Poverty changes you.

Not just your living conditions. Not just your physical health. Not just your hopes or outlook. It changes you. On a cellular and soul level.

There are limitations to what you can understand or know about poverty by researching or reading about it.

I just wish people understood that more.

Memories of poverty are also not the same as living it now.

Being poor and being a parent is not the same as being poor and only responsible for yourself.

Being alone and being isolated are not the same experiences.

Having opinions that are different from others is not the same as never having your reality considered in the opinions that are published and broadcast around you.

Deciding to remove yourself is not the same as being excluded.

Debating the nuances of the shape and shade of a life preserver or person holding it is maybe not appreciated by the people treading water waiting for something to be tossed their way before they go under.

Deciding where best to move to is not the same as not having the right to move when you need and want to.

Having to rely on family to help with your care is not the same as having no family to rely on.

Having to borrow money is not the same as having no one to borrow from.

If this pandemic had happened five years ago I would not have known a single soul to take out my garbage or bring me groceries. I would not have had a computer to use to set up a GoFundMe. I would not have had people who would have donated to it.

I see my privilege. I see how I have options some around me don't. I hear my neighbours crying and shouting. I see flashing lights on my drapes and I wonder who is leaving and if the person being taken away is ever coming back.

These are just random thoughts and feelings as I sit here trying to pretend I am part of a society. That I am in any way connected to the lives of the living, the working, the functioning.

That hope is still a word in my vocabulary.

In my whole life I have never compared the situation friends face to my own. I have always distinguished between socio-political analysis & individual relationships. I don't tell a friend who has a job, nice apt, loving family 'not to complain' about their boss. To be grateful

I feel genuine empathy for them. I worry about them. About the stress they face. I know that despondent comes in many shapes and forms and abuse and harm happens everywhere.

I don't compare.

But it does feel more awkward. I have to reach harder to find something relateable.

But it's not hard really. If I come up short there is always a link. Their complaints are the ones someone is writing an essay about. Their worries are being discussed and debated. Their concerns are real and valid and exist and so do they.

There are no links for mine. So do I?

I used to read the dictionary as a child the way others might read a novel.

I keep most of the words to myself. They weren't for show. They were to hold.

But I would share one if I could one find one that described the added isolation public discourse & media adds.

The very things that are supposed to connect me to the 'us' set me further apart.

But I also worry that I am losing the things I liked most about myself in trying to insert myself.
Agreeing with me was never a condition of friendship, in fact debating and arguing often formed the basis of my closest ones.
But those people saw me. There was mutual respect.

The nature of connections is fundamentally different on here and on here is pretty much all I have left.

So opinions on here substitute for relationships. A shared perspective feels more intimate and meaningful than it might if my life was more connected to others & to life.

And the dominance of the dissonance with the dominant discourse is overwhelming.

Anyway, there is no end to this thread. These are just thoughts. Because that's what humans do. They think. They ponder. They don't always know the conclusion or solution or right position...

Or at least we used to.

Oh I want to say something else and please hold me to this if by some miracle my situation were to change. One thing I will never do if I am ever not poor and the person speaking to me is -- I will never tell them I was poor once too so I know. I will never speak over them.

I will listen. That is what I will do. I will listen and I will know there is so much about their life I don't know. I will not assume. I will not pretend to relate based on past experiences. I will listen. That is what I will do.