Joanna's Internal Dialogue About Taking Responsibility

An apt sub-title would be, "coffeecoffeecoffeecoffee” because I have taken in a tremendous amount of coffee today, and I may be a little jittery and unfocused. I’ve been thinking a lot about coffee as an example of what I’ve been talking about, drawing conclusions about people who receive government assistance with knowing (or asking) what they might actually be like, or what they think is important.

In the event that the caffeine has addled my brain even more than I think it has, these are my main points: (1) Neither we, nor anyone else, manages every penny of their income and benefits to their utmost advantage. But we do think and worry and plan, and try to do our best (2) This felt humorous as I was experiencing it and I was writing it. I hope that comes through in my little random stream-of-consciousness. It's not angry, until the end. (3) I discuss my pregnancy loss again near the end and the tie-in (which may not be immediately evident, I admit) is that listening to this debate play out in the Presidential campaign (and overhearing various conversations) does cause some additional stress during what is already a not-great time.

I've written this over the course of several days, so the "today" and "yesterday" are not quite right in all instances. Here we go:

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I love coffee. Today I started with my usual two cups, and then I had two double lattes. These were not $4 lattes purchased at the local coffee shop; I made them at home. Here are some of my random thoughts:

 We have an espresso maker. 

We did not purchase it; it was a gift to my Dad

and he passed it along to us.

Should I have pawned the espresso machine in order to buy food for my children? 

I’m not sure how much it would fetch.

Sure we’re saving money by not going to the coffee shop, but why don’t we 

save even more and just quit both the espresso and the regular coffee altogether?

Wait, are you kidding me? Many days the only thing that stands between me

 and complete insanity is a few good cups of coffee.

The coffee-as-coping-mechanism started when we lived in DC and I worked as a child welfare social worker. That job was about as difficult as you might imagine, but I was well-paid for it, and sometimes I went to the nearby Starbucks two times per day, when things were bad enough. We could afford it because we were really financially 
stable then – good income, health benefits and no children.

Should I not have had all that Starbucks? Should I have saved 

(every single dime? A dollar a week? How much?) all that money

 because one day I might have a child with Down syndrome 

and a lot of health problems and I decide to quit work and stay home with him 

rather than put him in daycare and compromise his health?

Wait, though, that type of thing could really happen to anyone, right? 

Should everyone quit going to Starbucks and save all their coffee money for a rainy day? 

We worked. We saved. It hasn’t been enough.

I can understand the idea that it is wasteful for a recipient of government assistance to pay $4 for a cup of coffee. But it is not one bit less ridiculous for anyone else on Earth to pay it, either.

We no longer buy Starbucks ground coffee or beans to brew at home, 

because it’s too expensive

(see, we who mooch off the taxpayers do occasionally think about these things). 

But I refuse to buy generic coffee or a cheap brand like JFG because THEY SUCK. 

So I compromise with Folgers, which to me is totally reasonable.

(These were all the things running through my head not just today, but also yesterday at Target – I didn’t spend any money, I was just exchanging a backpack for Simon with a broken zipper. 

My mother-in-law was offering to treat me to some coffee at the Starbucks at the food court, 
but after going through this internal debate I turned it down. 

I turned down a free pumpkin spice latte, which is one of my Top Five favorite things in the world. Also I felt a little yucky from the (delicious) heavy lunch she’d already treated us to).

Should I have rejected the lunch, as well, and just asked for cash, instead? $13!!

My brain desperately needs to change gears, otherwise the next time I go to the grocery store I will end up frozen, standing in the middle of the aisle with an empty shopping cart, paralyzed by having to think about all this.

And our Ingles just added a Starbucks. Damn.

Shoot - while I’ve been thinking about all this I over-cooked all this broccoli that I bought with David’s last WIC produce voucher. It’s so soft and soggy I can hardly get it out of the pot. I’m so sorry, Mitt Romney et al, for having so heartily offended thee. I will make it right, I promise, I will make up for wasting this $1 worth of taxpayer broccoli. Do you accept personal checks? Maybe there is a smart phone application that could allow me to scan all the barcodes as I go through the store and e-mail them to your staff for pre-approval. Oh, wait, I don’t have a smart phone because they are too expensive. It was one of the many things to go when we cut back after I left work.

The good taxpaying citizens of Massachusetts paid Mitt Romney’s salary for a while, right? Since he’s not releasing those additional tax returns, where is his accountability for what he and his family spent during that time? They might have wasted and misspent it all, when they could have been buying their cereal and towels at Dollar General and clipping coupons. I hope the taxpayers didn’t indulge in a washer and dryer for the Governor’s mansion, because everyone knows you can just schlep everything down to the Laundromat on the bus. Except where we live, where there is no public transportation in the whole county. No Laundromat either, as far as I know, in our little town. 

So, this is a pretty ridiculous example of my internal debate because I have just devoted 2 pages to thinking about high-end coffee. But I was thinking about it, nearly all morning yesterday, after my 2 homemade lattes. … I consider myself to be a generally reasonable person, and Matt and I try to be good stewards of all our resources – money, food and water, time, vehicles, clothing. We do this partly because our natural inclination is to reduce/reuse/recycle, and partly because, way before Medicaid and WIC, we would not have felt right about spending $2500 on a couch and then bumping into a spare-changing homeless person the next day at the Metro station. I felt bad enough about the $4 coffee.

$2500 is probably actually not that much for a couch, right? I wouldn't exactly know, the only brand-new furniture I've ever bought was from Ikea. But I imagine there are plenty out there that cost plenty more. 

As I’ve said before, we completely realize how fortunate we are. Our two boys are healthy and strong, we have a warm safe house that we love, both our cars generally start up in the morning and get us where we need to go, there is always food on the table, etc.

Oh wait, should I really have used the milk I bought with my 
WIC voucher, to make those lattes? 

Is that too extravagant?

 Do I feel entitled to a good cup of coffee? 

The answer to that last question is yes, yes, a thousand times yes. 

Because, yesterday at Target when I had to go to the back of the store for a new backpack, I passed through the Infant/Toddler section. This used to be one of my favorite places to browse around, but now it just makes me sad. 

Also because, when I was organizing our movie and music collection, I came across the CD that has the images from our 11-week ultrasound, the one that showed what was 
once the potential for two beautiful little babies, with no heartbeats, 
no anything, “nothing recognizable as a fetus” in the words of the ultrasound tech.

This coming Monday, if I were still pregnant, I would reach the 27-week mark. We would know the sex of the babies and what complications were expected for the rest of the pregnancy. I would’ve had my fetal echocardiogram to find out if either of these babies has a heart defect like David.

I would give anything to still be pregnant. And if I were, I would not be “misusing” my taxpayer-provided milk by making a fancy cup of coffee, because I would’ve cut way back on caffeine for the health of those babies. But I am not pregnant anymore. 

This miscarriage has been the most physically and emotionally agonizing 

experience of my lifetime, and the hell with all of you,

 I AM GOING TO SIT AT MY KITCHEN TABLE AND DRINK A CUP OF COFFEE.

Damn you, Mitt Romney and everyone else who thinks like you.

Damn you for trying to shame us and questioning our values and our work ethic, 

for saying we take no responsibility for our lives and our choices.

Damn you for denouncing us when you do not know us.

Damn you.