Three years. It seems like yesterday and forever all at the same time. Three years of educational lessons taught by the greatest teacher of all - Life. In the span of three years I've gone from being a viably employed, financially secure individual to one who barely makes enough to maintain the Government's definition of Financial Poverty. My outlook on life and people who used financial assistance programs and sought bankruptcy were, to be quite frank, negative. I knew that "some" people needed these programs legitimately, while "most" abused it. Well, that was then. I have used food stamps in order to eat. I've met people who struggle to make ends meet; often working two or more jobs to do so. A penny saved, is a food stamp removed. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I felt myself lucky; afterall, I hold a Master's degree and once connected with the right job, can step into a well-paying job. For many - minimum wage is the ticket. Never enough cash collected to save a buck or two. Not enough to take a college course. Never enough to improve yourself without an immense struggle.
For a year and a half, I had no source of income. What do you do when the rent comes due? Suddenly, you are faced with primal decisions - food for your belly, a roof over your head, or paying the phone bill. It doesn't take long before your savings account registers $0.00. Halfway through my three-year odyssey, I faced bankruptcy. Surely this Hell would end soon.
A year and a half and my eyes are opened - opened to the realities of what life is really like for those who are truly impoverished. A year and a half into this trek led me out of New Mexico and into Northern Florida. What can I say, it was February and it had just snowed a foot of snow. Warmth and lower utility bills were attractive things.
By April I landed a job teaching. I love teaching. Unfortunately, $15,000 dollars a year barely make ends meet. It's a step up from the first year and a half of this journey...yet still miserably small.
Three years have now passed into the obscurity of time. I still teach - it's a source of income. Though, I'm always searching. Searching for more. Searching for ways to feel fulfilled once again. I've dared to venture back into the creative realm, a place I used to reside in as a kid. A place, many friends say I reside in still. Why not, write? I'm giving it a shot. I'm attending a children's writing course. My instructor is a published author. I get raves about my children's writing. I receive nothing but rejections from magazines. Growing pains. A three year journey through brambles and thorns. Where is the light?
Today I finally compromised my environmental views. I sprayed the yard with toxic chemicals. North Florida is a haven for many varieties of insectile creatures, two of which are extremely annoying to human and animal alike - fleas and mosquitoes. Unlike other areas where I have lived, these aggravating bugs don't die in the winter. It's not cold enough. They simply multiply and hang out at your door waiting to mug anything that lives and breathes. Our dogs have been subjected to every natural form of insect repellent imaginable. It has turned into a vicious cycle of our dogs being hairless, to dogs with some to most of their hair, then back to hairless. If the fleas don't get 'em, the mosquitoes will. The dogs are miserable, and on my pay I cannot afford to spray nematodes or buy bats. I can afford toxic chemicals. I sprayed. Three years. After three years, my entire outlook on poverty and the reasons behind chemical use has drastically changed.
Three years. Like Odysseus, I yearn for the vessel that will take me home.
