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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