The "Have Nots"

I’m lying in bed thinking of my last blog entry I posted earlier tonight and my right hand is hot, dry and itching. I write with this hand… the itching is like a need to move. When I move my right hand I create words on this paper and the heat dissipates… the itching subsides (and maybe it is because I put hand cream on 15 mins ago).

So this need to create to explore some words from my last blog entry has propelled me from my bed and into the dark living room with my journal.

The words “have nots” are speaking loudly in my consciousness. These words are ones that I am all too familiar with from my past.

As a child I was a “have not” where money was rarely spent on the children’s wants, and when it was spent on me I was always left with the feeling of my father doing me a favour by buying me something, and that I put him out, and ultimately that I was not really worth it.

As a young teenager I felt I was a “have not” by not feeling loved and wanted by others (mostly boys).

As a student struggling to graduate high school, I was a “have not” as I scrapped to stay in school and live on student assistance.

The summer or 1994 I was a “have not” when I found myself homeless for a period of 2 months and had to live in a tent.

At the age of 19 I was a “have not” when I found myself having my first child and living on welfare.

I was a “have not” while leaving my boyfriend in Ontario and becoming a single mother in Nova Scotia.

As a single mother I chose to “have not” anything special for myself in order to provide more for my daughter.

As a single mother I chose to “have not” an ideal relationship with my daughter while I went back to college to get a better education and work full time, barely seeing my daughter awake for almost a year.

I chose to no longer “have not” and to create something different.

So as I write “have not” or use the term “have nots” I only refer to “have not the money to put themselves first” it is in no way a reflection of the Strength, Self Sacrifice and Hope that I experienced as a “Have Not”.

And the itching is totally gone now. Off to sleep I go.