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Romanticizing debt and ramen

Caperton

That lub-dub-sniff-lub-dub you’re hearing is the sound of my heart weeping for not-struggling young journalist Taylor Cotter.

Like most female journalists, I assume, I only grew up with two real inspirations in my life: Carrie Bradshaw and Harriet the Spy. I had notebooks that grew into Microsoft Word documents, lists upon lists of everything I knew about everyone I had met. All I saw in my future was a New York City life where I lived adventure after adventure, without forgetting any of the details for blog posts, articles, and novels to come.

When I started college, I figured out that the 10-cents-a-word life wasn’t really going to pay apartment rent and student loans that were plaguing my future. I saw job prospects decline dramatically over my first year of college and professors discourage students from pursuing careers in journalism. …

…

Now, two months after graduation, I seem to be one of just a handful of people that’s been able to get themselves on their feet, pay their own bills and actually put together some semblance of an adult life with minimal parental assistance. I bought a car, found an apartment and set up a 401k, just six months after turning 22. I came down on the ‘right’ side of every statistic — I found a job in my field that actually pays well, I’m living on my own, and seem to have everything that these other college graduates are dying to have.

But what about that 10-cents-a-word life that I always wanted? What about New York City? What about freelancing, penning newspaper columns and urban adventures? What about the struggles that I see on Girls and the tales of credit card debt and ramen noodle dinners? Aren’t these the things that really make you 22?

I guess Molly Ivins was kind of like Carrie Bradshaw? They both paid attention to hair. Was I looking for the wrong inspiration?

Seriously, I sympathize and identify with the realization that your hip, romantic dreams don’t match the banality of reality–particularly in writing fields where your own experiences are meant to inspire your creativity. We’re supposed to write what we know, and “today I used my debit card to buy a latte” doesn’t make for an interesting read. I once found myself lamenting that only one of my apartments hadn’t had forced-air heating, because radiators are so pretty. But when you step back, look at your situation with some objectivity, and realize you’re romanticizing poverty, it’s time to find perspective: Thank God you’re able to live independently, realize that a lot of people would sell organs to live the life you have, realize that TV shows are pretend because real life is too boring for anyone to want to watch, and explore your own ways to build character and find inspiration. Write it all into a script and pitch it to Wes Anderson; he’ll love it.

Here’s one writer’s romantic early twenties: Graduating from j-school with no job prospects and moving back in with your parents. Working rotating temp jobs because the job market in your field is dry as a bone, hoping you don’t get sick because your job doesn’t come with benefits. Finally finding a job in the Big City, where the job market is a little richer, and sharing a studio apartment with a friend from college. Racking up credit card debt, because your entry-level salary doesn’t meet Big City living expenses, and watch as your interest rate increases and your ability to make the minimum payment begins to flag. Depression. Getting started on a nice little ulcer, which isn’t as bad as it could be because at least your current job has medical. Buying a new wardrobe because of the weight loss. Eventually listening to your therapist, realizing that your situation is untenable, quitting your job, swallowing your pride, and moving back in with your parents. Eating lots of bland food and hoping the ulcer goes away on its own, because once again you’re without health insurance. Desperately hustling freelance jobs to make the minimum payment on your now astronomical credit card debt. Finally finding another job, this time in a slightly smaller Big City, making just enough to pay rent and eat Easy Mac–no ramen for you, high roller! Using your fancy new salary to make more than the minimum credit card payment, watching your balance creep down fifty whole dollars a month. Depression. Medication. Shit, there’s the ulcer again.

This is why too much TV is damaging to kids.

33 thoughts on Romanticizing debt and ramen

  1. Caperton, that post was a very good piece of imaginative writing. A good short story. (Based on fact, in this case. It would be a good story even if not, but the fact that it’s based on fact makes it more salient.)

  2. Pingback: Financial Fridays: What I'm reading on the web about how people manage their credit card debt | Dallas Single Mom

  3. I remember when my sister moved out west to go to school. She struggled with money at first (she still doesn’t have a lot, but in seven years she’s learned how to make do a lot better) and too-ignorant-too-naive me thought it was so neat how she was living on her own, eating cold (possibly shoplifted?) Beefaroni out of a can in the park. I told her this the first time I went out to visit her and she shut me down right quick – we were on a city bus at the time and she didn’t even bother to point out that eating cold Beefaroni out of a can isn’t fun or exciting (it really isn’t) – she just told me to shut up because we were on a bus headed to the downtown east side and I didn’t know the first thing about what real poverty was. Too right – I was an asshole.

