Sat in my usual haunt for Sunday breakfast, there are only a
few other diners this morning, two of which are female and sat on the table in
front of me. At first they didn’t seem like the sort of people who would
provide any writing material, I was actually procrastinating and listening to
the conversation on the table off to the side, where a couple are having
breakfast with a teenage girl, whom I presumed was their daughter, but when I
heard the older woman telling the girl that “she’s not letting you grow, and
she’ll never change” I wondered if perhaps they were an aunt and uncle and
referring to the girl’s mother….who could know…..
The two
women are discussing their lives and what they do, one has a friend visiting, I
am reminded of all the times I have bought visiting friends here, I do love
this little place. One of them has complained about the breakfast, apparently
her husband is a chef, so she has spotted the shortcuts the restaurant has
taken and has pointed them out to the serving girl, and advised that she is
angry because she has bought her friend here, and she comes here all the time
and there’s never normally a problem.
Listening
to them talk it is apparent they are seemingly quite privileged, one of them
has just hired some home help – which makes her life easier, and has just told
the other that if she needs things doing like, the dogs out….sorry what? Why
would you buy a dog if you don’t intend to walk it? Still, not my place to
judge, though it has got me thinking, what IS being privileged? Being like
these two? Having people to do your tasks for you, having husbands that take
care of everything financially and leave you to organise family tasks, so that
they don’t have to contribute on a personal level? Having a rather large house
perhaps, is that privileged?
I think
to my own life, I have half the material things these people are saying they have,
I have a small apartment, two cats and a partner who lives in another country.
Yet here I am, feeling like the luckiest person on the planet, I am happy, for
the first time in my life I am truly happy, I feel like I’m at home, by that I
mean that I’ve never really settled anywhere since I left the Mother’s and
moved out, and for the first time since I did that I feel like I’ve grown
roots. I love my little life, quaint as it may be, I love the simple pleasures
I can afford, being here on a Sunday morning for example, procrastinating from
my other writing to write this – incidentally the two women are now in full
flow about all the difficulties they have, there is little to no positivity
coming from the conversation. Now there’s an awkward silence while they eye-stalk
the serving girl, waiting for her to come across….she arrives, they tell her
the breakfast wasn’t great so “they don’t know if that will affect the bill at
all” (they may as well have just said, “I want money off my bill”…..) The
supervisor comes to replace the young lass that’s just skittered away to offer
them a discount of sorts, to which they have responded to with somewhat “fake
surprise”, then as soon as she has left the table, they have both concluded
that the restaurant have handled this well, and one of them has actually used
one of my own little mantras I like to follow, its not the mistake you make,
it’s how you fix it, not something I expected her to say I will admit, but it
has softened me towards her somewhat, as I was beginning to feel that inner hostility
that I tend to have building while listening to them talk, while mentally
chastising myself, I do not know these people, they could be wonderful souls,
and I cannot judge them based on one conversation.
They
leave, leaving me to the question that’s now running what feels like it’s
second marathon around my head. All hopes of actual writing have gone by this
point. This has now become my task for this morning, “what is being privileged”??
I think back to when I was little and unassuming, I thought “privileged” meant “someone
who has money, things, big house, cars etc. I don’t think that now of course, I
know that all those things generally come with hard graft, and now thinking
back, I remember, it was my grandad who taught me that being privileged isn’t
just about having lots of things that people can see, its about having things
that you enjoy, being able to wake up free every morning, unlike people in
certain countries, that have been ripped apart by war and poverty, where having
any water is a privilege, and fresh
water is a miracle, being able to walk, talk and (although I’m not too fond of
it) interact with other people. I thought about all this for a lot longer than
I am actually writing, if anyone is reading this they have probably fallen
asleep by now or are sticking with it to the end to see if there’s some
climactic “moral of the story” words of wisdom – I can tell you now, there isn’t.
In fact, I intend to leave this as open ended as the question itself, because I
have come to the conclusion that I do not know the universal answer to my
question, because it’s too subjective and everyone will think differently.
However, I will say that I for one feel privileged. Privileged and thankful for
the things I have, and the things I can do, breathing unaided, walking unaided,
being able to be here, typing, right now, is a privilege.
So I
leave the question as open to interpretation as it’s meant to be. Do you wake
up feeling privileged? If not, why? This isn’t something I’m expecting replies
to, just something to ask yourself – but – I wouldn’t recommend asking yourself
this if you don’t have time to think about it…..but then I guess not everyone’s
trains of thought can be as badly derailed as mine, so you might think about it
less than I did!
Mrs N.
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