For almost all of my life I never discussed being born poor or
raised in foster care. I didn’t discuss it with anyone, ever, under any
circumstances. I thought that if I did discuss it I would have to
come up with reasons for it all, why I was born poor, why my parents were they
way they were. I thought that I’d need excuses and apologies and I just didn’t
want to deal with it, especially when I was younger. I thought there was a sort
of nobility in keeping it in but there isn’t. I realize now, all
these years later that true courage is in facing who and what you are and to
own it. You don’t have to explain it. You don’t have to apologize for it. You
don’t have to wear the mask of normalcy. Be who and what you are. That in itself is
an enormous act of courage. Just because we accept things doesn’t we we resign
our ambitions to improve ourselves or to better our lot in life. It just means
you understand that it is what it is. I look at it this way. I know who and
what I am and I’m happy with that. The mistake I had made all years was
thinking that happiness was outside of me, that happiness was being middle
class normal. I thought that if I could have that, I could have happiness. But
that isn’t how it works. This is how it works; happiness is something that you
are and it comes from the way you think about things.
