So growing up in a barely making it poverty line family money is always an issue, a fight topic and a big pain in the bum! I came to this problem today. I was told to come into the financial aid office to clear up something and i found out that because i've been in school so long my financial aid is running up. I don't even have enough to cover me this year. I am about 1600.00 in the hole right now. They can split it up among the semesters but if half of that isn't paid off by the end of the semester i cannot come back.
well good. that's awesome. it's not like next semester is my last semester before i graduate, no big! But i do have options they tell me: I could commute, give up my meals and/or ask a family member to co-sign a loan. After i told her twice that there is no one that i can get a co-sign from she still wants me to call home and ask. You mean call home and ask a question that i already know the answer to a big fat NO. So here i am once again in tears over money. Just like growing up and not having enough food to eat so you opt out of dinner. Just like hearing my mom yell at her boyfriend in jr. high because the grocery money was being smoked AGAIN. Just like in high school when my family was trying to convince me to work at a factory because that's truly where the money is and people like us don't make it through the college circuit.
So when i was faced with this storm i rolled my eyes. It boils down to money and not just money it truly boils down to food money. If i can get rid of my meals on campus and cook in the apartment i would be that much closer to freedom but not quite free yet. She asked me how possible it was for me to commute and i told her how i have no car. I didn't think to mention how i don't technically have a "home" to commute from. I didn't mention how my "home" is a two bedroom trailer with approx. 7 people living in it minus myself. So no commuting is not an option. I went back and forth between two offices and i got that look i despise more than any other in the world. I got the poor girl look this is an economical poor and not the woe is my type poor. The look that says they have no idea how i live like this: no health insurance, no car, no help financially. They don't have even a fraction of an idea of what my family goes through on a daily basis just to eat.
Through these meetings, one of which i started crying while she was "brainstorming on how to help me" with a colleague i could feel the hopeless tears coming and i told myself to hold it in and pull myself together, tough girl poverty talk there! I did pull it together and the entire time i can hear in my mind "I don't want to survive i want to LIVE". I know this is a Wall-e quote and you should too. This is how i feel. I don' t want to make it through another semester financially i want to be able to live without having to constantly worry about not having enough money and not being able to do what God has called me to do. I have worked so hard to get where i am today and the only thing standing in my way is money. FIGURES. money, so trivial yet so important in our world.
I'm ready for something more. Something deeper. I'm ready to be the influence upon children who have nothing. I'm ready to be done with loans and denials. I hate money, i truly do.
there is light at the end of the tunnel. It's hard to see but it's there. God knows what he's doing and something good will come of all this. If nothing more than a reminder that i do come from a poverty home and that will always be a part of who i am.
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