First World Problems

We all know what they are and I think we are often too embarrassed to admit that we have them, or that many of the things that make us go ballistic and plunge us into the blackest despair are really just that and little else: they are First World Problems.  Or formerly known as "White People's Problems."  But now the great prosperity divide has become colour blind and you will find people of many races and colours fitting the same category of privilege.  They are no longer restricted to fortunately born Caucasians.  They are by right First World Problems.  And you don't have to be wealthy to enjoy them.
     Look at me.  I earn twelve honkin' bucks an hour and I've been known to fret over travel agents, or hotels I've stayed in where the staff and owners just didn't know how to make me feel all warm and fuzzy.  Am I embarrassed about this?  Well, yes and no.
     I have been poor all my life and my expectations for myself accordingly have always erred on the modest side.  For the first thirty-five years of my life I had never travelled anywhere outside of Canada and a little bit of the US for the simple reason that I could barely pay for food and rent.  I was not living in luxury.  I have never bought anything on credit nor even had a line of credit.  I have paid for everything by cash, occasionally by debit.  Shortly before my mother's untimely death from cancer I inherited a nice little bundle and spent two and half months in Europe.  The rest went into daily living expenses since I was living on virtually nothing else.  I was involved then in a ministering Christian community and none of the work we did was paid for.  The leftovers from my mother kept us and our work with street people and AIDS sufferers alive.
     Two years later I found my vocation as an artist, then a year after that I found an agent, who found me an architect who found me one of his projects, a hotel, that would buy some of my paintings, and then I found my way to Costa Rica for two weeks.  Then everything went to hell and no matter how hard I worked I couldn't keep it together and eventually ended up broke and homeless.  I didn't have time to worry about what colours my new pillowslips should be because I had to rely on the kindness of others, my father, friends and for shelter and basic food.  Then I began to recover from PTSD just as I found decent housing, a good therapist, work that I love and supports me well with a low wage thanks to subsidized housing.
     A year later I had a bank balance.  Five years later I had enough to travel on.  My tastes and preferences for travel accommodations became a little bit, shall we say, refined, for my station of life and I became another spoiled and entitled traveller.  Now I treat my annual month long foreign vacation as an entitlement, an expectation I have come to accept for myself.  Does this embarrass me?  Yes.  I already know that if it turns out next year that for some reason I am not able to make this trip I will be crushingly disappointed and I will pout and whine and whimper like a spoiled little rich kid whose chocolate amaretto ice cream was confused with the chocolate Grand Marnier.  And you know something else?  It just might be the best thing that ever happened to me.
     But I still hope that it won't and I will still make this trip if I can (Bogota, Colombia, if you must know) and even if it doesn't or can't happen I still want to be grateful for five consecutive years of travel and all the rich and intriguing adventures I have been on and maybe even find a way to spend my time here in my own Vancouver in a way that is constructive and wonderful.  Without regret.
     Why, I could spend some of that time instead in local coffee shops enjoying one of our many good natured discussions with a friend of mine about whether or not it is possible to make a decaffeinated coffee that is just as good as the real McCoy.  My friend thinks it's impossible.  I disagree, but really this is just another First World Problem.