Coping with Loosing

Hello my friend.  It’s just a few words I want to write about how it feels to be middle aged and in an economy that has stripped me of all I have worked for and dreamed about.

I have worked since I was a child.  I would pull weeds from my neighbors garden for just a few bucks.  I think I was maybe 7 years old when I started.  By the age of 13 I gained a work-release form from school so I could help my mom pay bills.  I worked cleaning a theater after school, and then becaime a hotel maid.  Not great jobs, but definitely hard ones, and they put a few dollars in my pocket.  I was proud to hand over my paycheck to my mom, who was struggling by herself with 8 children.

Well, since then I have always held a job.  My most recent, I kept for 16 and a half years, but I got laid-off in this recent economy.  I know my story has the ashes of many fires that have burned people lately.  I know I’m not alone. 

I had a home I was paying for, a nice vehicle, was able to take a vacation now and then, and didn’t want for much at all.  Not to say I was by any means “rich” because my job didn’t pay that well.  But, I did have health insurance and vacation pay, and I managed to make ends meet.

Now, where am I?  My vehicle has been repossesed, my home is in foreclosure, and I am reduced to unemployment, which in my state, pays 1200 a month. There are no food stamps because the limit on income is 1100 a month. (Thank you Mr. President for the extra 25 dollars a week that make me inelligible for 200 in food). It is a sweltering summer, and my my last electric bill was 264.00  (pretty much 1 week of pay).  I add to that 105.00 in groceries, my telephone and water bill, and my one luxury the internet, and there’s not much left.  I have to have help even getting to the grocery store because my car is gone.  I’m supposed to be looking for work, but my car is gone.  I depend on friends…my independence is gone.  My pride doesn’t exist because I’ve lost everything I was proud of.