Feel free to stop reading and come back another day if you like. I get it.
There is a woman whose blog I read pretty regularly and mostly enjoy. She seems to have a good sense of humor, likes to try different makeup and report back on it, and has dealt with being unemployed off and on over the past three or four years. She is obsessed with having cosmetic companies use "pro-aging" models for their products, and does a lot of whining about how they do not. I'll admit that gets on my nerves, but I get where she is coming from. I just wish that she didn't go off on it in every single blog post, regardless of the topic.
Her latest thing is that she doesn't want summer to end. And the majority of people I know in real life as well as in cyberspace seem to be in love with summer, so that in and of itself is not the part that makes me grumpy. What makes me grumpy is that she spends an entire post talking about how wonderful her life is in the summer, when she can spend weekends at her beach house and a month every summer in Europe visiting her husband's family. Frankly, as someone who is not a fan of summer, I could probably like it more if I had a beach house and spent a month in Europe every year. She writes about it like it's the norm, and why don't the people who dislike summer realize how great it is?
And she, along with several others that I know, make me really grumpy with this. Does it occur to them that they are speaking from a place of extreme privilege (at least in my world)? I mean, I live a pretty privileged life compared to so many other people, and I realize that. So it just makes me want to slap someone upside the head when they say things like, "If I can't get away, I'll go mad." Yeah, so what, we all feel like that. Most of us can't "get away" as in trips to Europe, or the Caribbean, etc. for a "quick trip" no matter how much we might wish to do so.
I work with a young woman who lives in a house that her parents gave to her and her husband. It is bought and paid for, and yes, they do have to spend their own money on utilities, taxes, etc. They have a 2 year old son who goes to a pricey, fancy daycare that her parents also pay for, and besides the house, that is a HUGE thing, since even cheap daycare is ridiculously expensive.
She wants to have a new house, because theirs is "too small" now that they have a kid. But none of the houses they like are ones they can afford, and she finds this personally offensive. Every time she talks about it, she says, "They are just so expensive, and I don't want to pay that much." Fine. Houses are expensive, I guess especially when you are living in one where you never ever had to figure out how to pay the mortgage. The other day she said, "We have looked at so many houses, we just need to get away. My parents are coming to stay with the kid, and we are going to Turks and Caicos for the long weekend. We *have* to get away." Oh how my heart bleeds.
I guess my issue is this: if you have money to do and go where you want, that's truly wonderful. Enjoy it and do all you can. But PLEASE stop talking about how hard your life of privilege is, and how you just *have* to go someplace else. Everyone has something that is hard or difficult or problematic in their lives. Everyone would like a break, even if it means staying home and being left alone. But most people, regardless of desire, can't afford to live the life the aforementioned people take for granted.
A few weeks ago, a new colleague asked me how many children I had. I responded that I have no children. She said, "Well then, you must do a lot of traveling," and when I said, we enjoy traveling but don't get to do a lot of it, she said, "Why not? Surely you have the money."
Sigh. No. No, we don't. Just because we do not have children it does not mean that we are swimming in cash. We are fortunate because we are able to pay our bills, but it's a close call every single month, some more than others. Of course we spend money on things that are not necessities, but it's not a lot, and it's not all the time. This colleague was extremely puzzled and kept asking questions about why we didn't have a lot of money, and a) it's rude, b) it's none of her business anyway, and c) I finally told her that I felt it wasn't something she needed to know. She was a bit put out by that.
As my mother used to tell us, "Well you know what they say in Russia: 'toughsky shitsky.' "
