When you are experiencing hard times because of your Homeowners Association, you have to learn—or revert to—certain behaviors to stay afloat while you figure out how to get your life out of shambles. Living in a working-class neighborhood should not be so difficult. We go to work our asses off, come home, eat, then sleep. But when you already are in a disadvantaged situation, you are hyper aware that there is a thin line between working-class and below the poverty line.

Although I have been in several hurricanes, I never lost power continuously until Milton. I remember waiting to see if we were going to make it to three days sans electricity so that we could get emergency food assistance from FEMA. And it did take three days for the power to be restored. I immediately applied to FEMA. More and more days passed as I listened to other people I knew (and didn’t know) get their food assistance. But I did not. In fact, I have never gotten any type of assistance from FEMA for any of the five storms since I have lived in my house.

As I began to toss items from the main fridge, the mini fridge, and my camping fridge into the garbage, I wondered if I really had to throw these items away. I mean food guidelines are just guidelines, right? It was a painful process because I have a “thing” about wasting food—I don’t waste anything. I will eat the same meal for a week. I scrape my plates. I bring home scraps from restaurants. And I will eat your leftovers on your plate so that no food is wasted. It took me two weeks to throw everything out because I could not stay committed. My parents had to make me do it.

My refrigerator has never been the same. The storms delayed the start of my job. I missed the date to file for my last unemployment check by one day. All the damage to my home stressed me out and FEMA nor my insurance company were easy to deal with. When I get stressed, I get sick. Of course it didn’t help that my new boss was bitch of the year. Then, I found out my great, long-time friend that I met on base had died. Then my 102 year-old auntie from whom I was trying to learn all my ancestry died. All of this affected my income. And as food prices continued to rise, I had trouble restocking while trying to overcome the mental anguish of knowing what the food prices used to be.

I’ve been poor before: foodstamps/EBT, WIC, TANF/AFDC, Medicaid, health departments, sliding scale clinics, Goodwill, and garage sales (never got section 8 in any state because the waiting list was 5 to 10 years!). Up north, I remember a Haitian church that used to feed those in need hot meals twice a week. I did not accept their offer until one day they yanked me inside. And we have some food banks in my area in which I have seen lines of people in the morning while I go to work while thinking,

Damn. I need to be in that line!

Bay Area Legal Services asked me why I was not on foodstamps.

Foodstamps? I can get foodstamps? I didn’t think a “‘homeowner’ with a car” could get foodstamps (well, at least not down here in Florida).

Plus with all the drama with the government shutting down benefits and non-poor people always trying to decide what others should be able to eat (in-group vs out-group, exclusionary…I am going to keep hammering this), I didn’t think it was worth the effort.

I got on public assistance as a teen. And I remember when I got off it and how proud I was that I had graduated from college and gotten my first big girl job. I went to Panera Bread for the first time…and I bought…organic milk! Oh well, that was yesteryear, this is today. At least I can now make meals for my parents that have been feeding me incessantly during this time.