Knee Jerk Emotion and Other New Year's Eve Activity

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m trying to relax at home with my family on a particularly cold night.

I’ve spent the last few days trying to convince myself that as soon as the year ends, I need to find the strength to turn the page.

So writing a blog was the furthest thing from my mind until I read a blog from a fellow writer. She has one of those personalities that make it tough to see the depth of her pain. And I have long suspected she is the closest to an example of a true textbook optimist.

This is a good thing in my opinion. I am, on the other hand, the kind of textbook pessimist; the kind that move shrinks to prescription pads. That attitude helped me do my job over the years

So it was this blog, in which this open-hearted young woman talks about a physical wound that would not heal, that briefly caught my ire. It was her C-Section scar; the one that should have taken weeks to heal but instead took months.

Being one of her followers, I understood what that child means to her. She has written openly about the difficult loss of a pregnancy. I understand there was a great deal of sacrifice on her and her husband’s part to have this child. I am fortunate to be a mother. My life would be empty without my son.

But my initial reaction to her blog was a selfish one. My anger bubbled. I sat back in my chair as tears welled. Why? Some of us have suffered a great deal more than a f*ck*ng scar, I thought.

I can still feel the emotion that rushed through me the minute my company cut my job and the jobs of hundreds of my fellow co-workers, editors and writers. My husband did not have steady work then. It felt as if my insides collapsed. And the only thing I could think is, what will become of my family? My son?

I haven’t gotten a dream job. Instead I’ve been met with stoic faces and sterile business offices. What’s worse than that? I was used to open doors. Now I hit send buttons to email addresses or web addresses. Feedback is getting an acknowledgement that the application was received.

A tough year in my life is defined pulling my son out of his recreation swim classes, county soccer program (which we were able to return to thanks to a friend) and hockey lessons for lack of money.

A tough year in my house is defined by the number of:

• Calls we get from creditors day in, day out.
• The number of holes in my g*dd*mned sneakers before I spent money I did not have to replace them with ones special I found.
• Night’s I’ve sat up crying, praying or simply pacing because I’m out of tears.
• Of rejection letters and emails that assure me I was qualified but they would proceed with other candidates, “but please reapply.”

How much tougher can it get? The truth is, much tougher. And I have not had it much tougher than that. Others have.

A long time ago, the television show “Ally McBeal” had a curious line. When asked by a friend what made her problems bigger than those of others, Ally responded, “They’re mine.”

I hold my troubles close to the vest. And the other columnist? Her troubles are deeply hers and no less painful.

When I step back, I realize how blessed I actually am. We’ve had the loving emotional support of family who has come to our aid, helping to give us a Christmas. My mother-in-law who did everything in her power to make sure her grandson did not suffer, a father-in-law who went to the ends of the earth to find a new tire rim when misfortune struck our car. I have two sisters who fed us during the holidays

I had a friend who handed me cash. CASH. She cleverly suggested I opened her Christmas card at home. I find what in my mind was a staggering amount of cash. I have friends who send me emails with job suggestions and lift me up.

I have a son who rarely if ever complains. I have a husband who holds me when I cry and cheers the loudest when I succeed. We enjoyed a fireworks show for free thanks to our great city and several amazing events at our school, also free.

We’ve enjoyed holiday events, book fairs, even Christmas lights free of charge thanks to the generous nature of local neighborhoods, businesses, shopping malls, cities and our libraries.

And I kick off next year with a return to my college counselor and a job interview.

We are blessed. Perhaps I’ve just allowed myself to get too beaten down. Perhaps I’ve been defined by my problems for too long.

It might just be time to turn the page.

The Homeless Aren't Who We Think They Are

A recent viral video caught my eye the other day.

It was from a young documentarian who gave a homeless man $100 and then followed him. The filmmaker and his crew watched the man go into a liquor store, walk out and head to a local park where he started handing out food he had purchased with the money.

“You thought I was going to get all smacked up drunk?” the man said to the filmmaker who confronted him. The young man apologized and admitted he really did believe he was going to buy alcohol or drugs. But what he found was that the less fortunate man was one of many families who fall into homelessness despite their best efforts.

