It’s amazing how differently we each view the world. I think I had a pretty fun and amazing childhood. I personally thought it was relatively normal but every time I honestly tell someone what it was like they tell me one thing–”Um, Michelle..that’s not normal.”
But what is normal anyway? I mean, I got all the toys I girl could dream of. I had friends, played sports, and pretty much got to do exactly what I wanted to do until things took a downward toll.
I personally think other people had abnormal childhoods. I came to college and it as a shock to me that most people did not know how to do their own laundry or cook for themselves. I had been doing that since I as 7 years old. I personally couldn’t believe that people didn’t know that there were people who didn’t have health insurance. That there were honestly people who existed that lived below the poverty line in America. To me, I couldn’t believe that they lived in reality at all.
I have to say that personally, I feel as if my childhood gave me a clear picture of several worlds in America. During the week I went to school in Upper Class white suburbia. On weekends I lived in the heart of the ghetto that I didn’t even know was the ghetto until the Upper White Class friends of mine came with me to my grandmother’s house and were “scared”. I didn’t get it myself. It was also a reality check to me. The neighborhood that I went to on weekends was perfectly safe to me. In fact, I felt more self conscious going through the extremely rich areas of Dallas like Highland Park and perfectly fine driving through Oak Cliff at night.
But this adventure to my grandmother’s house turned out to be even more of an adventure for my comrades. I will admit that to this day I feel as if it’s these types of issues that shape why I just can’t see anything in black or white. Let’s take my grandmother’s house for an example. Here we had a homeless guy that lived in our back yard in one of the “little houses”. I don’t want to call it a shed because it had air condition and electricity but I wouldn’t say it was exactly a fancy little house. We had three in the back yard. One for me and my siblings that had all of our video games and stuff in. One for my Dad that was his contruction company office, and one for Billy Wane or later Eric. As my friends approached my backyard, the first thing that was glaringly obvious was that there was a fridge in the middle of the backyard. Yes. It was just hooked up with an extention cord from one of the “little houses”. This of course served as a source to put all of Billy Wane’s beer in.
Yes, that’s right. Beer. For you see Billy Wane was homeless before he came to stay in our backyard. My grandfather didn’t pay him. He let him stay in one of the little houses, my grandmother had me take him food everyday, and in return for doing all the house work and repairs around the house my grandfather paid him in beer.
Now is this morally wrong? I’m not sure. If you think about it–the guy is an alcoholic. All he wants in life is beer. Give him one in the morning so he can shake off his inebriation and as the day goes on give him a couple of more. I mean, in all honestly does it not count as income if you count how much it would cost him in rent, then in food, and then in beer to survive? He has no bills to pay. But some people might say this was an abuse in power. I honestly don’t know.
We never treated him wrong. He has his own place now but he still comes around sometimes. To be honest both of them–Billy Wane and later Eric were some of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. Sure they have problems with alcoholism but at the end of the day they were funny and a pleasure to be around when they weren’t totally drunk off their ass.
And it goes back to this. I honestly don’t know what is normal. And I don’t think anyone else does either.
This is a first in a series of instances in my life when outside friends have straight up told me: That’s Not Normal
I thought I had pictures of my backyard on this computer but looks like I do not. I have pictures of them but I’m not sure it’s exactly respectful to post pictures of people without their consent.
