I just finished paying work for the day. This was work that had no option for a delay, extension, or much if any dialog with the business that hired me. It wasn’t very interesting or enlightening, but it did use my skill of hitting exact word counts with the best-possible arrangement of concepts and words.
I knew it was due on my birthday, and yes “reply guy” sitting in a comfortable house with at least $1 million in retirement funds, I could have finished it earlier in the week.
But it was due on the morning of my birthday.
I am 62 years old today and in general, I would say I’m happy and healthy.
As of 2018, I sincerely thought my husband and I were at risk of homelessness. We were living in an unimproved apartment that was already renting for over $2,000 a month. The landlord was raising the rent every year.
We considered many options to at least get a stable housing cost and for a time, thought our best choice was to move to the California desert.
Then by a stroke of good fortune at the end of 2019 and start of 2020, I got pushed out of my last regular payroll job, teaching at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo. No, it wasn’t COVID, it was full-time faculty greed. See, if they take an overload before they retire (i.e. teach courses usually taught by part-time instructors) they get to retire at a pay commensurate with overload, not their regular pay.
Thanks to this, I no longer had to live within driving distance of my job.
I mentioned to Bruce that it was extremely sad to see no shells on any California beach and he said, “I know where there are shells.”
Sanibel Island in SW Florida was where. We spent one week there in January 2020 and I said, “We are moving.”
Now we own our own home in SW Florida. While our payment has gone up due to insurance and tax increases, we don’t have a landlord who not only jacked the rent every year, he expected us to pay to replace carpet after we’d lived there 5 years, and it was already well-used when we moved in.
Life Challenges
But Bruce has been ill for almost a year now.
I’ve had times like this in my life before. When my daughter was small, my grandmother was declining severely from Alzheimer’s disease and my father was dying of congestive heart failure. You haven’t really lived until you’ve worked a full-time plus job, taken care of a baby, and gotten up at 2:00 a.m. to change her diapers, then driven to the police station to pick your grandmother up and take her home: to a place she may or may not recognize as her own.
My friends say they are worried about me. Last August was especially bad. Bruce was losing all of his mobility, it was almost impossible to get any type of help until we found the surgeon who operated on his spine, and our beloved dog Gambit declined suddenly and died from kidney disease.
What Kind of World Makes People Work Like This?
I used my first retirement account and savings to pay for my legal bills after my baby Anthony died in January 2005. I used the remainder of the savings to put a down payment on a house in my hometown of Redlands, California. During this time I was driving all over Southern California as a part-time college teacher. Between 2006 and 2011, I was the Vice President of Development at Beyond Shelter in Los Angeles. This was a “high paying” (for the field) job and I also paid for my other expenses from part-time teaching and writing.
My highest-paid writing (fiction and nonfiction combined) year was 2005, the year Anthony died: $40,000.
I make more than that today, but a great deal of what I do probably wouldn’t be called “writing” by most people. I create business plans and pitch decks for startups and expansions.
I haven’t seen a job in my former field (nonprofit development and administration) advertised for more than half what I was making at Beyond Shelter for a long time. Many similar jobs in our area in SW Florida (yes, I’m counting Tampa) are in the $40,000 to $50,000 range. When I saw what they were paying teachers here, I realized that it would be impossible for me to pay to commute, my most basic bills, and buy food for these salaries.
I laughed when I interviewed for and was selected for “Teach For America” back in 2015 or so. They wanted to pay $20,000 a year and my choices of location were rural Iowa or Baltimore. I might have been able to live in someone’s barn out there in Iowa. Baltimore? So few people want to live there that in recent years, they’ve begun offering homes for a dollar.
I confessed to my ex-husband one time that I was afraid of becoming homeless. “You’ve got a master’s degree,” he said in astonishment.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “Things are getting terrible out there.”
From Teacher of the Year to Radical
When I was growing up, we had many concepts instilled in us in school. Among these were:
America is the greatest, freest country on Earth
You can be anything you want to be
Work hard and you will be successful
Look forward to owning a decent home and having some vacation every year
You will have retirement funds to enjoy your golden years
You won’t have to lose your house due to medical bills
Are you laughing yet? Who still thinks any of these things?
When I was a kid, I never imagined what I would go through as an adult. And no, most of it isn’t 100% precedented in my family. The only comparison I can make is what my grandma Mary went through: she came to the US at only age 13 following extreme pogroms in Berdichev, Ukraine which eventually, along with Nazi help, destroyed the entire city.
They say “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.”
I’ve had four separate successful careers and I possess writing skills far in advance of many others who sit in comfortable homes, without fear they will be unable to afford food or will be on the street, penniless and friendless.
Yes, I know it’s true that Poe died face down in the gutter and Oscar Wilde, separated from his family, ended his life homeless, staring at hideous wallpaper in a Paris hotel.
Do I mind working on my birthday for a client that I can’t even ask to cut me a break this one time?
Yes, of course I do.
And I’m also grateful for the friends and family I do have. I am rich in all of those things that matter: none of them things that matter to our world’s rich, comfortable, and safe.
At the same time, somebody who’s worked hard since age 13, who does have a master’s degree, who has my resume and background, and who possesses many skills (including advanced soft skills that are constantly advertised, yet never rewarded in pay and security) shouldn’t have to fear homelessness and starvation.
A person like me should be considered a mainstay of society. A college teacher, nonprofit executive, high level business consultant, highly-skilled writer and writing consultant. Also someone who is in excellent physical shape and health, who doesn’t partake of substances and who eats a simple, non-processed, primarily plant based diet.
This is not an issue of my personal morality (good — some might even say “outstanding”) or abilities.
This is something bad that’s happened to our society, here in the United States. When people like me have zero confidence in government and are cynical about every institution, from higher education to “healthcare” and our food system —
Something has to give. I don’t know what it is but I know that the only people who can make a difference are people like me.
The hardworking precariat.