    Poverty is romanticized by people who have never had to live it or who assume it will be temporary and brief. People who are poor still find ways to celebrate, enjoy, and dig deeply into life, of course, but it’s not because they *are* poor. It’s because they’re people.

    If she wants a more austere lifestyle, no one is actually stopping her from donating a massive chunk of her paycheque to someone else less interested in romantic impoverishment and spending the rest on ramen. I know plenty of recent grads who would be happy to swap places with her.

  4. Hah! Even the girls on Girls never lived like that, and are romanticisng poverty! (and now I will quit with my Girls rant for this thread)

    And Caperton I’m sorry about that ulcer. Recently a bunch of stressed-out poor young folk that I know have come down with ulcers/gastritis. I thought ulcers were something only overworked middle aged people got– like that guy on Murphy Brown who was always drinking Pepto–but it really is no surprise considering the circumstances.

    A lot more people are going to be getting ulcers now, as the 6 month grace period on student loans has officially been abolished. 🙁

  5. Poverty is romanticized by people who have never had to live it or who assume it will be temporary and brief. People who are poor still find ways to celebrate, enjoy, and dig deeply into life, of course, but it’s not because they *are* poor. It’s because they’re people.

    This. Exactly this.

    I make jokes about my being poor, and will joke about what an adventure life is when you’re trying to get by, but it pisses me off when people actually think that being poor is somehow “simpler” or more enjoyable. Because it’s really, really not. Not to me, anyway.

  6. “Never say you’re poor if you’re not poor.” – a piece of advice that I will heed for as long as I live.

    I appreciated her voice in this piece — it could have benefited from some more self-awareness, and I suspect she’ll look back on it later and cringe, but she made an honest observation: there really is a privileged class narrative of poverty-as-rite-of-passage. it’s only natural that she, a privileged person, was raised to expect something and, not getting it, feels disappointed and confused.

  7. And Caperton I’m sorry about that ulcer. Recently a bunch of stressed-out poor young folk that I know have come down with ulcers/gastritis. I thought ulcers were something only overworked middle aged people got– like that guy on Murphy Brown who was always drinking Pepto–but it really is no surprise considering the circumstances.

    You’re kind to be concerned. I’m actually pretty taken care of now; it’s funny how improved finances, healthy relationships, and appropriate psychopharmaceuticals can take the edge off of that stress. I’ve been very lucky and privileged–my young-adult sob story involved family to fall back on, a roof over my head, and manageable health problems.

  8. Is the relative homogeneity of life experience of people who make it out of school as ‘writers’ and journalists a problem with the whole “write what you know” advice? I feel that the poor job prospects for journalists dissuade a lot of underprivileged people who just need and value economic security from spending tens of thousands of dollars on a writing degree. Those that do tend to come from the same sheltered backgrounds and share the same privileged outlooks. Hence the problem with “write what you know”– the people who don’t write, who don’t have the skills, or can’t make it past the “gatekeepers” of the writing world, are often the people with the most interesting stories, are the vast majority of people, and then these people’s stories don’t get told. And thus the overall quality of writing suffers.

  9. I’ve been very lucky and privileged–my young-adult sob story involved family to fall back on, a roof over my head, and manageable health problems.

    Ditto. But god it’s been hard dropping out of my Ph.D. program because of disability. I used to have my shit together, I had an income and insurance and an apartment and a brilliant occupation, and now I’m living with my parents working less-than-part-time and trying not to feel like a leach. No ramen, just shitty self-esteem problems. Totally unromantic. :p

  10. @8 Tony: The fact that inarticulate people often have compelling stories is why articulate writers who are able to imagine the inner world of people different from themselves are so valuable.

  11. @8 Tony: The fact that inarticulate people often have compelling stories is why articulate writers who are able to imagine the inner world of people different from themselves are so valuable.

    Yeah, but if they’re all told “write what you know” the true geniuses might not even try to imagine people very different from themselves.

  12. But what about that 10-cents-a-word life that I always wanted? What about New York City? What about freelancing, penning newspaper columns and urban adventures? What about the struggles that I see on Girls and the tales of credit card debt and ramen noodle dinners? Aren’t these the things that really make you 22?