In reality, before becoming homeless the man had quit his job to take care of his ill elderly parents. They would eventually die and creditors took the home he had shared with them.

Ours is a story of a profession amid tumult. We’re starting over. And that has left us in total limbo and facing homelessness. Today especially has hastened our slide toward homelessness. What has been happening to us seems almost impossible, perhaps implausible.

This year family gave us money as a Christmas gift specifically for the purchase of clothes. With a rare sense of calm, we climbed into our small compact car to head to after Christmas sales to find much needed pants. As we pulled onto the main street, a light signaling low tire pressure signaled a problem with a tire. But the pressure it was signaling was a normal low for a cold, brisk morning.

So head headed toward a gas station to find an air pump. By the time we got to the pump, the pressure had gone down significantly much to our surprise. At the gas station, he checked the tires and found one completely flat.

We were stunned. We became confused after finding a finger-sized hole in one of the tires.

You can guess by now that our hearts sank. I wanted to cry but could not. I’m out of tears. We slowly moved the vehicle a short distance to a Costco tire center. We still have a membership there that our family also paid for.

My husband paid just over $200 for two new front tires. And with that, we lost the Christmas clothes money and then some. We walked around Costco snacking of samples while waiting for the tire center to let us know the job was done.

When they called, it was with more bad news. Workers said they could not replace the tire because the rim had somehow been bent severely enough that the tire itself was not holding air. I felt a deep sadness overwhelm me.

My husband again called family who fortunately have a background in mechanics to relay the news.

The tone of voice from our relative, he would tell me later, sounded like they could not believe what they were being told.

“It wasn’t said, but I think (the family member) was close to saying that if it wasn’t for bad luck, we wouldn’t have any luck at all,” my husband told me later.

We gave out a few precious gifts for Christmas this year. It was a careful balance to give those out as it was. We survived thanks to the generous nature of family and friends. My son received gifts thanks to family, Santa Claus Inc. and an incredibly kind gift from a close friend who wanted to make sure he had a good Christmas.

With this car problem, the rent money we had struggled to gather may not be complete anymore. How much will it cost us to get a new rim? I don’t know. It could be $40 or $200. We don’t know. But this could be the last hurrah.

Before today, my husband and I had held on the hope that we would make it at least through January. Now we’re not sure what’s going to happen.

I often replay in my head is what a small business owner once said to me when I asked him if he had any job openings. He told me he had once had financial difficulties and had to briefly move into his parent’s home. “It was the best thing that happened to me,” he said.

Here’s the problem with that. My parents are both dead. Most of my extended family lives in another country. My younger siblings are struggling financially. One rents a room from a family. Another is married and the couple is raising three children in a two-bedroom apartment. They are packed tightly.

My in-laws are older and unable house us in their home. Another set of in-laws have a nice home but have cats which my son and I are seriously allergic to.

A fourth family member has a home we might be able to move into. But she lives so far away from where we currently live, that I would be forced to give up the 15 hours of work I was finally able to get. It would leave us without a single bit of income. In reality, all of our relatives live far from where we live. We ended up moving far from them in an effort to follow where the work was.

Of course there is a deeper truth at play here. Every single one of the households I mentioned is financially strained right now without exceptions. Taking in another entire family is a large commitment that my husband and I don’t want to heap on anyone.

Dear reader, imagine having to take in a full family yourself. What kind of adjustments would you have to make? Imagine that you were doing it while someone else in your immediate family was already in poor health, facing surgery, difficulties at work or unemployment.

Each one of those households I mentioned is facing one of those scenarios. Moving back with parents is not an option. While there is an option of living with siblings, it certainly would be an added strain for them.

But there is one other choice, which is the most viable, our car. Hopefully it will be in running condition of course.

Even then, I doubt I will panhandle the way the man in the documentary did. I’ve been told it’s a good way to make money. But it’s hard to think that I worked so hard to complete all my college course work so I would end up begging for change anyway.

More importantly, who is going to believe that I am in need? Who’s going to believe that it was a set of circumstances beyond my control that landed me smack in the middle of homelessness? I doubt I’m going to have a filmmaker follow me around. I wouldn’t be that lucky.

