Perceptions

I thought of something really profound, as I was driving home from picking Alden up, yesterday. It was something about determining one's own happiness, by observing the right people. I had it all summed up in my head, tidily. I should have written it down. It was good stuff.

I was thinking about some of the families hanging around, and how some of the parents are folks I grew up and went to grade school with. It's interesting to see how they turned out. There's such class differences in this town/county. It's something I think about a lot, I guess. This town is basically a small village (no high school, no post office, no traffic lights, etc) with a history of working-class poor. Lately, though, within the past 5 or so years, there's this influx of wealthy NY emigrants.

So, we have the folks living in the $500,000 condos, down on the beachfront. We have the old families, like my husband's that were here before the town was established (1925), which are generally in good shape, financially. There's the welfare folks, and there are a lot, even still. There were way more in the 70's and 80's though. But, not much in between. Seriously. Welfare, working class...and the really wealthy. All living in about a mile square.

There are a lot of women, that are around my age, up into their 30's, that still wear acid-wash jeans, and have big NJ yenta hair, too. I digress. I fall somewhere in the middle, we moved here 20 years ago, because it was affordable, and close to my grandmother.

I also don't feel too much like "part of the town" if that makes sense. I observe a lot, with an outsider perspective. After I graduated the grade school, I never really looked back. I didn't hang out much with kids in town (except Jake and Phil, but we hung out together in other places) even though I've been here so long, I've never been part of it, school-wise, or just neighborhood wise. I am so digressing.

I think, what I was getting at, happiness wise, is how you feel, when you compare yourself and your situation, to others. Like, I can look at Sue Wells down the street, and feel very "wtf" about everything. This bitch grew up in the neighborhood, and married rich. She inherited her parent's house, down the block, and now lives there. She alternately drives her Escalade, or one of their two Lexus' (Lexii?) to school every day. Her nose is permenantly pointed into the air, (even though, we remember when she used to walk down the street, in a tube top, and ragged cutoffs, to hang out near the bar...) and she pretends like she's never seen anyone before. But, they've got a beautiful house, and money pouring out of their ass. Sometimes, I'm tempted to compare. Like, look at her, and what she came from, and look at us...and it makes me go "wtf" But, she's a snob, and her kids are rotten little bastards, so where's the true happiness...it's enough to make me forget comparing us to them. Then, I can look at some of my other "peer families" There's the Harriet clan...you know enough about them, if you're any kind of reader, to know how I feel compared to them (in a nutshell, when I look at them, it feels like we're doing damn well, life is good)

Then there are the Jeffs. (old story time!) The Jeffs were a family, headed by Jeff, this guy I knew when I was younger, sort of an aquaintance, I guess. Jeff is one month older than me. He got married at 20, to a girl with two existing kids (from 2 different fathers). He married her, because he got her knocked up. Sarah, Hannah, and now baby Alex. Since he married her (last I heard from them, about 3 years ago) they had another baby, Evangelina, and another on the way. Evvie is not Jeff's kid, though, apparently someone else knocked her up. I hung out with them once. It was bad. He wasn't working, at the time, she (pregnant) was working at McDonalds. He invited me over, with Alden, to hang out with his kid, Alex, because Alex and Alden are close in age. Their house was a hovel, I was afraid to put Alden down (he was a little over a year old). There was no food, to be seen, anywhere. I've never seen an empty refrigerator. There was a jug of milk, that had about an inch left, which Jeff used to make tea, for himself. For Alex, he made a bottle of warm water, and a scoop of baby oatmeal powder. Warm water. A tablespoon of oat powder. While he drank the last of the milk, himself. I was there for about two hours, because I caught a ride with a friend, and I couldn't get him to leave (he and Jeff were playing Magic) Jeff's wife came home from work in the meantime, with a 20 piece nugget meal. She dissapeared into the backroom, and came out with the older two (2 and 5) I thought she had them with her. They...were hiding in the back room of this miniscule house, the WHOLE time we were there. Hiding under a bed, because they were afraid of Jeff. I couldn't even keep the compeletely agape look off my face. He said "I like to keep them scared, it makes them easier to manage" Under a bed. For two hours. Age 2 and 5. The mom divvied up the 20 nuggets, for the kids, and Jeff took a huge handful, and most of the fries. Alex, and the two girls shared the large coke. He offered some of the (one) meal, to us...we declined. I gave the kids some of the snacks I'd brought in Alden's bag, to suppliment the meal. I begged Tom to get us out of here, and, he finally wrapped up the game, and we left. I can't begin to describe my feelings toward that family, toward Jeff, the whole situation. I cried the whole way home, and then called my father. He, in typical social worker fashion, instructed me to call Family Services, and report the family, and I did.

But, I think, sometimes when I'm deeply entrenched in my own personal hell, when I think that it can't possibly get worse...I think of the Jeff family. They're my happiness yardstick. I can look at them, and the situation that they made for themselves, and feel very blessed, no matter how bad things are around here. At least we're not the Jeffs, thank god a million times, we're not the Jeffs.

I could go on at length, how I feel about Jeff, but I will sum it up with this: He's poison. We have an ugly history, that I might unfold someday. (I sort of have, I think, here, without naming names, when explaining the Tom thing, back in the day).

I rambled a lot, here, but the point I was trying to make, and I wish so bad that I could remember how neatly I summed it up in the car, yesterday, but the point is this: Our happiness and sucess, financially, emotionally, whatever, can be directly percieved by comparing it to the right people. Looking at certain people can make you feel very good about yourself, looking at others can make you wonder where you went wrong in life. It's all in perception. There seems to be an art to it.

[Listening to: The Worst Day Since Yesterday - Flogging Molly - (3:38)]