First we couldn’t afford cigarettes and maybe it was convenient for us, laughable really. We figured eventually we would quit but for now we could just cut back. There were cigarettes out there, in the world, just waiting to be smoked by us specifically, and all we had to do was find them. I was better at this than you on account of my being a female, and sometimes at bars you would send me off to flirt with some other guy at the end of the bar for extra smokes. I always came back to you and you always knew that I would so you didn’t seem to mind my flirtations.
When there were no cigarettes to bum ff other people we would sit together on our balcony, picking through our ashtray together, finding anything smokable. We finally quit altogether when we ran out of money for beer and therefore could no longer troll the bars at night looking for drunks with a nicotine habit. It was amazing how much easier it was to let go of cigarettes when we weren’t drinking. Without anything else to do, we finally found time for all those board games we bought back when we thought we’d be one of those couples who hosted game nights.
After long nights playing Monopoly or Sorry, we pulled out the more complicated games. We played games that were meant for four or more with only two. I liked the way you drew in Pictionary. You liked the way I moved in Charades.
Then we couldn’t afford heat, but we were coming to the end of winter anyway. For the final few weeks of cold we snuggled together under the covers, rubbing our bodies into each other and making love every chance we got in a desperate attempt to keep warm. We looked ridiculous, for a while, roaming around our apartment in our winter coats, hats, and gloves. I laughed watching you cook while wearing mittens and a scarf. You laughed when I put my boots on to go to the bathroom at midnight.
It finally warmed up but by then we couldn’t afford electricity. When night came it immediately became dark in our apartment. At first we used flashlights but the batteries died. Then we used the scented candles I had kept around in better times. When those were gone we opened the pack of emergency candles you had insisted we keep in the kitchen drawer and I was relieved to have them finally come to good use.
Then we could not afford food. We worked our way through what we had. We went fishing even though neither one of us had a license for it. We joked that we would get caught and taken to jail and maybe we would be happier because at least in jail they would feed us. We laughed about it, but if the fish weren’t biting I think we both considered it a possibility, and tried to think of something we could do to go there. Maybe we were a little louder or more ostentatious at those times, secretly hoping to draw the attention of someone official. We never did get caught, but after a while we did get really sick of eating fish and a while after that we ran out of the good bait and rarely caught anything at all.
We thought of other options, maybe shoplifting. Maybe just walking into stores and asking. We settled on going to the food bank and seeing what was there. Hardly anything was but we got some bread and a can of meat and some powdered milk. The bread was the only thing we could take seriously. The canned meat reminded you of dog food and me of a nightmare and all this before we had even opened it up.
This little bit of writing came out of a very difficult period in my life and a very difficult experience. In my final few months of college I found myself without a job and without any money. I was fortunate enough to live in on campus apartments, which meant that my utilities were all included and my student loans had covered my rent until graduation. The problem was that I didn't have much of anything else. I would go to the bar across the street from where I lived and win free beers and hopefully gift certificates that would allow me to eat there for the week. If I didn't win, I would eat this little noodle things that I had had for over a year and popcorn. The noodle things only had about 200 calories each in them, but I felt that I had to spread them out so I tried not to eat too many.
Finally, I broke down, swallowed my pride and using the teeny amount of gas that was left in my car I went to the food bank. It really was rather barren (I discovered later that the best food went to various charities around town). They gave me this bag of food from the government that included some of the items listed above. It wasn't much, but I was desperate. When I got home, I opened the bag and discovered that the powdered milk was open. It was all over everything else and spilling out onto the floor.
I had never had powdered milk before, but something told me that it would be disgusting. I didn't have anything to mix it in. I didn't even really want it, but seeing it spilling out everywhere was the very thing that finally broke me. I sat down on my kitchen floor, next to the little pile of white powder and cried. I cried for a very long time.
I imagined that it would all be easier if someone would just come over and pick me up and put me to bed and maybe go out and get me some food. I needed someone to take care of me but I was too ashamed to ask for any help. I had done the ultimate thing that wasn't worth doing, I had cried over spilt milk.
Eventually my friends caught onto the fact that I was starving and I would find food in different places. Sometimes there just happened to be mistakes made in the kitchen at the bar I frequented. Sometimes someone just happened to be carrying a number of granola bars or some extra cereal. I felt like something to be pitied, but I didn't mind it in the least because I wasn't starving anymore.
This story is about what it's like to be losing the things that you have one by one. It's a little bit about losing your dignity to poverty. It's a little bit about losing what you love to poverty.
The story (in it's entirety) was actually very foreshadowing of my own life. In the story, the poverty pushes the couple apart. In my own life story, the fact that I couldn't get it together enough to remain where I was meant that I lost someone very close to me.
I don't want to be hungry again, but sometimes I think back on that person and how much I enjoyed his being in my life, and I realize that I had never felt like I had lost it all until I lost him. Now I have a place to live and plenty of food to eat, but still there's something missing. I don't feel one hundred percent because he's gone and sometimes, I'd rather be crying in my apartment and know that I would see him soon then living the life I live without him.
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