learning your way out.

I got a steam cleaner for Christmas. 

it seemed pretty exciting at the time--to see the grime and hair miraculously come out of my carpet, but now it's just something on my monthly cleaning duties. 

I sat my 15 year old in front of the records and asked him to put up the vinyl his dad has most recently spun. 

he claims he doesn't know how to alphabetize. 

at this moment you are a mother. attempting to clean house who is baffled at her 4.0 9th grader who is unable to fit his dad's ELO records in the mix. 

I just want to ask him if he's lazy or an idiot but I manage to bite my tongue and continue to steam clean the carpets. 

needless to say I've seen the PS3 titles alphabetized.  but to his point he didn't understand the album verses band title. 

but at what point am I the horrid stepmother or the happy-go-lucky mom?

I brush it off and have him clean out my now filthy water tank of the steam cleaner. 

walk the dog and all that crap but 3/4 of my couch cover is waiting to be washed and my fiancé is happily at work. I'm here with a screeching toddler in bed trying to do housework. 

I want to fall over. but I can't. I'm working an 11-8pm shift and have to come home to the family's glory. at what point should I scream?

this is not the life I planned to lead.  my college degree was planned to tell me so. I was meant to make bigger wages, move up the corporate ladder--America told me that's what I needed to do.  

I took on 18+ hours a semester to finish with little debt and start my life. 

until I graduated. and was left with moving out of Appalachia to find a good job (mommy had no way of helping me). and I couldn't find a job. and I settled. I settled on a job versus call center work (which I've done for 3.5 years). 

I'm still fucking standing. and sure I haven't had a vacation since 2011 or been able to go out to eat at a decent pace since 2012 but we are standing. and eating and living and whatever. and it's not bad. but we are, no matter the ecomic prosperities or declinations in the most recent years. 

we are surviving America. and when people bitch about their wages or life I tell them so.  that owning an iPhone or a high end computer is not their fucking place in society.  it's my job to edge on the American Dream that education can buy you out of where you are. 

that learning is the path to release. but I'm still here. working and getting by.