The Pride of Poverty
I didn’t throw the card away. I wanted to. I wanted to cut it into pieces and mail it to his sister’s house. But I kept it. I threw it into the bottom of a junk drawer in the tiny, damp studio apartment I rented behind a grocery store.
I kept it as a reminder. A reminder that I was worth nothing to him. A reminder to never trust anyone again.
For five years, that card sat there, gathering dust.
My life became a masterclass in survival. At sixty, restarting is not an adventure; it is a tragedy. I took jobs that made my joints scream. I cleaned office buildings at 4:00 AM, the smell of ammonia permanently etched into my nose. I worked the register at a discount store, standing for eight hours until my ankles swelled to the size of grapefruits.
There were nights I was hungry. Truly hungry. The kind of hunger that keeps you awake, gnawing at your stomach lining.
