"Lovin' life and livin' more, closer to the place her heart can rest..."

I hate money.

Let me explain what I mean when I say "I hate money"; because of a lack of money a lot things are hard, a struggle or damn near impossible. My mom, aunt and I all combine our money in order to pay for things like the rent, utilities, groceries, etc. My mom has been looking for full time work for months and is still stuck at a department store that only gives her 10 hours or so a week, my aunt's company is run by an idiot who never has the money to pay her and I only work 20 hours a week because of school and I only make mininum wage on top of that, so my contribution is not very big. If things don't improve then I have to quit school for awhile and go back to working full time and possibly even two jobs to improve things for us. I am so close to being done with school (I have 1010 hours out of the 1600 hours I need to graduate) but I don't see how it's possible for me to continue going. If I have to, then I have to take a break, there is no other way around it.

It's pretty much been like this my whole life, so close to being able to live what I consider "normally" and then have it all slip away. I grew up living in a household where the whole family (and for me the whole family mainly consisted of my mom, aunt, grandma and me) combined their money and tried to make everything work. I never got a lot of gifts for christmas, never went on vacations during summer breaks and never had huge birthday parties. Instead I watched my family lose everything and become homeless by the time I reached my senior year of high school. I was so ashamed and embarassed that I never told anyone for years. In fact I haven't told anyone besides my best friend, until recently when I mentioned it on the PxPx Board. And that wasn't an easy thing for me to mention, it's not exactly something I'm proud of. Ever since my senior year of high school I have had a hard time ever feeling at home anywhere. When I graduated my family still didn't have a home so I moved to another town into an apartment of my own and started college. I felt so restless there that I picked and moved across the country to try and find a place I felt at home in. Home wasn't there either, so I came back to CA and felt even more out of place. Finally, I moved to Washington and I feel like I found my home. It didn't really occur to me, until I was folding laundry a few minutes ago, that I can take a deep breath and say I'm home. I can unpack my things, put them in the closet. I don't have to keep things packed and be ready to leave any moment. I know I don't own the home I'm living in, but I feel more at home here then I've been able to feel in a really long time, I feel safe and finally a little secure.

Because of everything that has happened to me in the past, I try extremely hard to further myself in life. I never want to not have a home and a roof over my head again. I refuse to live that life again. I get what I want and I do not take "no" for an answer. I will finish school. I will open my own salon. I will buy my own house. And I will never be homeless again. Never.