THE FACTS OF LIFE….

Good Times.
Any time you meet a payment.
Good Times.
Any time you need a friend.
Good Times.
Any time you're out from under.

Not getting hassled, not getting hustled.
Keepin' your head above water,
Making a wave when you can.

Temporary layoffs.
Good Times.
Easy credit rip offs.
Good Times.
Scratchin' and surviving.
Good Times.
Hangin in a chow line
Good Times.
Ain't we lucky we got 'em
Good Times.

When I was in college, my roommate always felt like she had everything together and it often times left me a tad bit jelly.  Not that I didn’t have it together, because I guess I did, but I just felt like her "together" was more generational.  I was envious because her parents had given her the tools for success simply by example.  It was an innate sort of thing, and I knew that her “together” was effortless, meanwhile I was desperately working on being and staying “together”.  And for a while it left me a little peeved at my own, “fly by the seat of their pants” parents. 

For example, her parents taught her all about the importance of good credit, paying her bills in a timely fashion, and financially responsibility.  She grew up with both of her parents together and in love so she knew what a “healthy” relationship looked like.  Furthermore, she knew what to look for in a loving partner, and she knew and understood the sanctity of marriage.  It was something that I had never encountered and was eagerly trying to learn and figure out.  I felt at a disadvantaged and over time it led to very bad feelings about my childhood and what I had decided at the time was lack of proper parenting.  Now, obvs I think my parents were not THAT bad.  But I was young, and figuring out life and it just seemed like an unfair advantage at the time.

But, actually, as of late I'm learning that although my parents did not teach me things about credit scores or credit cards, nor did I have a clue of what a healthy marriage and household looked like, I realized as a proper adult my parents DID teach me certain invaluable skills that gave me an advantage in life:  Survival skills.  Yup, you've got it! My parents were the King and Queen of surviving!  You have no idea!!!!!  And it wasn't until I started my second career as a freelance producer that I realized this was a better skill-set than I gave it credit.  I think when the recession hit, and I watched friends who have been on top all of their lives struggle with basic things like paying their bills, is when I decided to give my parents their just due.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not always on the struggle side of things, but as a freelancer for the last 8 years these skill has come in veeeerrry handy. 

Invaluable Childhood lessons (accidentally taught to me):

1.      Disappearing act:

We had very specific rules in my house regarding bill collectors.  If you answered the phone, because this was before caller ID,  my mother was NEVER home.  I don’t care if the bill collector took you through the wringer. And trust me, if you think they’re rude now there were no rules to the game back in the 80’s.  They would tell us our parents were everything BUT a children of God.  My mother didn’t care, either get the balls to hang up on an adult, or sit on the phone and stick it out, but no matter what you decided, no matter how hard you cried, no matter how harsh their words were… SHE WAS NOT AT HOME.  It was much like the Jehovah’s Witness rule: if caught you’re on your own.  Hey, Hey, Hey don’t act like y’all don’t know that rule! I’m just a messenger.  Anywho, same rule applied to bill collectors, good luck and god speed.  It was a tough road because trust and believe there was many a phone call in our day, but it prepared me for the Sallie Mae onslaught as an adult. Listen, you can sit and judge me all you want, but sometimes you just don’t have it and if you let every time they call get you in your feelings, you will be crying in your corn flakes every morning.  The power of evasion is a motherfucker.

2.      Robbing Peter, to pay Paul:

Yeah I know. I was a business major.  This isn’t the smartest move….on books.   But life, sometimes, is about survival AND this is rule #1 on how to survive.  Know which bills to pay, and which bills to not pay, which bills to float and which bills can’t float, who you can take from today and pay back tomorrow.  It’s a tough balance act. But if done properly, you can keep your lights, your cable, and your roof over your head. 

Remember this, and remember it well.  Not all bills are considered equal.  This was rule numero uno in the Roberts household.  Some bills are non-negotiable for example you need to make sure you secure the roof over your head, the food in your fridge, lights and heat (in the winter).  But anything else outside of that realm is up for grabs and at any given moment, one of those jammies can fall to the waste side. Believe it! 

