My Personal Experience and Reason

Growing up, I never thought much about my situation, I’d never known anything different. Stealing, fighting, and poverty was everywhere. When I grew up we were sleeping on mattresses and pillow palettes in the middle of the living room, eating canned food cause it's all we had. The way my mama kept me and my siblings fed was through food stamps and programs like WIC. Hand-me-down clothes, from family, friends, and on occasion we’d go to the thrift store. To me, that was just living, I felt no shame in it. As I got older I got access to the internet; I found out that's not all there is to life. I would drive by the big white school on the hill, asking my mom about what all happens there. I couldn’t fully grasp my situation until I got accepted into Chattanooga High Center for the Creative Arts. I went from a title one school, to the best school in the county.

 As expected the contrast was, unexpected to say the least, I never knew the way people lived on social media was a reality. I didn’t know rich people were real. I was in awe, I was beyond shocked, it was so foreign and I struggled so much more than I expected to. When I first went to do work at the new school, I was so lost, the teachers expected me to turn in my work? Not only that, they wanted me to go to a turn-in bin?

 I went from having no responsibilities to having enough of them, I didn’t know what to do. The bathrooms were never locked, vandalism was present, but not prominent. Everywhere and anything at my first school was tagged or destroyed, we never had such white walls. I never knew people really lived like this, they didn’t have to steal or rob for everything they owned. They paid for their lunches?! I thought that was all movies, some kids I had known only meals were the ones they got from school, or food they stole. That's scary.  I hate that it has to be a reality for anyone. No matter what, everyone should have some form of access to food and anything considered necessary to thrive as a person.