    What’s that expression about the world’s smallest violin?

    I want so badly to believe that this is really a tongue in cheek essay instead of something actually heartfelt. Does the author not realize that the characters in Girls are mostly from well to do families who are receiving boatloads of monetary support in their efforts at self-actualization and professional success, and therefore merely just playing at the poor starving college grad bit? I’m also stumped at people who have never actually struggled in poverty romanticizing what a life pretending at it might be like. I’ve actually been one of those work two or three jobs at a time to pay my way through college and grad school while living on the edge people (and racking up loads of college debt in the process anyway.) It wasn’t fun or romantic or exciting, extremely stressful, frightening and depressing would be more like it.

  14. Now that I’ve thought about it a little more, why doesn’t Ms. Cotter just… buy ramen? Live in a “bad” part of town or a dilapidated building? Having a good job isn’t preventing her from eating ramen, having a 401K doesn’t mean she can’t also have a roach infestation and a black mold problem.
    In fact, Barbara Ehrenreich did just that, with her well paying author gig, when she wrote “Nickel and Dimed.”

  15. I was really, really bothered by this quote from the piece:

    I chose the path of a full-time job and an adult life. I gave up on the adventures, on freedom, on youth.

    The framing of the two circumstances as somehow being a “choice” between an adult life vs. youth betrays any passing sentiment she expresses about how fortunate she feels. As a recent grad who is scheduled to move back in with her parents in just over a month, it’s insulting to me that something I’m doing out of desperation and which makes me feel like a spent fucking failure is being characterized as a last ditch attempt to avoid growing up.

    While I think the account of her perseverance is obviously admirable, I had to work my ass off throughout college just to keep my head above water – never mind focusing that energy on making myself a marketable future hire. Financial stability is not synonymous with adulthood, and I long for a day when the realization that having economic privilege does not guarantee you a perfect life does not go hand in hand with infantilizing the poor to make yourself feel better.

  16. I chose the path of a full-time job and an adult life. I gave up on the adventures, on freedom, on youth.

    Poverty=/= Freedom. If you’ve ever been too poor to eat or ride the bus you’d understand that. Ugh.

  17. TW self harm.

    Lost the roof over my head halfway through my MSc. Spent days in the college library, nights in the local 24hr supermarket.

    Had to give up my studies, depression came roaring back, almost killed my ‘best friend’ because her idea of poverty is having to buy Cava instead of champagne. Her concept of depression is of something you get when the person you’re rooting for at Wimbledon is knocked out.

    She tore me up one side and down the other for daring to bring her down with my depression. As she did this she was buying a pair of shoes that cost twice my monthly income, to cheer herself up.

    I decided that at least catharsis via self-harm was free, and engaged in it as often, and with as much variety, as possible. It almost certainly saved my life.

    So yeah, poverty not fun or romantic. Still in it, but the leaking roof is better than no roof and I’ll take physical pain over mental pain, any time.

  18. there really is a privileged class narrative of poverty-as-rite-of-passage. it’s only natural that she, a privileged person, was raised to expect something and, not getting it, feels disappointed and confused.

    I think there’s something to be said for this. This right-of-passage is partially meant to be humbling and force compassion, but it’s also a way to create contempt for people who keep being poor instead of ‘bootstrapping’ themselves up.

    I, personally, am also a tentative fan of saying your feelings, even when they are buried in privilege or smallest-violin-in-the-world kind of stuff, because until you say it and look at it, you can’t really begin to deal with it. There’s always a chance it all ends in circlejerk or navel-gazing, to be true, but the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

  19. As a writer who’s been salaried and freelance, I can tell you that 10 cents a word is generous. Some only pay $1 per 500-word article. I had one client offer $8 per 150-300 word article (again, relatively “well” paid) for commercial work. And commercial work is supposed to be more lucrative. This was a job from eBay and my client was the main contractor. I guess that’s how they make their money. I turned it down. It’s less than minimum wage if you want at all to do a good job. My non-profit client (an online encyclopedia) pays 20 cents a word, which is super-generous by today’s standards but would be considered very poorly paid by the standards of just 10 years ago. So yes, the market has tanked. And no, it’s not fucking romantic. I’ve been through the whole experience of shopping at second hand stores (love those skirts and blazers with the used tissues in the pockets) and waiting for sales of up to 80 per cent off. When I was in university, I used to eat a chocolate bar for dinner, because that was cheapest. I spent an entire summer not eating meat or cheese except for McD’s hamburgers, because fresh veggies, fruit and eggs, and oatmeal, were cheaper and I needed to save up for tuition and books. I was very thin. It wasn’t really on purpose.

