Can't Buy Me...Love? Happiness? Long Life?

We aren’t really supposed to talk about money.  It’s not proper or fitting or socially acceptable in some circles.  Folks like to whisper about who’s got it or who doesn’t.  At least that was what I experienced in my “church circle” of friends.  Those who were on the fringes of poverty and required assistance from the church community were viewed as being a bit of an underclass.  Heck, I experienced it firsthand at times when my Mom required financial assistance.  But, I believe that giving to others in need is paramount of this thing we label as “Christianity”. 

The news was reporting the past couple days about a woman who left her baby on a subway.  She was homeless and said that she couldn’t take care of her baby anymore.  I don’t know the whole story, but it got me thinking.  She could be me, she could be any of us. I could be homeless.

From the outside looking in, I appear to have plenty.  In fact someone once told me I was privileged.  Why was I privileged?  Because last year when my Mother died I inherited a house worth over half a million dollars.  

This doesn’t mean that I have that money in hand.  In fact, I have less than when I inherited it last year. The small amount of money she left barely paid for her funeral expenses, some utility bills and I still have outstanding health bills coming in the mail.

After taking care of a terminally ill parent for almost a year(try finding gainful employment while someone is at home dying) I accepted the first job I was offered. 

And most of my paychecks went into maintaining my  inheritance. 

I inherited mortgage payments, a high tax load, expensive oil heating, a dog and various other maintenance costs on a house.  Between these costs, the cost of gas to commute,  I barely had enough to pay any other bills. 

I was also in a deep state of grief, but I was pretending that I was OKAY.

So, I kept going, doing…striving.  I was not going to allow myself to fall into any type of depression or sadness.  I knew that I must be positive.  I focused on other people’s problems or things to distract me from feeling the real sadness.

Then my father got arrested. 

In under eight months time, both of my parents were gone.  And I do not have family who live near me.  I am by myself. 

I nearly lost my mind.  Bad thoughts crept in, thoughts such as, maybe I should just die.  Not that I would kill myself, but maybe just maybe a truck might hit me on the highway.  I only told a couple people about these thoughts.

Each day was a struggle to pull myself out of my bed and drive to a job full of banality and lack of purpose.  I would sit at a desk staring at two screens, barely able to remember my own name at times.  I would start crying and have to spend twenty minutes in a bathroom stall trying to compose myself.  It was as if I had been through an intense battle, come out on the other side feeling relieved, yet sad to have witnessed such horrific suffering.  I guess it was a type of PTSD. 

Counseling may have been an option, checking myself into a facility was another possibility. The only thing that kept me going and gave me purpose was writing.  However, the grief I felt just kept slamming me.  

I hated not being able to function.  Each day dragging myself to an office, stressful commute, I was losing my mind.

 So I quit my job.  I simply couldn’t do it anymore.  And I don’t feel guilty.  I needed time to grieve, to realize that my Mom is gone and there is nothing I can do to change that fact.  All that I can do is my best.  Of course, money is a problem.  However, I always have a way of getting money, making money when I need it.  It's kind of my special power.

Right now,  I have 3.58$ in my bank account.  I’m working a part-time job that has yet to pay me.  I’m still going.  I haven’t “bought” food in three weeks, I’m eating what I’ve got in my cupboards.  I’m not worried about the carbs, the GMO’s, the wheat, the sugar…I’m just worried that I have food to put into my body.  I won’t starve.

I calculate how much gas it will take me to get to work.  That’s what I’ve done this summer.  I haven’t gone to the beach or on a nice vacation or a hike. I am surviving, in a half a million dollar house.

My story is NOT unique.  I have a college degree that took my thirteen years to accomplish.  I am $30K in debt. How many of my peers still live in their parent’s homes because the cost of rent is astronomically?  I bet I could name four people…and they’re married.  My generation was brought up in this bubble of middle classdom, a privilege that not many will have ever again.  We were conditioned to go into debt in order to “get an education”, unless you were lucky enough to have your parents pay for part or the whole.

The sad thing is, I’m not afraid to work hard.  I’m not lazy.  I’ve had jobs since I was twelve years old.  I’ve been self-reliant.  This isn’t a complaint, its more of an understanding that life is hard.   

Six years ago without a college degree, I made almost double what I was making this past year.  Then in 2008 the work just dried up, I got laid off. 

Now, why am I writing about any of this?  I will tell you.  Because I’m tired of pretending.  I want to scream out, LOOK I’m poor and it is OKAY. 

But, what I’m saying is look around.  There are some major problems with our governmental system.  Apparently, jobs are on the rise, but what jobs.  Full-time, with decent living wage, health benefits??? No.  

And I’ve been thinking about all of this for a long while…and it hit me.  Over 600,000 people in our country are homeless . We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Tell me, how the fuck do we have people with nowhere to live???  There is this idea that the homeless are lazy people who don’t want to work.  This is not true.  Many people who are homeless have jobs, but cannot afford a place to live.  How is this possible?  In 2014, in the United States of America, we  fund all kinds of strange things, but we cannot fund a place for those Americans down on their luck.  Ask someone homeless where do they want to be in five years...probably will say ALIVE.

I’ve always hated when people ask you where you’d like to be in five years.  It makes me think of something John Lennon said when he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said something like, “Can’t I just be happy?”  Which is funny because apparently those who make between $50-75K a year are the happiest so says Forbes.  

While I don’t believe in entitlement of the poor or the wealthy, I do believe that everyone should have a place to sleep, food in their bellies and happiness.  But the religious side in me says, we live in a fallen world.  There is real evil out there, but how many of us support that evil by doing nothing to stop it?  We do nothing to stop it. 

I have only 3.58$ in my bank account.  My statement denotes two things, one that I actually have a bank account, that I have a social security number, that I did have a way to put money in there…so many people on the fringes of society do not even have bank accounts.  They are not eligible for them.   In some ways not having a bank account, or credit cards, or student loans would be an amazing, freeing feeling for me. 

Kate grew up very poor.  She would tell me stories of living in housing projects, roaches, sharing bedrooms with many siblings.  A man she was in love even decided not to marry her because his parents didn’t approve of her background.  (this was a “Christian” man of course.)  She was always afraid of lack, even though she was a hardworker, with a college degree, my Mom never really thought much of herself.  I think it was because she spent so many years ashamed of where she came from.

People are so often ashamed to be poor, but I believe that those who are wealthy and do nothing to help others are the ones who should be ashamed.  And for the record, I put myself in the “wealthy” category.  I wish that I could give more.

But, I guess in some ways I am privileged.  I am privileged enough to care about other people.  While I've been told that I am too nice, I've come to realize that maybe what I've been made to think of as a flaw is actually my secret strength.  Each day is precious, every life is precious, poor or rich, white, black, brown or yellow, we all deserve to treat each other with respect.