First-World Problems

I was chatting with some co-workers the other day and one of them, an older man in his late fourties, was talking about how his wife called him to complain that their maid had broken a table at their house and forgetten to tell them about it.  And I had to try really hard to contain my laughter (and I failed).  Gee, life must be really rough when your maid breaks something and forgets to mention it.  And you can bet that I made fun of him for his most first-world, of first-world problems.

Meanwhile, at tutoring last night, I was trying to convince some of our younger girls that yes, they do want to go to college.  That they just have to work hard for a few years and it will pay dividends for the rest of their lives.  That if they just work hard and get good grades now, they will more-than-likely go to college for free. I was practically begging them actually.  It's funny being 'older' and knowing how much those high school years really will effect the rest of their lives and trying to impress that upon them.  Trying to explain that especially now, with the job market and economy the way it is, a degree has become a must.  That, given their backgrounds, they could easily get scholarships for school.  I felt so old.

I feel like Brody and I straddle that line a lot, flitting back and forth between worlds.  I spend all day with very wealthy 1%-ers and my nights and weekends in the real world.  DC has a strange dichotomy, the poorest of the poor and richest and most-powerful people in the country all living together in our little 68-square mile city with no representation in congress.  Two sides of the same coin, with a bunch of students and young professionals thrown somewhere in the middle.  And it's made me much more aware of the kinds of things I complain about.  It's hard to whine about getting wisdom teeth pulled when your husband home teaches a wheelchair-bound immigrant with AIDS, who lives in squallor and yet still makes it to church every week (and usually gets their earlier than we do).  You feel just a tad guilty complaining about not seeing your husband very much during finals when a single, mother-of-three tells you how tired she is from waking up at 5:00 am to get to her first job on time (yes, first, as in more than one job).  You feel a little bit like an ungrateful cow when you complain about the slight incline in your treadmill when the person you're giving a ride to church tells you how she has diabetes and arthritus and can't get insurance, or get a job because of her record, and has to take care of her mom with alzheimer's who refuses to go to a doctor.

Nope.  I'll take my first-world problems and be grateful for them and try not to forget the people I've met here and how much they've opened my eyes.