I Went To Bed Hungry Last Night

I went to bed hungry last night. It’s not uncommon for me, but it never gets any easier. I tossed and turned, hummed a little song to get my mind off of the fact that my stomach hurt, and debated brushing my teeth again, thinking that maybe I could fool my body into thinking that I was eating. I live in a nice house, about 2,000 square feet, kitchen, living room, dining room, family room, three bedrooms, an office and a separate library. My kids are often dressed in Gap and Gymboree, myself usually in Abercrombie and Hollister. I have an android phone, and I drive a nice car. My daughter goes to a great private daycare.

And yet, I go to bed hungry a lot of nights. I run, for miles, to save on gas. I keep the air conditioning and heat off to save money.  There are a lot of things we go without, but no one would ever know.

And because no one knows, I am relentlessly judged.

I don’t owe anybody an explanation. I don’t need to give reason’s, I don’t need to explain my story, but what I really don’t need, is the judgmental eyes that look me and my children up and down when I swipe my food stamps card in the checkout lane. That, I almost can’t handle anymore.

What I want to do is tell them my story. Tell them that 21 months ago my husband abandoned our family. That he literally just did not come home one day leaving me, a 28 year old stay at home mother alone with a seven month old and a three year old with special needs, an empty bank account, and that we don’t know where he is. What I want to tell them is that I had no education to fall back on for reasons that were out of my hands, and that because of my abusive childhood, I have no family to take me in. I want them to know that I’m trying. I’m cleaning houses, breaking my back day in and day out trying to make ends meet, but after taxes, I'm still only bringing home $275 a week.

I want to look into their judgmental eyes and tell them that my son is wearing clothes from the Gap that were handed down to us from some wealthy neighbors. Or that my daughters dress came out of a hefty bag that was left on our front porch, as so (blessedly) often happens. I want to tell them that the Abercrombie clothes that I am wearing came from my best friends teenage daughter, items that she has outgrown and was kind enough to pass on to me, but that I don’t have any socks on because I can’t afford them right now.

When they spot my phone and give me a rude look, I want to tell them that it was $200 to upgrade my phone, and it saves me from having to spend $60 a month in home internet, which I can’t afford. Still though, since I have to be able to pay bills, run my small cleaning business online, and keep up with legal matters via email, so the phone was my best option. I want them to know that the screen is cracked, has been for 6 months, and that I have no way of replacing it.

When they see me loading my food stamp groceries into my car, I want to be able to tell them, to scream across the parking lot at them, that my church paid for my car so that I was able take the steps I need towards being independent, which started with being able to get to work. I want them to know that even though I am grateful beyond words, it stings my heart to know that I am a charity case.

I want them to know all of the sacrifices that my family and I have made in the last year. Like the time I sold nearly ALL of my kids toys to be able to pay the mortgage, or the fact that I spent the entire winter without a jacket because I couldn’t afford one. I want them to know how much my heart breaks every time I say no to my children, and that while it is a good learning lesson, it should not be the only thing that they hear. I want them to have been able to see the look on my daughters face when I told her that that because of an unexpected legal bill, she wasn’t going to the summer camp that I had saved 14 months for, and that she had worked hard to earn on the giant behavior reward chart that we had made. I want them to know how she cried and asked why, and how my heart shattered into a million little pieces as I sobbed in the car where she couldn’t hear me.

I want them to know the humiliation that I felt when my friends threw my kids a birthday party, knowing that if they didn’t, my kids weren’t having one. I want them to know how uncomfortable I was when I hosted my annual Christmas gift wrapping party and tried to play it off as if this year, I had beat everyone to the punch and wrapped most of my gifts already, and the moment I realized that they knew. THEY KNEW. And how grateful and mortified I was when toys and gifts started showing up on my front porch in a near constant stream, all labeled “from Santa.” They knew. They always do.  And how this year, I can already feel my throat tightening up when I think about Christmas. My daughter wants Barbies, my son a firetruck, and unless we are blessed again this year, Santa will be skipping our house.

I want them to know how ashamed I am that my friends take care of me, bringing us dinner, and groceries at the end of the month when they know our resources run low. How boxes of paper towels, Kleenex, and toilet paper are donated by caring friends. I am fully aware at how blessed I am, but it is embarrassing to know that everyone around me knows that I am unable to survive on my own.

I want them to know how many hours my kids and I have been forced to stand in line at the food pantry, simultaneously mortified and praying that they don’t run out of diapers.

I want them to know that I fought tooth and nail to modify my mortgage under a crisis loan that makes my payment less than an apartment, so please don’t judge me because I live in a nice place. Would you be happier if there was another foreclosure on the market?

I want them to know that the daycare school my daughter goes too, is paid for by someone who see’s the potential in her, and is blessing us by providing her with something that I can’t. While I am grateful with every fiber of my being, my heart is heavy every time I am reminded that I cannot provide my daughter with the opportunities that others can.

I want them to know that I never put myself first. That I let the kids eat until they are full and then *if* there is anything left over, I eat too. But lately that hasn’t been happening.

I want them to know that under my hand me down Abercrombie clothes, I bear the scars of an abusive upbringing, and the trauma’s of an abusive marriage, that I don’t always know what I am doing, but that I am doing the best that I can.

I want them to know that I am a grown woman, who is ashamed to be so completely dependent on the welfare of others. That I am keenly aware that without them, we would not make it. That hard as I try, I fail my children on a daily basis, and that it is left up to the people around me to provide them with the things that I can’t, that I should, and that I fail at doing.

I want them to know that I used to be one of them, “financially normal.” That I volunteered at the food pantry once a month, and at the animal shelter every single Saturday. That I was a nanny for a family with a critically ill child, and when they couldn’t afford to pay me, I still showed up day after day to hook up feeding tubes and clean his tracheotomy. That I have been on missions trips all over the country, even named my daughter after my first one. That I helped build a youth center in New Orleans to keep kids off the street, and when it was washed away, I flew down to help with the hurricane Katrina rebuild. I used to be the volunteer, and now when I look in the mirror, I see the same broken face that I saw on all the people that I used to help.

I want them to know that I give what I can. I am not just a taker, I am not trying to suck society dry. That I offered to give my best friends infant daughter a part of my liver, that even when I have nothing to offer anyone except myself, that they are welcome to take it, and that I am happy to give it.

But I can't tell them that. In the 4 seconds it takes me to swipe my food stamp card, they judge me, and I can't possibly defend myself.

They look at me, and they judge me. The old adage “don’t judge a book by its cover” has long fallen by the wayside. I need them to keep their judgmental glances to themselves and allow me to pick up whatever dignity I have left, and haul my heavy, weary, heart out the door.

I want them to know that while I look ok, that while it appears that all is well, that it is not. That we are not.

I want them to know that I am an abandoned wife, a forgotten child. A mother who’s heart breaks for her children and all they have lost. That I am hungry from the core of my soul.

That I am more than just the person using food stamps. That I am a person struggling to survive.

I just want to be seen.

REALLY seen.

But all you see is my food stamp card.

And you ignore the fact that I am there.