Community Update

I have been working since I was fifteen.

I have worked for Fujitsu America, the Hyatt Corporation and D&M Enterprises, all here in the Bay Area. I worked as an assistant for two separate Associations in Sacramento and a large Video Products Distribution company as Legal Assistant to the General Counsel and EA to the owner/CEO. I also owned and operated my own successful secretarial service and a once thriving company with my ex.

In addition to working hard and paying my taxes, I also raised three children.

Although it was forged through hard work, I felt that I led a charmed life. My confidence in the future never wavered because I never doubted that there would BE work, that I had value to society and that my willingness to contribute meant that I would be valued. My years of rewarding employment reinforced this confidence. My willingness to work hard enabled me to raise three children and know the joy of meeting their needs. What greater proof could one need that life was good?

How quickly it has all changed. I have moved five times in the last five years, trying to find something affordable. Something always brings me back to Santa Cruz, this town that I love. I may not be able to stay this time.

Now, at age 55, I find myself financially in dire straits for the first time in my life. In the last six months, I have applied for over 100 jobs over a range of occupations. I have advertised my highly developed skills as a personal assistant on Craigslist. I have responded to ads online and filled out online applications.

I have applied for jobs in person, literally combing the streets of Santa Cruz for “help wanted” signs. I have eagerly offered to do restaurant work, thrift store work, paper work, and stocking. I have applied for the highest administrative positions and for work behind the check-out counter, and everything in between. I have been turned down by some for being over qualified, and by others for being under qualified. Most are so swamped by applications, they never respond at all.

And I have felt ashamed. I have viewed all this as MY problem, an individual problem, and one of personal failure. I have spent hours perfecting self blame into an art form, dissecting my life and speculating about the possible missteps which have led me to this alarming state of affairs.

Actually, to use the word alarming is to understate things: a life lived on the edge like this is terrifying; it is a fear that follows you into your dreams. For the first time in my life, I have no health care coverage. I made a choice to retain my auto insurance instead.

This just can’t be happening. It feels like a punishment. Life has turned into a life sentence. When I’m not consumed by shame and disappointment, I feel anger about things so basic that I’m not even sure where to direct it. I know that something in this system is broken.

I started a three-day temporary job on Monday, June 3rd, riding SC Metro, collecting and recording data. While riding the bus this week, it has become painfully clear to me that I am not merely having a personal crisis, that I, along with countless others, are part of a political and cultural failure bigger than our own lives.

Now, riding the Metro, I was riding with people who I can easily identify with. People like myself, who are doing anything and everything they can to make it and it’s not working. Others like me, who have absolutely nothing to fall back on.

I have ridden with senior citizens who are pulling oxygen tanks and can barely walk. I have ridden the bus with frightened young women of every hue, many with small children in tow, coming from low income jobs and having no daycare funds and probably barely enough to get by on.

Some people break. Like the woman in the bus station bathroom stall next to me, shooting heroin and violently ill But most people somehow go on, neat and clean, even if their clothing is worn and unfashionable, because pride is such an integral part of the human spirit. One man who I introduced myself to and shook hands with, had a flea or possibly body lice, jump from his hand to mine. In the fragile conspiracy of pride between us, I pretended not to see it and visually saw his embarrassment melt away.

I feel such a kinship with everyone I have encountered this week, and we all have one ultimate thing in common….pride!

I am humbled by the pride of my fellow passengers. I realize that what is a time of crisis for me has been a grueling way of life for many of them since they were old enough to remember life at all. I also believe that some of them will never know a life without this constant burden of humility.

How have we let so many solid, hard working people fall through the cracks? How did I fall through the cracks? And how can I maintain my sense of dignity and hope while struggling to find a way back up and continuing to slide back down in a daily struggle that seems increasingly surrealistic to me?

I feel abandoned by a world that I had up until now, generally felt safe in. Who should I blame? I am bitterly ashamed and disappointed at this system that could let me down so terribly at this stage of my life, whether it is on a county, state or national level.

The only thing I can put my faith in now is the unknown. For some reason while writing this, I have repeatedly thought about the song Phil Collins brought to us so aptly, decades ago, "Another Day In Paradise".

It has never rung more true for me. These are some of the issues my blog will explore.