After being in Lawrence for almost four months I have realized that my life is starting to shape up to the way every parent wants their children to live. This morning as I set my son in my new jogging stroller and jog out of circle of houses I notice all of the things I see everyday but I really see them for what they are today. The men walking their dogs, women running with their Ipods, the buses transporting college students, the mini vans car pooling the kids. I smiled for a moment, happy that my children live in such a wonderful place, but then I take another look as I think about where I grew up. All of a sudden I feel like I am kidding myself, jogging around a beautiful neighborhood that has sucked me into playing a role of a suburban house wife with two kids. What the hell am I doing here?
Yesterday the five year old that lives two houses down came to ask if my son could race in the yard with him. When I was growing up we weren't allowed to have neighbor kids come over. There was seven children in my home and perhaps my father thought that was enough kids running around our filthy home. When I was a teenager I would not have heard a neighbor ask for sugar, but want to know if my mom was home (surely she had clean needles). I come from a family where being clean and sober makes you the black sheep and making it out of your teens without children is an accomplishment. What is this lie I am living with my beautifuly landscaped roundabouts and neighboring gated communities? How priviledged I feel with my fancy jogging stroller and Iphone.
So, if this is what most people aspire for in their lifetime why do I feel ashamed to live here? Why do I feel ashamed of breastfeeding my baby and owning cloth diapers that cost nearly $20 a piece? How come I feel ashamed that my boys aren't cramped up together in a small room to have space for someone else to live? Has it come a point in American history of poverty that anyone who has an opportunity to escape it is ashamed of what they have? Is it such a rare occurence?
I feel as though I have abandoned so many people that need help. Living in poverty may be a dog eat dog world sometimes but many times you have to count on others for a lot. Everyone has a purpose and something that they can offer to help others with. Now that I am gone, what will happen to the help I provided. The rides to the store, the two dollars to grandma so that her bank wouldn't charge her an overdraft charge for the perscriptions she had to buy, and the free babysitting whenever possible to friends and family. What good am I here sitting on the couch watching Regis and Kelly in the morning and Ellen in the afternoon?
As I contemplated all this on my jog this morning I stopped to take a picture for this blog and noticed the stop lights, the light poles, and the sewage drains. It may me think of the place I want to be, so far from any American city. The places that most Americans only see on commercials asking for aid, the African villages, the South American huts, the worst of the worst is where I want to be. Of course I would never want that for my children, but I want it for me. Someday, when I grow up, I will say good bye to the corrupt America I call home and travel from poverty stricken country to poverty stricken country and help the people that need help the most. I will escape these suburban shadows just as I escaped poverty. Someday when my children are grown.
