Anonymous asked: have you ever not been able to live (fairly) luxuriously? how do you think your life may have been different if you had to live like a typical poor allston hipster?

i find it largely amusing that you ask this, dear anon. you must be a new follower.

for years, through college, and then while i was out of school and working retail ($8/hr doesn’t go very far..), and then while i was juggling part time school and a full time, totally shitty customer service job, i lived “like a typical poor allston hipster”. i was also supporting a bf at that point, with little to no help (once he procured an EBT card to help me buy groceries), on my measly $11/hr paycheck. i was living check to check in a very very literal sense. as in three days before my next check came we would be shaking our couch cushions and looking under the furniture for enough dimes and quarters to buy double cheeseburgers from mcdonalds for dinner. we could barely make our rent every month. sometimes we just had cans of tuna for supper. but i loved my roommates and we made it through, every time. although some months were definitely harder than others.. and my landlord from that house definitely hates all of our guts now haha (sorry jaime)

during this time i didn’t feel poorly about myself or my life. i drank 40s with my friends. we ran around all night, drunk and happy on life. when we felt fancy we would scrounge up our change and splurge on bottles of strawberry and peach andre (that’s $6 bottles of champagne). for vacation we would save up our money and take the fung wah to new york and window shop and eat street food and love every second of it. i spent my nights drunk with friends and i spent my days working my ass off. we did all the fun free shit there was to do in boston. took walks along the river. reveled in octoberfest in harvard square. walked all the kiosks at the allston fair. we skated around and rode bikes and found new nooks of the city i’d never seen before. we found awesome cheap places to eat. we cooked a lot and had family potlucks with our friends. i wasn’t rich in the monetary sense, but i was rich in friendships, love, and laughter. and that was more than enough for me then. and it would be more than enough for me now, should i ever fall into that position again.

i think in many ways my life was simpler when i didn’t have a job that involved so much responsibility, travel, and dedication. right now my job is my life, and i’m lucky enough to have found a job that i love, otherwise i would be miserable. fortunately i thrive in what i do, and i know i’m lucky in that. i’m also lucky enough to work with people i love and care about and LIKE. but i worked my ass off for years to get to this point in my life. i have been lucky, but part of that luck was built by hard work and determination.

i have been a poor allston hipster. now i have evolved into a responsible, salaried adult (i know, crazy right?). people change and things change and life is never what it seems. but it did make me laugh to think that now the life i lead is considered extravagant by a grey faced stranger on the internet. and i guess it is in many ways. but it’s just amusing to look at how far i’ve come.

anyway, i hope that answered your question. i thank you for asking it, even though it seemed a bit judgmental, because it made me think about things i haven’t remembered in a long time.

hope you have a fabulous day.
xox

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