“This is your very first post.” … indeed it is. Hi, I’m Angelique. I am taking a break from job hunting to write this, my very first public, real, blog. I am sitting at my table… looking at my son sitting across from me on his laptop where he is staring at me with a sense of frustration, because he is trying to get on the internet, and I don’t have wifi. I have a cell phone that can be a “hot spot”, it’s not all that hot, more like an hours-old-bath kind of hot. you know.. not actually hot. at all. Jordan fucking hates it. He hates that we don’t have internet. But internet is expensive, and he’s ten. He doesn’t need it for work, but if he has school work, or if he wants to play on the internet , we use my phone, or go to a coffee shop.
See, I am a millennial, but I’m borderline too old to be a millennial, nut my latter childhood we were poor so even though the cool tech stuff came out while I was still young enough to get really into it, it was too expensive to access until I was reaching near-adulthood. So when I got my first PC and internet as a 17 year old gal (fuck yeah AOL!!) I used my computer for 3 things, writing bad poetry in beautiful colors and fonts, downloading music from the then FREE and LEGAL Napster and talking to my friends/making new friends on AIM (America-Online Instant Messenger). It was a magical time really… I digress…
I obviously want to have internet back before Jordan turns 17, but right now, I am working thirty something hours at a gym, as well as working in a salon a couple days a week, as well as random makeup artist gigs, I work a lot. But I live in Denver. And it is so very goddamn expensive here that in order to survive as a single mother I have to have multiple jobs and live in a dive that still costs 50% more than the most expensive place I’ve ever lived, and it means cutting down to the BARE essentials and finding a housemate for the dive.
At this moment I am re-grouping, my boy and I are getting by on the bare essentials. And I have decided to trade in a career of highs and lows, feast & famine as a freelance makeup artist for a new start. I’m quitting all the jobs, and getting one job that pays enough to survive on while I grow and learn in a new career. This is terrifying, but as someone who has spent a substantial amount of my life at or near the poverty line, I know how to appreciate the things that really fucking matter. And I know how to go without the thing that don’t. Don’t get me wrong it fucking sucks sometimes. But most of the time it’s kind of nice to not have all the “noise”, life is simple, relationships with the people you love, share experiences, making stories, these are the things that really matter. Is that such a bad lesson to teach your kid?
So I am here to share my journey. Being poor as fuck and making it work by the skin of my teeth… and learning how to budget.
You breath, eat, love, smoke weed, laugh with neighbors…
walk on the ground, breath in the air, soak up the sun and love.
Love so much. As much as you can possibly send into the universe.
Angelique Dagger 