The great (Luster) depression.

(Posted by Gayle)

Striving for more compulsively can cause you to end up with less. My father was never satisfied.  He did everything big (except save money).  By the time I was in 5th grade his thirst for more was leading to some pretty bad business decisions.  He made a mess of his business (against my mother’s pleas) and was in some very hot water financially.  We moved from our luxurious brownstone apartment into a small two flat on the far south side of Chicago.  I began attending a public school in 6th grade.  We spent 3 years in this neighborhood.

The things I remember about this period of my life are:

• Buying my clothes for school at K-Mart.
• Hoping that if I wore the same dress to school two days in a row the kids might begin to like me.  I had problems at the private school because it was obvious my family was wealthy.  Now that we were “poor”,  I was hopeful that I would fare better with the kids in my class.  I actually wanted them to know were poor.  I had enough clothes to wear a different outfit each day, but being resourceful I hoped repeating ensembles would work in my favor.
• My father laying in bed depressed because of the financial situation.  I never saw him being violent again, but he was filled with self-hatred.  I’ve heard it said that depression is anger turned inward. Read the rest of this entry »