Today was another typical day.
Got up, searched for potential jobs, gave myself a pep talk, filled out apps, sent in resumes.
Not once have I doubted that something will come along. Even with my mind wide open to the realities around me. I tell myself if I can't find something, I'll manage to create my own thing, carve out my own niche.
But it is honestly scary - what my eyes see and my ears hear. And because I have a roof over my head and food to eat, I continue to feel safe. But sadly, too many around me don't.
Every day since moving here, I keep overhearing the same story.
A husband with tears in his eyes explaining his wife is out of work. He is out of work. He's been diligently trying to find something for two years and is tired of trying. He would do anything, but can't get hired. He tries to be creative. Tries selling artwork. Gets turned away time after time and is totally desperate and not sure how he is going to feed his family, let alone keep them clothed, in school and warm this winter. At this point, he would be grateful to be flipping burgers at McDonald's, but he can't even get in there.
A man sitting with a minister at Starbucks, pouring out his heart about how humbling it is that he is having to ask for a loan. He has tried every other option and can't take care of his family. He tells his resume list of things he has done in the past, things he is qualified for. But nothing is falling into place. And he is frantic and this, he believes is his last resort.
And then I look across the table at my mom. Here's a lady who raised four kids without much help at all. Four different jobs, including one winter of shoveling snow off of walks and driveways for pennies, going door to door with her daughter by her side, freezing and shivering in the cold, thankful for every dollar added. A mom who was never home, hardly ever able to attend school events because if she wasn't waiting tables or pumping gas, she was so exhausted she couldn't keep her head up. Worlds away, so long ago. Yet staring me blatantly in the face again, only this is a different time and a different place, different players around me.
I grew up knowing the kind of poverty I'm witnessing here.
The fear of not knowing from where the next meal was coming. If there would be a meal. That kind of fear is, in my mind, the most powerful kind of fear. Panic.
We come from a land of plenty, but we've managed to get ourselves into this place. Into this loop of bad karma. I have never felt more connected to my fellow man and woman than I do living in the northwest. I felt it when I saw a woman shoving free peanuts in her pockets, filling them so full that they kept falling out on the floor, embarrassing her as she tried to nonchalantly work her way towards the door. I felt woven to her by an invisible thread. Cause and effect, effect and cause. When one member falters, we all falter. When one child goes hungry, we all go hungry.
I find myself feeling guilty to some degree that I always feel hopeful. That I have this built in trust that in one way or another, life will unfold and something will come along. The "best for me" thing will eventually present itself. The "best for you" thing will find its way to you.
That doesn't take away reality. It doesn't make anything easier. Doesn't help me sleep sometimes at night. And I definitely don't have answers for myself or others. But I'll continue carrying the torch of hope. Keep encouraging those along the way, whose paths cross mine for one reason or another.
What I have to wonder, though, is if a sense of hope allows for an energetic charge within and without that somehow beckons and calls in the "good"... or at least the "essential". I'm putting it to the test. The gift my mother shared with me. Call it determination or blind faith. And I might be singing a different song in a few months.
I've thought how it seems we sometimes "fall from grace". And I deliberately tell myself to flip it around and make sure I "gracefully fall". Knowing there will eventually be a net below that catches.
At the end of the day, I'm happy. I'm loved. I'm healthy. I'm capable of movement.
I'm thankful.
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