Midnight Brain Vomit

Some of us have problems of more pressing concerning than others'.

Take, for example, that opening sentence. I'm almost certain that the grammar and/or syntax is waaaaayyy off, but I'm too busy burying my nose in literature whilst burping my 1 year old godkid and simultaneously blogging/baking a late night snack/monitoring my 5 year old godkid to really pay too much attention to that sentence... And I'm pretty sure that's okay. That little problem - my horrid grammar and/or syntax - can suffer a wee bit longer while I put down American Gods and see how the popovers are doing in the oven. (Yes, I make my own. Betty Crocker ain't got nothin' on me.)

*walking afk to tend to popovers*

But really... Problems... It's always been hard for me to walk away from other peoples' problems. Being the oldest and only girl will do that - especially when, say, your father has a ridiculous Peter Pan complex and your mother has never come to grips with the fact that shit is never gonna change. Other peoples' problems have always been at the cruxe of who I am. They were the developmental cornerstones to my personality.

It makes sense, then, that up until I was a teenager, I had a very hard time telling the difference between a "matter of urgency" and an "issue." Having always been thrust with other peoples' problems, I had assumed that ALL o' dem were "matters of urgency." It hadn't occurred to me, for whatever reason, that "My stepdad rapes me while my mom's at work" is a matter of substantially more importance than "I can't get rid of my pimples." I'd seen/heard/done it all, and whenever a minor problem like "I can't get rid of my pimples" entered my periphery via the loud mouth of a close friend, it was always closely accompanied by, "And that motherfucker STILL hasn't paid child support, and my job cut back my hours, and I swear to God if I find out that my sister's fucking my first baby's daddy, I'm gonna kill BOTH o' dem..."

What you have to understand is, my friends and I (for the most part) grew up poor or working class. There were some days when a few of us would be doling out food at a church or homeless shelter, and some days when we were on the receiving end of the welfare line; it was all just a matter of time and circumstance. We learned early on that shit changes quickly, and if you're not prepared for the inevitable shift in tide, you'll be drifting off to sea. We were good at telling when the tide would turn, and even better at rolling with the punches. Problems, we learned early, were inevitable and horrible and unstoppable. They popped up unexpectedly on the best day of your life. They made it impossible for you to reach your dreams. They derailed peoples' entire life stories.

We understood problems.

We knew problems.

Problems, to us, were BIG deals.

So imagine our surprise when, as we got older, we peeked out of our ghettos and projects, and realized that there were Other People with Other Problems. These Other People worried about whether their gardener was syphoning gas from their Lexuses and Beemers. They worried about the Riff Raff coming into their neighborhood (read: us). They worried about brand names and hair styles and the color of their nails - and God almighty, did they spend time and energy into those aspects of life that we had regarded as menial and unimportant.

My girls and I (all minorities) would laugh about the white girls we'd see in the city, who'd gab to their friends ad nauseum about their manicure. We'd scoff at the price of designer jeans or shoes - "$560 for a pair of heels?!" - and swear that we'd be shopping at Payless even AFTER we made it outta the 'hood. We'd watch diners walk into chi-chi restaurants and exclaim proudly that our Mama or Gran'ma cooked just as good. We relished our otherness, our strife, our roots. We drew pride and honor and character from our backgrounds.

And then, one by one, we realized that there's no shame in being able to afford an exorbitantly priced pair of Jimmy Choos or extravagantly priced meal at Le Cirque. Not only that, but why not splurge? We'd obviously made It if It was an option.

Unfortunately, more often than not, It was not an option. It was simply a place to pretend to be one of those Other People. One of those "better people." One of those people whose problems were more about which Ivy League to send their kids, and not the gang initiator who will be knocking down your door for your oldest son.

Those Other People, we'd decided, had the kind of problems that We wanted. Fuck what Biggie said. If we dragged our asses out of the 'hood and got paid, we wouldn't have more problems. We'd have better problems. The kind of problems that equaled status and respect and power.