WHAT DO I REMEMBER?::: I remember food rationing coupons/I remember boiled, cold potato sandwiches/I remember powdered milk/I remember there not being any butter/I remember that fresh meat was a luxury/I remember Spam sandwiches instead of chops and steak and chicken/I remember going to bed hungry/I remember wearing hand-me down clothes/I remember not having new shoes to wear/I remember the laundry being done in a manual washing machine and boiling clothes in huge pots on the stove/I remember the worry on my parents faces having to feed and clothe five kids/I remember my father who was a Dental Surgeon not being paid by his patients because they couldn't to pay him, but his doing the work on them anyway - free/I remember a lot of things as clearly as if it were yesterday. Most of it formed my character in the ensuing years.::: I remember. I'm glad I do. It has served me well to this day. And will beyond it. ::: I know how live poor with style. I could have written the book on it. I didn't grow up rich, pampered and spoiled. I know how to do without a sense of entitlement. ::: I'm frequently asked how I can go on "fasts", as I do, without damage of my body. Because of my early upbringing, I have never looked at my fridge and thought "food!" I eat to live, not live to eat. I've also been asked how I can do with "so little sleep"? That's a bit trickier to answer without writing an entire book on the subject of "how", but I can say this: I do sleep. Just not maybe when you do. I don't "need" 8 hrs of sleep or more, I can do with 4 hrs quite nicely. I've learned over the years to take "executive cat naps" which serves the purpose. I don't have anybody to "answer to" now, I don't have any children to raise, so that my time is my own. A luxury in itself which I have learned to value. I have never worn designer clothes, I used to joke that I was like the song: "Second Hand Rose"...wearing second hand clothes...as long as the clothes I do wear are clean and pressed, who cares? I don't And that I shower every day without fail. I also remember when my whole world, as I knew it. collapsed in shambles around me at age eleven or twelve when suddenly there was no "house" to live in. And no mother. And a broken down father. And my sibling were suddenly all gone. Oh I have memories, and how those life changing events changed me, and my hopes and dreams for my future was tenuous as best. Every day, of every month, of every year was nothing short of a desperate struggle for survival. I remember having to fly without a net under me. Gone. All of it. Desperate people do desperate things. We do what we have to. I did. It wasn't always "pretty". But it all made me strong and determined and adaptable and taught me all the necessary tools I need were the world to collapse in cinders around me - again. ::: As I look around me at the gloomy economic disruptions reported by the hour in these very uncertain and nerve-wracking times, I suspect that I'll survive it all no matter what because I can adapt, if not as quickly as I could when I was young and strong and healthy and full of the vim and vinegar of callous youth, I will adapt. It might just be a little harder now, a little slower, but experience and a long memory will come into sharp focus as I settle into a new reality. Not if, but when. :::