For the first time since I was 17 years old, I honestly have no idea if I will have enough money in my bank account to pay June’s rent. Yet, I still really want to buy something at this weekend’s Art Star Craft Bazaar. What is wrong with me?
As much as I want to appear consistently optimistic, meticulously organized and all around put together, I recently reached a new point of surrender. It’s embarrassing and I’m cringing at the idea of putting my brutally honest business out there into cyberspace where I have been carefully crafting my personal brand for the past year. But the weight on my shoulders has finally made me cave and I’m tired of hiding in a corner of isolation, afraid that you may see me sweat. There is freedom at reaching a bottom, as there is nowhere lower you can sink.
A year ago, I was an independent woman making a $140k salary, eating lunch in fancy restaurants, buying a new pair of heels every weekend, summering in the Hamptons, writing short stories, blissfully in love and living between a Union Square apartment and a garden townhouse in Old City.
In the last year, I lost my job, filed for unemployment for the first time, moved in with my boyfriend, lost my boyfriend, and got back together with my boyfriend. He broke his foot in four places, can no longer work and has moved into my apartment so I can look after him. Within a few short months, I’ve become unemployed, uninsured, a nurse and maid to a reluctant relationship, and someone that wears flats and goes to Ikea for Memorial Day.
I share this humiliation with you because I’m guessing I’m not the only one out there determined to survive. A legion of others are trying to keep it together, holding on by the last string, eating sandwiches for dinner and making coffee at home. We are all survivors.
When I was seventeen, I ran away from home and spent the next year sleeping on seat cushions I stole off my mother’s garden furniture. I woke up at 5:30 AM to make Lattes, worked 9 to 5 at Costco running SKU numbers, spent my evenings selling furniture at the Tacoma Mall and managed the apartment complex where I was living on “I” street. One day a week, I volunteered at the pound hosing down dog kennels. After time, I started my own business, paid my way through college and graduate school, and healed my family relationships. I survived.
When I was twenty-eight I moved to Washington DC with my fiancé and my Masters in International Relations. No one would hire me, I lost the fiancé to a horrible cheating accident, I lost my home, and I was fired from two waitressing jobs within two weeks of one another. Eventually, I was cast on a reality TV show, offered a fat salary for a job in Manhattan, moved to a charming exposed brick apartment in Union Square and started hanging out with supermodels. I survived.
This recent adventure of misfortune will be no different. Already, the experience has deepened my relationships, challenged me as a girlfriend, strengthened me as a female mentor and planted the seeds of a lucrative business plan. You see, no matter how far down I’ve gone, I’ve always been able to pull myself back up on my feet and be a better person for my suffering.
We will survive. I will survive. And I might even be able to buy something pretty at the Art Star Craft Bazaar. It just has to be something cheap.
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I admire your courage to tell it like it is and not to tell it like you think others would want. And to go your own path when you could much easily travel whence you were before. So many times in life, we're not honest with others but with the one who matters most - ourselves. I wish you enough. Love, Wallflower
ReplyDeleteEvery 5 years of so, I go through the horrendous experience of starting over, which often includes horrible tests like lost job, lost boyfriend, dropping out of school and moving in temporarily with mom. After those times pass I swear that will never happen again. But like taxes and Septa delays, it is an inevitable reality. I appreciate you saying out loud the horrors you are experiencing and what's even more admirable is that you are seeing the positive in all of it.
ReplyDeleteYour post is proof that anyone who says being single is easy and fun is full of shit! I'm 28 and still live paycheck to paycheck (although I'm starting to save a small tidbit out of each check now) and can't tell you how many times I've paid for lunch with coins, gotten cash advances on my credit lines or had my heels re-heeled 3 times because I can't afford new ones! And on top of it all, we get screwed by men and our profession! I mean seriously, we deserve a break! (or at least a good man and a fabulous job!)
ReplyDeleteThis is precisely what I love about you. You don't lose yourself to your crisis. You acknowledge it with the greatest honesty, you confront it and you work your way out of it.
ReplyDeleteI've learned to appreciate money for what it is, without worshiping it. Yes we need it to survive. But too often we measure happiness by how much of it we have in the bank.
I propose you go to the Bazaar and buy absolutely nothing. Instead, try to focus that entire day on finding the things that make you happy that can't be bought with money.
There is always a lesson to be learned in every crisis. And there is always a hidden gift.
Find your gift.
Hopefully I'm not chastised for being a man here but your post spoke to me. I relocated from Philly to Boston to support my wife and her new job and found it difficult to find gainful employment up here. I've since lost the wife, the glamorous lifestyle I used to lead (Skybar at the Shore Club, anyone?), and once I save up enough money to move my stuff I'll be evicting my tenants and moving back to my row home in Philly. Life is brutal sometimes but if you can pick yourself up and keep going it's about the only thing you really can control. Good luck to you in your endeavor- from the sounds of it you are a resilient soul that's going to end up on her feet in due time~
ReplyDeleteStarting over is probably the most exciting time of our lives. TV shows generally cover the unsettled times and they only tie things up in the season finales. Our foundations tend to be forged through hardship. Part of the reason I am so happy single is realizing how unhappy I was being married. The bitter makes the sweet in our lives so much better.
ReplyDeleteYou said it for me, and it would seem, for a lot of us! Right down to the irrational spending urges that fly in the face of my complete lack of funds. I'd cut up my credit cards, but then how would I pay my rent? :)
ReplyDelete