Ok, I am broker than broke, but I would like to share with everyone my inspiration for hope, I'll call it, The Story of My Parents
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My parents began dating at the ripe ol' age of 14. They stayed together throughout high school and then my father started college at age 18. My mother, who wanted to go to art school, was told by her parents that girls, 'Go to secreterial school, not art school!' So off to secreterial school she went to become a good little girl. Well, at 19, my parents, practically jobless except for my mother's measley money from her secreterial job, get married. Realizing they are broke, they live in a studio apartment, drink beers and whiskey with their friends and enjoy being young, in love and broke. Fast forward to the age of 24....my sister, the jewel that she is, springs herself on my parents. There they were, happy that my father had finally gotten a very low paying, crappy job as a leave replacement for an English teacher in Centereach high school, and their little money that they had thought they had, WHAM, goes to the new baby for food, clothes and other baby stuff. My mother starts to work in my grandfather's stationary store for extra money. They FINALLY can afford a new house in Mastic Beach for 26,000. Well, at least they THOUGHT they could afford it.....7 months later, they sell the house and move in with my grandparents. They are still young, in love, and BROKE. Years pass, I am born in that time, they are even more broke as my father finishes his master's. But THEN! He receives a job as a TA at Nassau Community College. Still a low paying, crappy job, but at least he is happy there. More years pass. My mother goes to work full time, but the bills and expenses keep piling up and piling up. They fight and scream and yell over money and their lack of it, AND THEN MY MOTHER LOSES HER JOB. They are both in tears, desperate for money, but my mother decides this is her time to finally fulfill her dream of going to college. She worked nights, I hardly ever saw her (I was 12 when she started college), I saw my parents stress themselves beyond belief and go without essentials just so my sister and I could have what the other kids did. My father became a full professor, but with my mother not working, the money just was not enough still. FINALLY, in 1997, the year that I graduated from high school, my MOTHER GRADUATED WITH HER MASTERS!
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For about 4 years they still struggled playing catch-up with old bills and credit cards, but they sold their house, and have NOT ONE WORRY about money anymore. Why? because they stuck together and did what needed to be done.
This is my hope. My parents, who I have seen have NOTHING to their names, have everything they could desire now. And it was all due to hard work and sticking together. So when my father tells me, 'You and JT will have a rough few years with money at first, but you're both way ahead of where we were at your age,' it makes me feel so much better. I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful example of how marriage and life can be awful at times, but that it IS possible to have everything you want while having nothing at all
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