Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls is a New York journalist and author of 2005 best selling novel “The Glass Castle.” Yet despite her awards and stories, her childhood with an alcoholic dad, and art enthusiast mom, both squatters moving from place to place with her three siblings, are what built her to be who she is today. Walls' childhood was something that no one deserves but built her into a stronger person which then made her an even stronger journalist. Born April 21, 1960, in Phoenix, AZ, Walls didn't grow up in one home like all the other girls did. Her parents were on the run from bill collectors or the “FBI” as Rex (father) told the kids, digging through trash cans and sharing cat food with childhood cat Quixote. A hero is someone to be able to look up to, someone that builds their own life and successes even through a poverty-stricken lifestyle, with perseverance and bravery. Jeannette Walls is a hero because she is self-sufficient and humble. She gives people no excuses to not be able to do what they want and receive what they desire.

bookhttps://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=591&picture=bookWalls never needed anybody else's help. She works her own jobs and went to great lengths. She was self-sufficient from a young age and is to this day. Walls fled to New York to her sister, where they landed with part-time jobs and got a place as their first step into a new lifestyle. “The very next day, I landed a job at a hamburger joint on Fourteenth Street. After taxes and social security, I’d be taking home over eighty dollars a week...In the middle of the summer, Lori found us an apartment in a neighborhood we could afford--the South Bronx” (“Jeannette Walls”). Although the apartment wasn't the best, it got them somewhere, it was their own, they had a home. She knew she wouldn't just get to New York and automatically be a journalist. Jeannette Walls, now famous journalist, was working as a fast food worker then. Back when Walls was younger, she never had a secure home. Later on, her parents found a place cheap enough to stay in for good, or for as long as they could. “The family eventually settled in Welch, W.Va., when Walls was 10, living in a three-room house with sporadic electricity. As soon as she was able, a year before graduating from high school - she left Welch and high-tailed it to New York to make it as a journalist” (“Rebuilding”). Walls hit rock bottom, and it was time to make her way up top where she could live her own life. She made it. Walls went to New York, did what she had to do, fought her own battles, and made it. She didn't have to eat scraps, or steal from others to get what she needed. Walls was secure and could do what she pleased. She eventually landed a job at New York Magazine. She worked as the assistant to the editor Edward Kosner. From stealing her classmates lunches to living in an apartment with working stoves and hot water, then to living in her own place, famous for her column “Scoop” on MSNBC.com, Walls was living proof, an inspiration to the people of the world, showing to the world that with the right amount of work put in, you can receive what you desire. You can be self-sufficient and not need people by your side to guide you every step of the way.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jeannette_walls_2009.jpgLarry D. Moore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]In a competitive world, it's important to not flaunt your skills and successes around. That's exactly what Walls did. She was humble, she didn't brag about how far she got in life without anyone's help. Jeannette was embarrassed by her upbringing. She didn't want to tell the world she ate food out of the dumpsters with her whole family. “Walls went to her boss, convinced she would be fired once the truth came out: that her polished New York existence, her life of covering A-list parties and going to the hottest restaurants, was based on a lie” (Rebuilding). Walls didn't use her past as a lever to get anywhere, she didn't use others' sympathy to get what she wanted. Anyone could easily have used a past like hers to tell them that she ran away alone to New York to make people feel pity to hand things to her as a courtesy. It was time for her to tell her story. She was gonna tell the world how she came to be, how she got where she was. But to do so she needed to tell someone eventually, if she was planning to write a memoir. “In New York, Walls kept her past to herself, with one exception. She opened up one night to a colleague, a writer who turned the confidential revelation into a work of fiction” (“Glass Castle’s”). Walls never bragged about how she came to New York almost dirt poor and got up to be the head writer of a large column of the Intelligencer. In spite of all the lies, in spite of all the trouble Walls went through to cover up her past, the time came when she had to tell her story, to the millions that deserved to hear, to the ones who needed proof, hope, motivation of a brighter future. She took the first step in telling a colleague, then wrote her memoir. Her life story, the inspiration to thousands in just 289 pages, teaching people that there's no need to manipulate your story to get where you need, but to stay humble and work hard. She took the first step of courage so that the people who look up to her could too.

Walls didn't use her own self pity to raise her ground, but her hard work and skill are what got her to where she is now. She stayed humble, she kept to herself. Utilizing your own skills and talents and being self-sufficient, and staying humble even if your successes are worth the praise... Jeannette Walls is not only an inspiration to me, but to other people who have trouble with whatever they may be going through. To the people who are growing or grew up in destitution, she proves that there's so much more that's achievable if and when you take the first big steps forward. People tend to turn to chemical happiness when they see no hope for themselves. There’s no doubt Walls has saved some from that. No one has a fair chance at things, but if you have the right mindset, then you can achieve what you most desire, no matter what you came from, but you have to let go and take a few big steps as Walls did, and as you can do.

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