  20. Could I just point out that ulcers aren’t caused by stress or a poor diet. It’s a myth which has been totally debunked. Ulcers are caused by either a bacterial infection or a virus. Please do some research before you write.

  21. I think there’s something to be said for this. This right-of-passage is partially meant to be humbling and force compassion, but it’s also a way to create contempt for people who keep being poor instead of ‘bootstrapping’ themselves up.

    Maybe, I’m more inclined to think that the second part of your comment about the bootstrapping is the key. Well to do kid “forced” by mom and dad to go it on their own after college and eat ramen whilst living in Brooklyn squalor and all that. Once they become full fledged adults working at whatever successful position they can then point to that period of hard work and self reliance as how they sucked it up and so can/should you. Of course that ignores the reality that they still have that soft spot to land if they fall on their rear, as well as their family’s connections and priviledge to rely on while paving their pathway to success.

    This may also be my own blue collar butthurt showing. I remember the summer after graduation resenting my college and grad school classmates who all had romantic and starry eyed notions about their roughing it in relative squalor while slumming around Europe on their parents’ sufferance. In the meanwhile I was scrambling to secure a job to pay the bills.

  23. Could I just point out that ulcers aren’t caused by stress or a poor diet. It’s a myth which has been totally debunked. Ulcers are caused by either a bacterial infection or a virus. Please do some research before you write.

    1. Seriously? This is your takeaway?

    2. You’ve got bad data. Ulcers can be caused by a number of things that pit hydrochloric acid against mucosal stomach lining, including, of course, H. pylori, but also certain drugs, excessive alcohol use, and eating disorders like bulimia. They can be exacerbated by (among other things) caffeine, alcohol, oily foods, continuing to throw up on purpose, and anything that compromises immune function such as–wait for it–stress and sleep deprivation. Believe it or not, this is the kind of information the doctor shares with you when she diagnoses your ulcer.

  24. Exacly. H. Pylori is usually kept at bay by the mucus lining of the stomach but things like stress, poor diet, acid reflux, NSAID medication, etc. compromise the immune system as well as that lining.

  25. Exacly. H. Pylori is usually kept at bay by the mucus lining of the stomach but things like stress, poor diet, acid reflux, NSAID medication, etc. compromise the immune system as well as that lining.

  26. Just wanted to back up Caperton on this one because medical misinformation drives me nuts.

    The link between peptic ulcers and stress actually has not been “thoroughly debunked”. Stress (and diet) can significantly weaken your immune system. H. pylori in particular is very common, so yeah, stress is associated with increased risk of ulcers, though stress alone won’t give you an ulcer if you live in a bubble.

    Similarly, shingles is caused by a virus, but most commonly turns up in people with some immune compromise–including people under a lot of stress.

  27. Not to mention that stress exacerbates pain, and depression exacerbate physical pain.

    (also, how fucking insulting is it to tell someone who’s had an ulcer to “do your research”?)

  28. Oh, please. Stress can exacerbate any illness because it weakens your immune system. But, it doesn’t ’cause’ ulcers. H. Pylori does. And yes, that’s my takeaway.

  29. Oh, please. Stress can exacerbate any illness because it weakens your immune system. But, it doesn’t ’cause’ ulcers. H. Pylori does. And yes, that’s my takeaway.

    You… don’t understand proximal versus distal causality, do you? (Tip: think dominoes.) Or trivial versus practical significance?

    I really shouldn’t encourage the derail, I know, but I am drawn to misguided self-righteousness like a moth to flame…

  30. Essentially what you just said was the equivalent of this:

    Someone else: “I got chlamydia when I had unprotected sex with someone who was infected.”

    You: “Go do your research! You get chlamydia from a bacteria, not unprotected sex!”

  31. but I am drawn to misguided self-righteousness like a moth to flame…

    Moths aren’t actually drawn to flames, they are disoriented by them. Do your research, jeez!

    *Kidding, it was just too good to ignore*

  33. I’ve been broke, but never truly poor. To me there is a big difference between those two states.

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