Gretchen A. Murphy’s Post

I really love this and I can super relate to it too. I’m a scrapper, might not look like it, but I am. I’ve been a scrapper my whole life, I was born into poverty, dysfunction, and abuse. I experienced homelessness and eventually was placed into foster care. I was a foster kid with no identity, direction or purpose. I waitressed, bagged groceries, was a cashier, worked retail, was a maid, ran a tanning salon, worked one temp job after another, I was an apartment leasing agent, nanny, CNA, cocktail waitress, dishwasher, receptionist, I worked in the Kroger deli, at a dry cleaners, and Dollar General. I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door, successfully I might add and usually I was working 2 or 3 jobs at a time. These are just some of the jobs I held between the ages ago 19-24 with only a high school education, struggling to survive after I aged out of foster care. It was never easy, I walked to work most days or took a bus, I made a lot of poor choices and mistakes. I could barely make rent and was evicted at one point because I couldn’t pay the electric. I scrapped, scraped, skrimpted and saved as best I could. Eventually at 29 this scrapper was able to attend college and I have never looked backed. I’ve had to fight for every job, earn every opportunity, fight to be seen, heard, taken seriously, and I’ve clawed my way through all the debris to position myself for what’s next. And you know what? I wouldn’t change a second of it. A lot of people wouldn’t bet on me, but I wouldn’t best against me. The best is yet to come.