I think everyone from a working/poverty class background has complicated feelings about their home. Zoom everything has brought out some of those conversations, especially in reference to students’ homes. What about faculty from WC/P backgrounds? My thoughts:

I’ve never had what others would consider a nice house. Ever. You’d think that would be different now that I am gainfully employed and a full-ass adult, but it’s not. I still live in an apartment designed and maintained like student housing.

I dream of the day that I will have a free-standing home, maybe even one I own. No one ever talks about the housing divide in academia and I feel the tightening of shame every time a colleague asks where I live.

But, I’ve always tried to make what I do have nice. I do this through making things for my house, filling it with food and art that I love, and learning to do small modifications that are far from perfect, but feel like my own.

This work of beautifying is intimate and really only meant for the people who mean most to me. Now, I am forced to share it with a much bigger audience and that makes me feel quite vulnerable.

Because I am now sharing my space with all kinds of others, I try to carve out neutral walls with good lighting. This reduces the feelings of vulnerability, but also cut me off from spaces in my home. For example, this is the first apartment where I’ve had a dining room.

It’s even big and decent enough to put a not-Ikea table. I love everything about my dining room. Unfortunately, the dining room is really the only good place to set up my Zoom station. I’m mourning the loss and feeling resentful that work is creeping into another space.

If being working class has any advantage, it is that we get used to making the most of what we have. Every item I own has multiple purposes and can be reassigned as needed. Like the dining room, which I repurposed for a Zoom station.

I am also repurposing sewing lights, fabric shelving, and quilting stands to try to improve my set-up. Sewing is my relief from work, so the irony is palpable here. It’s fine, but again, resentment that these are things I paid for and are not reimbursed by my university.

Home has always been my safe haven. Even if it wasn’t nice, it was mine. Ultimately, I am better off than a lot of people from my class background, and I feel lucky to have this job every day.

But, modifications for safety do take a toll, and I suspect that toll is disproportionately felt by people who are already vulnerable.

And, I want my home back.