Harsh Realities

Every morning I wake up and I try and think of something positive to write here.  A little bit of happy thinking to help myself and others in my situation face another day in the unemployment line.  Not today though, today it is time for a dose of reality.

The reality is that I no longer exist.  I am one of the long-term unemployed that the government stops counting to hide how bad things really are.  My unemployment ran out last September when I got a part time job as an office clerk at a local auto body shop.  I made minimum wage twenty hours a week and started going to school. Yes the part time hours were yet another cut in pay, but I was happy to be working, it closed a gap in my employment history, but it was nowhere near enough to live on.  It was enough to put an end to my benefits though, and the state cut me off.  I worked there four months until the shop owner hired a management company and I found myself outsourced and no longer necessary.  Twenty hours a week at $8.50 an hour was not enough money to re-qualify for unemployment, so when December rolled around I was left with $40 in my wallet and the generosity of family to keep a roof over my head.

January rolled around and I went back to school, got my W2 forms and threw in my tax return early.  The refund left me with a little pocket money so I was able to get a pair of jeans without holes in the crotch, a few packs of cigarettes, and pay down some of the accumulated debt over the last couple of years.  With the new semester meant new financial aid, and in mid-April I got my financial aid refund.  That kept my head above water for a little while longer.

Now it is June, I am down to my last five dollars, I have holes in my shoes and won't be getting new ones for quite some time.  I have chronic pain from my time in the military and the VA is useless, I have filed several claims for compensation and treatment, yet they continue to deny them saying there is no proof it is service related even though it says right in my record "Pt injured knee falling from window ledge during training exercise."

That is my reality.  I write this blog and put advertisement on it in the hopes of making a little money, I walk the neighborhood every day in my holy shoes looking for help wanted signs, and I search every job board I know on a daily basis in hopes of finding just one employer who is not black listing the unemployed.  Now that I have that all out of my system, maybe I can go back to bringing some positivity to the unemployment line!