You’re Not a Nobody

You’re doing amazing things in your life, and don’t you dare let anyone make you think otherwise

My brother is ten years younger than I am, and his house looks like it came out of a magazine. I am addicted to firepits, and he’s got an outdoor setup Kim Kardashian could use if her backyard was being renovated. Now he’s having an in-ground pool built.

And I try to look happy when he shows me the photos but inside, my heart breaks. And, if I’m honest, an unhealthy bit of envy runs through my veins.

He graduated with a teaching degree-same as me. Two years in, he left education and now sells boats for a living.

He’s making six figures, and here I am, his older sister, trying to avoid a nervous breakdown because I don’t know how I’ll get the bill paid this month.

I try to feed myself the teacher pep talk. You know, the one where I tell myself I’m changing the future, one child at a time.

Major fail.

The truth is my brother’s children will not have to hear what I told my eighteen-year-old at the end of his senior year.

He won’t have to endure the embarrassment and shame I felt when I told my straight-A son we didn’t have the money for him to attend a four-year college after graduation.

He won’t have to strategically place rugs, so the scars and bubbling of cheap laminate flooring are artfully hidden from visitors.

He’s not batting an eye at the sixty thousand dollars he’s shelling out to put in that in-ground pool I told you about earlier.

And when I think about my life, I feel a bit disgusted with myself. I could have done more. I should have used my college education to get a job where I wasn’t struggling each month to pay bills.

And maybe you feel the same way. Or perhaps you haven’t even been as lucky as me.

Maybe a college education wasn’t even an option for you.

Maybe you spend your days serving up hamburgers to hungry people on their lunch break.

Maybe you’re on a production line putting perfume bottles in plastic molds.

Maybe you’re a father who holds up stop signs for construction sites for forty hours a week in the sweltering summer heat.

Maybe you work picking up trash. Or painting houses. Or cleaning homes for people who make twice the salary you do.

And maybe you come home exhausted, look at yourself, and think:

“This is all I am. A nobody.”

Well, let me tell you.

You are not a nobody.

So right this moment, get those thoughts out of your head.

Being “blue-collar” or living paycheck to paycheck doesn’t make you a nobody

You’re doing what it takes to pay your bills. Maybe you’re even doing work that others consider below them. Screw them.

I’d clean toilets all week if it was the only way to feed my family or buy my child a present to put under the Christmas tree.

And that job that makes you feel like a nobody?

You’re making money that puts food on the table for someone who can’t feed themselves.

That house you’re ashamed of because it has peeling paint or scarred floors or stained carpets?

It’s giving someone a sense of security. It’s providing them a place they can call home. A place that, thanks to your “blue-collar” job, has lights that let them do homework, water that allows them to stay clean, and a roof that protects them from nature’s most powerful elements.

And you want to know what’s more impressive?

You’re giving them these gifts and sacrificing your own desires and dreams to do so.

Those people who say you can do it all? Have it all?

Well, when you’re just trying to keep your head above water financially, the hard truth is you just can’t chase your dream job or pay tuition for those college classes you know would help you get a better job.

You’re in the middle of an angry ocean, and right at the moment, you don’t have time to redecorate your life.

All you can manage at the moment is surviving the next wave.

And that doesn’t make you a nobody. As a matter of fact, that makes you a VIP.

That makes you a warrior, a hero to those people in the boat who are too young to do anything and need you to steer the ship to calmer waters.

And hopefully, one day, the waves will calm, and you’ll get the opportunity to make changes, ones that will give you more money or more of the self-validation you crave.

But until then, you’re still a somebody. A special somebody to the only people that really matter in your lives. So don’t forget that while you’re waiting on tables, sweeping floors, or cleaning other people’s houses.

Being overweight or not fitting society’s standards of beauty doesn’t make you a nobody

You’re body and your appearance don’t define you. And it’s a painful lesson I’ve learned as age, menopause, and a slowed metabolism take their toll on me, a beauty junkie who’s spent her whole life trying to measure up to other women.

Maybe your scale has moved upward because of simple biology. Maybe’s it’s the fact you work twelve-hour days that leave you so exhausted, you could care less that the double cheeseburger you ordered from Door Dash has 1,200 calories. Maybe it’s the fact you’re so stressed about bills or the how to pay 3,000 for your child’s braces that make food your solace.

No, it’s not good for your health, and yes, you should try to make healthier choices when you can.

So try to eat healthier, but don’t you dare decide you’re a nobody because you’re not one of the beautiful people.

And if someone can’t accept you for who you are, if someone requires you to fit the ideal mold to be their friend or lover, well, you don’t need a person like that in your life anyway.

The bottom line:

Actor Christopher Reeve states:

“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

And as ordinary and invisible as you feel, the truth is you are this hero.

You show up every day. You care for the ones you love.

You wanna know what that means?

It means you matter.

It means you’re a somebody. An amazing somebody.

And don’t you ever, ever forget that.