Microstory 262: Perspective Thirty-Seven

This is an experimental Perspectives microstory. The introduction can be found in Microstory 225. More to follow.

I’ve not always been as rich as I am today. I was born into welfare, and my parents worked their asses off to provide for us and move up in the world. By the time I dropped out of college, my father was making six figures, and my mother wasn’t all that far behind. I grew up with a respect for money that most people don’t share. Even other people considered to be “new money” don’t have this respect, and end up blowing what they have on frivolous pursuits and self-destructive habits. When I was in elementary school, there was a family next door who was even worse off than we were. The difference was that the parents were high all the time, and didn’t bother taking care of their daughter. I was but a kid myself, so I couldn’t just bring her into our house, but I spent years stealing food for her; sometimes from the store, and sometimes from my parents. Now that I’m older, I see that I should have just called social services on them, but like I said, I was only a child, and I thought I was doing the right thing. She was rather quickly adopted by a nice family that lives on the other side of town, and I didn’t see her very often, but we did try to keep in touch. She encouraged me to pursue my music career. Yes, I’m one of those artists who got their start by uploading a few videos to the internet. Someone already famous caught wind of my work and word spread like wildfire. So here I am headlining my own concert after months of touring with and opening for another band. I’ve never not believed in God, but I also never really gave it much thought. But living next to those drug addicts gave me some perspective, and I’ve been able to stay clean. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that everything happens for a reason, because that flies in the face of causality, but perhaps it influenced my lifestyle more than I can understand. My neighbor friend comes to as many of my shows as possible, and who knows, something may be starting there.