Gratitude

I learned to share, with three other brothers, I had to. At one point, my three brothers and I all shared one bedroom. I learned to take care of what little I had: only a single pair of shoes, a selection of about four different toys, and not a lot of clothes. I remember at one point I had to share two or three pairs of pants with my brother. Holidays weren’t about getting presents, because we usually didn’t get much, although my mom tried her hardest to get us gifts; they were about family and spending time together. Birthdays were the worst days, everyone asking what I got, when I was just happy to get a cake.

With not a whole lot of tangible things I had to learn to use my imagination. Out of our brothers, it was a unanimous decision that our trampoline was our most prized possession.  We could do anything we wanted on it: Be our favorite WWE Superstars and act out matches just as they would, play a game of football, get flat basketballs from around the neighborhood and jump around with them while trying not to get touched by them, or just have a good old fashioned brawl and throwing people off or kicking them in the face and busting their noses open. Whatever it was that we were doing, that trampoline was our lives. We could spend four or five hours on it at a time.

I learned to compromise and work together. Constant bickering and fighting was what our home was constantly, including with my father, who was more of a child then me and brothers. When you live in a little space you need to work as a group. There’s not much of you do this and leave me alone because I’m done kind of stuff. When one of us was cleaning the room, all of us were, some a little harder than the others, but we definitely had to work together.

Growing up in a poor household is not what people who didn’t experience it think it is. You don’t truly realize how that life is until you’ve been through it. Yeah, it is harder than they think, but it is also more rewarding, this is what growing up in poverty and being raised by a single mother has taught me.

Gratitude is a perfect balance of satisfaction when you no longer want any more or less despite what is going on around us. I learned gratitude is not what you have, but rather what you don’t have. You don't have to possess a lot to know you have enough. I learned never to take what i have for granted.  I find myself thinking back on my childhood and the things I’ve already been through. In my eyes, I was lucky. Yes, things are greatly improved and we are very much more well off than we were, however, my childhood is very fresh in my mind and these "unfortunate events" taught me what true happiness is.