Holes in My Socks
The echoes of poverty haunt me long after my escape.
I remember the first time my peers and I were asked to remove their shoes in gym class for some activity that inexplicably required such. While the other children excitedly flung off their little sneakers, I inched toward the back of the gym and slouched against the wall. My gym teacher asked me what was wrong.
I saw all those pristine, perfect white socks and was filled with the sort of shame no child should experience. “I have holes in my socks,” I said.
My teacher, to his credit — he was young and handsome and all the girls had a crush on him — tried to reassure me by saying that his socks had holes in them, too.
But he could never understand. He was a teacher. Someone with a salary and extra money for things like socks. My situation was…well, a bit different, to put it charitably.
By the time my mother was 27, she was divorced with two very young children and had been through detox and rehab for alcoholism. At some point, she decided she was entitled to be a full-time writer, rather than find reliable means to support herself and her children like a responsible adult. This meant that we lived on the $400 a month in child support my father sent, plus food stamps. She would also do taxes for a few people every year, despite her utter ineptitude with money…
