I suppose…

I suppose I can’t complain too much.

I was adopted into an Upper Middle-Class home and had good parents who taught me well how to be polite and kind and not a racist (my wife was Japanese – a real "mixed Marriage"). Mom and dad raised us well, in the 15 years they had us, and they did not choose to leave us or abandon us, they died.

"Us". I have a brother, also adopted. Our parents deaths in 1977 blew us apart, and from 1988 to 2009, I did not know whether he was alive or dead; he disappeared from my life and I couldn’t find or get a hold of him until New Years Day, 2009.

I haven’t seen or heard much from him since, but at least I’m pretty sure he’s still alive.

(this is why I claim to be "The Cat who
Walks Alone")

Mom’s brother was appointed our guardian and the executor of the estate, and immediately sent us off to a hell-hole "military school", and when that failed (because the headmaster stole the tuition and fled and the school closed without notice), we got transferred to another Private School, a boarding school that was actually a real educational facility.

Dad had been an aerospace engineer, and we were not poor, but three quarters of the estate money disappeared. (well over $100,000)  In 1981, I was living in the Pasadena YMCA, bathroom down the hall, and I joined the Navy to get out. I had met, just before that, the woman I married in 1984, who turns out to be the most important person in my life, even though we divorced in 1995.  She is still in my life.

I came back to the US in 1996, and in 97, some one-night stand from the night after Boot Camp claimed I was the father of her 15 year old, and California proceeded to wreck my life, without proving that I was the father; I handled it badly and she had put my name on the birth certificate. I freaked and got drunk after a month or two of real destitution, and descended to utter poverty. But I had a great part in that myself, driving drunk and mad and crashing my car on a bridge and almost killing myself.

Almost, but no deaths occurred, except for my car.

That cost over a quarter million dollars, but they fixed me as well as they could, and I went on. The insurance ran out after 6 months, and I ended up in Public Housing and have been here for over 14 years.

***

I wrecked the car I had in 1998, and did not own a vehicle for 7 years, until the newspaper distributor I worked for on the weekends got me a minivan out of a tow-yard for $350. I had it three years and spent $3000 on it, but when it died in 2007, Dodge gave me $3500 trade-in on it, sight unseen, and I was able to buy a NEW car, the blue Caliber. I had a real job by then, driving a school bus for a local school district, but when the recession REALLY hit, I lost my job. By then, I had traded the blue Caliber for the loaded black one I have now – and have held onto.

I look around and see a 450 square foot studio apartment – my home for 14 years, and I look down into the parking lot and see my black beauty, and think, well, this really ain’t Sooo bad, is it. I got the state to buy me anti-depressants this year, and to pay for some mental health sessions. I have a food stamp card (the Oregon Trail card) to eat off of, and I have a home, and a car, tv, the Internet, and I’m not stuck outside and walking, so…

it could be worse.

It could be, and should be a lot better, but… it could be worse.

My brother pointed out that compared to the vast majority of humans on the planet, we are rich, and should not complain – can’t complain, in fact, and I suppose he’s right.

*****