I felt like sitting down meant I wasn't doing enough--like the sort of lazy welfare recipient I was assumed to be. Time lounging to read a book felt overly indulgent; almost as though such leisure was reserved for another class. I had to work constantly. I had to prove my worth for receiving government benefits.

Every single parent teetering on poverty does this. We work, we love, we do. And the stress of it all, the exhaustion, leaves us hollowed. Scraped out. Ghosts of our former selves. That's how I felt for those few days after the accident, like I wasn't fully connected to the ground when I walked. I knew that at any moment, a breeze could come and blow me away.

Being poor, living in poverty, seemed a lot like probation - the crime being a lack of means to survive.

Despite being wealthy and having the two story houses of our American dreams, the marbled sink bathrooms, the offices with bay windows looking out at the water, their lives still lacked something. I became fascinated by the things hidden in dark corners and the self help books for hope. Maybe they just had longer hallways and bigger closets to hide the things that scared them.

When people think of food stamps they don't envision someone like me, someone plain faced and white, someone like the girl they'd known in highschool, someone who'd been quiet but nice, someone like a neighbor, someone like them. Maybe that made them too nervous about their own situation. Maybe they saw in me the chance of their own fragile circumstances, that with one lost job, one divorce, they'd be in the same place as me.

Most of my friendships had faded over the last year because I’d isolated myself and hidden from the embarrassment of my daily life.

Though I never met or spoke to any of them, though many did not know that I existed, my clients began to feel like family members or friends I worried about, wondered about, cared for from a distance. I wondered what my clients did in the evenings. Where they sat. What they ate and watched the day before. How they felt day to day. My life had become so quiet. These people gave me something to look forward to, people to hope for and want good things for other than myself.