Honestly, if it weren’t for bad luck, we wouldn’t have any luck at all.

Reaching a Tipping Point

Desperation came to a Subway sandwich today in my small inland city.

The lady in the pink T-shirt was blond and thin and she was yelling.

“I’ve been out in the streets,” she loudly announced to everyone. “I can’t do it anymore.”

The pace of her diatribe was frenetic and mostly directed at two very young Subway Sandwich employees who stared back in disbelief. A man owed her money, she said. She needed a job, she said. She hated politicians and blamed the president for ruining the country, she said. She vowed never to vote again.

As she spoke, one of the workers, a young man no older than 21 reached into the employee tip jar and offered her $2. There was not much in the jar though he may have gotten more through electronic credit/debit card tips.

That brought the lady in pink’s polemic to a brief halt.

“No,” she said. “You’re a kid. I’m old enough to be your mother. I’ll earn it myself.”

I held back tears. After she had gone I pulled out a few quarters and handed them to the young man. I told him admired his gesture.

I suggested maybe she was ill, maybe not. Maybe she was serious, maybe not. What I did know was how she felt. Only recently had I found a job that offered just a couple of hours a day at minimum wage. It wasn’t near enough to survive but I was fortunate to have it, I told him.

“Maybe,” he answered. “But she filled out a job application and she got a quiz given on the back correct so she’s very smart.”

That woman’s words and her actions weigh heavily on me most of the day. The general sense is that things are improving but in my small segment of the world, some of us are sliding backwards.

I had never seen the woman in pink before she burst into the tiny Subway tucked away in a non-descript commercial center and hidden behind auto body shops.

But hers is far from the only tale of woe I’ve heard over the last few weeks.

So far:

·      A relative was laid off

·      A friend was laid off

·      Another friend is facing eviction

·      Another relative found herself desperately short of what she needed to make a home payment

·      Another relative was forced to quit her job and give up meager earnings because the cost of daycare for her two children became too much.

·      Yet another friend is struggling to find full-time work after being laid off earlier this year

Then there is me.

It’s hard to see beyond my own world. Perhaps there are other places where things are going better. But I’m not sure. The unemployment rate in California is 7.3 percent*. In San Bernardino County it’s 8.2 percent*. In Riverside County the rate is 9.2 percent*. In Orange County, where I was born and raised but left because I could not (and cannot) afford rents, it’s 5.4 percent*.

While the lady in pink shook a fist at politicians, I shake my head at corporations. I shake my fist at their protectors, celebrities, elected officials and political activists alike. I’m angry with anyone who says these corporations owe us nothing and that they are not obligated to help anyone, to employ anyone.

They owe me nothing personally. But they owe this country greatly. Some of them have polluted this land, bankrupted smaller business trading in once high paying experienced positions for minimum wage jobs.

Why can’t Walmart or McDonald’s pay their employees? In McDonald’s case, I have to ask myself if it’s because there is a McDonald’s every mile and a half in my region. They have designed a world where their restaurant jobs are the most prevalent. That’s a lot of employees. And when the goal is feed investors piles of money, is it any wonder the salaries are so low.

Where the rest of us land, only the creator knows. I just hope the resolution comes soon enough to save me and my loved ones … and the lady in pink.

(* August 2014 State Statistics.)

It's Hard to Grow Used to Rejection

I still remember the look on my sister-in-law’s face when she made her latest and boldest statement.

“Oh they’ll hire you,” she said confidently of a local bus transit company. “They’re always hiring.”

She told this to my husband who has a job with a very, very modest salary. Of course it means we’re unable to pay our rent or bills with what he earns. And I have been searching for work since earlier this year.

In an effort to spare us from homelessness he has been applying to become a bus driver. He even attended a Coach Operator Bridge program through Omnitrans in the Inland Empire just to improve his odds.

If you read one of my last blog entries, you know what my difficulties have been in finding work. The list of he has applied for is double that.

