We weren't allowed to travel abroad. We weren’t allowed to have friends from abroad. We weren't even allowed to document anything. Taking a picture of hardship, was seen as a “denigration of the socialist reality” and could land you six years in prison.

We had food rations. Only a certain portion was allowed per family as your monthly allowance.

Some of the things I remember:

Bread: 300 grams per day
Poultry meat: 1 kilo per month
Red meat (beef or pork): 500 grams per month
Cheese: 500 grams every three months

Butter: 100 grams per month
Cooking oil: 750 grams per month
Sugar: 1 kilo per month
Flour: 1 kilo per months
Eggs: between 8 to 12 per month

You would walk into a store and they were just simply empty. Anytime a shipment would come in, there were lines around the block where we would have to wait for hours and hope that there was something left by the time we made it to the front.

If you were cooking at 7:00 pm, you would've been cooking by candlelight. That's because the communist government cut off electricity from 6:00 - 8:00 pm each night across the country to preserve energy. This meant no lights, no hot water and no heat.

School was serious business. Teachers were dead serious about education. We learned things in 4th grade that you learn in high school. The manuals were mostly text, pretty much nothing was fun, & everyone had to strive to be the best. Oh & teachers were allowed to hit us.

Healthcare came at a price. A hospital visit in Romania was a frightening ordeal. Basically you had to pay serious money or you would get ignored. It was common to see broken-down equipment and a crucial shortage of medicines & other supplies. The health system was just starved.

Abortions were illegal. Which isn't necessarily something I would be against, however under the conditions we lived in, women either had illegal dangerous abortions or they gave birth and abandoned their children in which case it over populated Romanian orphanages.

Have you heard about those? I will spare you the horrible details. But believe me, it was heartbreaking.

So many other things I could share but I will end it for now. I can live on the other side of the world for the rest of my life, but I could never forget where I'm really from. Even after years of not going back, part of me still belongs there. This was the only home I ever knew.

Every day I count my blessings. Every day I tell myself how lucky am I to have a job that pays me weekly, to have a car that gets me from point A to point B, to have a home that I can say it's mine, to have food in the refrigerator, and if I run out of that food >

I can drive to the store where there is an endless supply of whatever it is that I need or want. I am blessed to have my health, I am blessed that my daughter does not have to grow up the way I did, I am blessed that I live in a country where I can speak my mind and not have>

to worry about being locked up and beaten just for having an opinion. I will never forget where I come from. I will never lose sight of my heritage and what got me started in life - I am humbled because of it. I would not be here if my parents had not uprooted themselves >

& journeyed to this country. I would not be here if it had not been for their inspiration, hard work, grit and determination to make a better life for my family.

Having said all that, I'm sad w/ what is happening in this country today. Y'all need to get up off your knees.

End