean that it will always benefit others. The only thing I can hope for is that what experiences I choose to share with them could help them make choices through their own journey called life to reach what ever goal or dream they strive for or just choosing to live a happy life. I guess what I don't understand is how can someone be so excited to be looked at as the next to continue on path already walked by those before them. Did they ever have dreams? And if they did, what changed their thinking? I don't know the whole story on these three ladies, for all I know what they spoke about was a temporary situation, but still brought forth so many thoughts in the already filled eclectic mind of mine.
So I guess my question that plagues me now,
is how to we get our young society of soon to be graduates to want to strive
for those goals and dreams that they think are just out of one’s reach? Doesn’t
the old saying still stand true that - Half the fun of accomplishing a goal or dream
is getting there? Why do we feel that in this life, it is better just to settle
or take a path frequently traveled? Wouldn't life be more adventurous if you chose
to carve out your own destiny to get to touch a dream, even if for just a
single second? I know there are many out there who dream big and keep that
drive going, trust me, I am one of those people but I have my failures too and
I choose to get back up and try a new way. Yes I get embarrassed when I am told
I did it wrong, but how do we learn and find out how to change things if we don’t
have life’s stumbling blocks to challenge the strength and drive within us all.
If you chose not to do something in your life because of fear of failure, that
can be overcome. If you chose not to do something out of sheer laziness, you are
your own worst nightmare.
My final words, of hopefully, wisdom: “Toot your
own horn, dare to be different and be able to say at least you are trying and
giving it your all.” Thanks again to all of you and your continue support and words of wisdom to help me touch my dream of being an accomplised writer with a hope to have my words become movies on day. Until next time - blogger ya later.