3.     Take one to the chin like a champ:

No one can handle disappointments and still keep it moving like my parents.  Don’t get me wrong they have had some great things happen in their lives.  But I’ve seen the bottom fall out and my mom not even stutter step.  I remember one time I was having a moment (yes, I know I have moments often) and I was in a full blown cry. This lady just watched me.  After I was done, she handed me a tissue and said “let that be your last cry.”  At the time I remember being like, “damn…but I wasn’t done”. (hahahah I soooo wasn’t) But her logic was, you can’t think when you cry and by the time you’re done the world will have had its way with you.  She’s the one that’s given me my mantra of “24 hours only”.  I allow myself to wallow for 24 hours, and then I have to shake it off and push through it.  It’s a tough lesson to learn and even a tougher one to execute, but life can be a doozy and you can live life let it control you, or you can take control over it yourself.  I have my parents to thank for showing me that.

4.      Fake it ‘til you make it:

Sometimes you just have to act like you know until you know.  And if you don’t know then you need to find out, BUT no one needs to know, you don’t know….you know?  

5.     Learn how to treat yourself, no matter what:

I’m torn with this lesson.  There’s a part of me that thinks this lesson is mad irresponsible, the other part of me says, what’s the point of working hard if you never treat yourself.  With that said, no matter how hard things were in our house, no matter how many bills we were juggling, no matter how many bill collectors called, every pay day we went out to dinner.   I mean it wasn’t every day, but you can best believe every two weeks on a Friday, we were putting on our “good clothes” and heading to Red Lobster.  Don’t you look at the screen like that! At one point in our adult lives (if you’re older than 30) Red Lobster was NOT always the place where hood boogers went on dates, it was a respectable establishment that you got dressed up to go, okay!  So yes, we went twice a month. Now the other 28 days, you can trust and believe those were then never-ending days of left overs.

6.     Know your stretchable meals and execute them when needed:

No body-No One- Not a soul, I know, can stretch a meal the way my mother could.  She is the sole reason why I JUST started fooling with meatloaf like only a year ago.  Hell, my sister won’t even dare make it.  Why?  A pack of ground chuck is like a couple bucks?  Everyone has crackers in their cabinet then add ketchup, onions, and eggs?  You have one hella cheap meal for like 3 days. And we ate this EVERY week!!!!!!!  Oh lord and then when she stared “frying” cabbage? And don’t get me started on chili.  Whew…..no …I’m having the shakes just thinking about it  But I digress, the point is when my calculations are off, and I’ve cut that paycheck a tad bit close or in these days between shows (y’all know that freelancer’s life), I know how to make a meal for a week with 5 bucks. Trust!

Oh I can go on for days, there are soooo much more, but I deleted them as I wasn’t sure what the statute of limitations on some were….hehe…just kidding!  There is however,  one more and this may be the most important lesson my parents taught me.

*** Address life head on and make no apologies for it. ***

When I was in high school our struggle was real.  I went to a school where 70% of the people weren’t familiar with my type of struggle.  Not to say they didn’t experience struggle, it just wasn’t apparent that they were the type of problems I had.  We went through a financial struggle that eventually was no longer contained in the confines of our home i.e. our car got repo’d when I was in the 9^th grade, our phone would randomly get disconnected basically just random stuff that kids didn't understand and after a while everyone was inquiring in a not-so-sensitive kid way.  My first instinct was to be embarrassed and to hide it. There were jokes about the car we drove; our house was sandblasted and never painted etc.  Then one day we were all going out and were trying to coordinate and my phone was disconnected, again, my friend said in front of everyone “Your phone is alwaaaays off, why?”, I responded as direct as one could “Because we couldn't pay the bill.  Just wait for me to call you from my neighbor’s house and we’ll leave then.”  And I walked away. Let me tell you,  I had never felt freer than I did in that moment. 

Now given I wasn't that open about everything going on, but that day was the first time I decide to be direct and I've never turned back.  Life has its ups and downs and maybe some folks haven’t experienced that or maybe they have and are scared to show it.  But that day, that year, that moment in my life I decided to stop making excuses and being embarrassed about life.  It is what it is.  And you know what? The jokes ended and people were still on board.

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Although I joke about these lessons learned, but they are and were tried and true lessons.  And no, I’m not dodging the bill collectors these days (sans that trick Sallie…and I don’t really dodge her per se…we have a game we play much like hide-n-seek), and maybe this doesn't apply to you, or maybe it does.  Perhaps you possess all the tools you need to live AND survive.  But if you're struggling in the surviving department, I can and will still make a monster turkey meatloaf so holla at your girl if you need the recipe.  And then perhaps you can share your secrets of "togetherness" with me....

Tradesies???