back to school

August 6th, 2010

105



So, I’m in a really pissy mood. Stop reading now if you want pretty niceties, I’m in a rage.

I just got this comment emailed to me:
“Congrats. You live a privileged upper-class American life and are smart enough to appreciate art and design…just like every other blog-writing woman on the internet. Share something NEW with the masses already.”

& I know some other people have recently gotten “privilege” comments on their blogs. People who make minimum wage, people who struggle with money every day.

Let me make this clear: it is classist to assume someone is from privilege because you think their blog is pretty. To infer that only the upper classes are capable of aesthetiscism is betrays a profound lack of understanding of economics and the human spirit.

This comment brought up, once again, how much we are afraid to talk about class in the blogging community, how we revere luxury and share only victorious highlights.

Though overwhelmingly I prefer to keep my personal information private, my background is one of rural poverty. While that is currently glamorized, it’s not really a glamorous thing to live through. Since putting myself through college, I’ve consistently been from the poorest background when I’m in any professional situation, and often in social situations. To attempt to move out of the culture of poverty is to estrange yourself from your community. It’s hard to straddle that line of not fitting back home (and getting constant digs for being “fancy” and “educated”) and not fitting out here in California. It’s hard to reconcile existing in a capitalist environment, it’s hard to constantly struggle with money. It’s hard to be making money (at a nonprofit that works to empower farmers in 3rd world countries) and still in absolute terror that you’re one paycheck away from homelessness. Do I talk about that on my blog? Sometimes, if you notice.

People who have been reading my online presence since 1996 have followed me through several periods of being homeless, being absolutely broke, figuring out selling vintage online to survive when NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON was doing it (with a text only website + usenet boards), and basically pounding the pavement to figure out how to exist as myself in a world that was completely alien to me. I was the first person in my family to go to college, I was openly mocked and ridiculed through college for my economic status. When I got my first “corporate” job, I called my mother in a panic worrying that I couldn’t possibly fit into that world. I spent the first few years sneaking in the back door because I was sure they’d notice I didn’t belong and fire me.

I didn’t see my family for over 6 years because I couldn’t afford to do so.

So yes, I feel a little fucking RIGHTEOUS and pretty fucking ANGRY that people are such petty, ridiculous, cowardly pieces of shit. Are you worried about class and empowerment? GO FUCKING DO SOMETHING TO FIX THE WORLD. Don’t harass people who struggle every day with money, who work 2 jobs, who worry about their families paying for housing and food, and who are now enjoying some iota of success through YEARS AND YEARS of hard work. Because you know what? WE NEVER FORGET CLASS. EVER. NOT A SINGLE FUCKING DAY.

I want pretty things. I want adventures. I want magic. I want to enjoy life and live in a house without people being shot next door. I want to raise babies and not have them worried about money from the time they understand what it is. I want to have a wedding where I can feed my friends.

I know, every second of every day, how PROFOUNDLY and AMAZINGLY blessed I have been, to have had opportunity and scholarships and just the amazing, amazing fact that someone taught me that I could do better, that I could change my life. Blessed that I was taught to live well on very little, to DIY before DIY existed, to grow food and sew and EXIST. Do I wish I could do more to fix the whole world? Yes.

But right now, I need to live my life the way I know best, share what I find inspiring and magical, and focus on what I can fix – because I can’t keep drowning in the sense that I will never, ever be able to afford a house, or afford to have children. I feel incredible, incredible stress around money every day, and it kills me. I don’t want it in my life, but it’s mine, and I carry it like a stone around my heart.

I created this blog as a break, for just a minute, from the tension and stress I feel around money & the tedium of everyday life. It’s focusing on the magic so the magic focuses on me.

Tags:  nostalgia