So imagine our relief when she, herself a bus driver, gave us such an assurance. It gave us hope that we might find something that will help us survive. We might be able to support our son. My husband searched their site and applied within a day or so.

On Saturday, my hope again turned to tears. The transit company’s email response read in part:

“At this time, we have decided to concentrate our attention on other candidates who we believe best meet the current needs of our organization.  Please be assured that your application was given full consideration.”

I have read these words literally dozens of times. He and I have been graciously thanked for taking the time to apply. He and I have also repeatedly been assured that our application was given full consideration.

In one case, our notices came within days of one another and came fresh off the copier on the same letterhead, on the same sturdy paper and with the same signature in the same perfectly positioned spot.

In some way, I find it odd that I am devastated over another typical rejection. The small voice in my head tells me to put that away and keep moving forward. But there is another part of me that can’t help but drop to my knees.

Friends and family are mystified as to why we cannot get jobs. I can't explain it myself.

I find myself asking what I have done to earn the scorn of so many. Why have I been shunned so badly, so completely? I have never ever in my life been so pushed out. As a Catholic, I’ve begged God to tell me what sin I have committed. And I’ve found myself begging him not to punish my son or husband for my sins.

I sent a letter to Pope Francis begging his prayers and forgiveness for whatever I have done. It’s true.

What I need now is to never mind that I am a smart and experienced employee with a good amount of print and online communication experience. Never mind that I am loyal and serious.

The truth is I will do just about anything to save my family. Hire me because you know you will be able to use and abuse me and I will sit still. Kick me. Slap me, fine. Just employ me.

I have more jobs leads of course. And I will try them all. I promise that each and every time it will be with all my heart and the same optimism. But I need a miracle now.

Christmas Stays in the Closet this Year

Our impending move has pretty much determined that our home will not be decked out in Christmas stuff.

Most of it is packed away in boxes in our son's closet. Sadly since I allow the stress of unemployment to soak up most of my thoughts, it invades my memories and moods. Doesn't matter if I'm trying to enjoy a free sandwich at Togo's or just thinking about the ornaments packed inside a small closet.

In one of the six boxes filled with cheery Christmas stuff is a small styrofoam tube filled with thumb-sized ornaments. They were our first. The very first ornaments my husband and I bought after he and I moved out together into our own apartment decades ago.

The sight of the ornaments was almost comical. We were both thankfully childless as were young journalists. We earned barely above minimum wage alongside people with bachelor degrees. We would all grumble, as young people often do, about how we toiled.

I can't remember now if it was my niece or nephews or even my young sister who presented us with a Christmas brochure, part of a school fundraiser. Inside were the many ribbons, bows, popcorn tins and such that make the holidays very, very merry.

Before turning the order form in, my husband showed me all he was ordering. He chose inexpensive stuff of course. Among them, the ornaments.

"I figured since we didn't have any, why not?" I remember him saying.

Little money means little tree. And we got a small fresh Target tree, the one that seemed to be dropping off the least amount of needles. We took it home set it up. When the ornaments arrived, I began to open them and thought, "Where the heck are they?"

Pulling on an attached golden string, I pulled out the first from its plastic casing. The string fit nicely like a little ring around my finger.

Walking up behind me, my husband asked, "Well, how do they look?"

"Either they are really small or I have huge hands," I told him. We both burst out laughing.

"Well they are our first," he reasoned. I put the first one, a little teddy bear in a Santa cap (if I'm not mistaken.) It was nearly swallowed up by the tree's pine needles. But there they were, our first ornaments in all their Lilliputian glory.

I know they are still among our things. I have not used them in a long time. In the years that followed we added many, many more decorations. Now we have an tree topper angel that stands tall. Her dress is old fashioned country. Her wings are wicker. The expression on her ceramic face is serene. We easily have three dozen ornaments, most of those sports related. The hockey mentions are everywhere of course.

The biggest decision I have now is whether to store them, and risk that they will be broken, or donate them. There are few places that could take everything we have. And giving them to Goodwill will probably elicit some pretty decent cheers.

It could arguably be quite the fire sale. Honestly I think I will be making every effort to save all my ornaments. I guess we have to keep the faith we'll land on our feet.