Archive | February 2014

On Living the Next Story

Don’t look for clever memes, bells, whistles or other embellishments on this post. No links, nothing flashy. Just words. I joke with others about having to stomp out so many fires, we need to wear asbestos boots.

That’s been my life lately. Surrounded by a bunch of big fires and not sure if my boots were up to the task of putting them out. Or if I even wanted to fight them anymore.

There is no snark here today. No defiance hurled at the year gone by for being a bad one. No verbal swings at anyone. No taunting of the circumstances that had me on the ropes but didn’t finish the job.

I’m still here. Weary as hell in spirit, but I’m still here.

I had a day job that paid well enough for me to live pretty comfortably (Yes, I have books for sale on the Internet. Please go buy them). It vanished pretty early on in the year. I was drawing unemployment, but when the extensions weren’t authorized, my income vanished in January. This led to a very tense living situation as I begged and borrowed money for rent. The landowner told me to get out on February 3. The eviction completely violates the law, but I’m gone. There was no point remaining in a situation where I couldn’t predict the actions of the other person. When you find yourself in a minefield, you don’t tap dance.

This is not the first time I’ve been in this kind of situation; broke, homeless, at the mercy of someone else. And it seems to get a little worse each time.

I’m over 50 and I’m sick of this shit, quite frankly. And for a period of weeks, I was honestly asking myself if I even wanted to continue. I could not see a light at the end of the tunnel, nor could I even find a match to strike (metaphoric one) to see a way out. What’s the point?

I got a job. it’s nowhere near the pay I was getting, but it’s a start. This is not  a career. This is temporary.

I have a temporary safe shelter. I am removed from the bad situation. The landowner is stuck alone in the home. No more whipping boy.

I have friends. I have glorious friends. They told me the law and my rights in the housing situation (And the landowner is and was completely wrong), they talked to me, they came, they moved me out, and most importantly, they made me feel like I still have value (even the friends who weren’t there in person, but there in spirit). Hugs have never felt better.

So the big fire is out, but he has plenty of cousins that need to be extinguished. However, I’m feeling more optimistic about it. I don’t need to fear my life being tossed onto a curb or stolen (there was a lot of petty theft in the previous house) by someone claiming it’s to offset what I owe (which, because of the actions taken, was $0).

I can breathe now. I can regroup. I have space to think without my heart pounding in fear.

I can take that one small step away from being in Survival Mode.