I am 38 years old. No, I'm not bragging. I'm just stating fact. I am 38 years old. I am recently divorced. I have three kids from that marriage. I am in a relationship, and living with an amazing woman, who is also 38. She has three kids. Out of these six kids, five of them live with us full time. My girlfriend is pregnant. The baby is due in August. I am happy. For the first time in my life. Most everything is going great. The one thing that is not, boils down to just one word: money.
How many of you find that you hate that word? How many of you hear that word and remember that you also have none, and your car payment is due today? Okay, maybe not specifically your car payment. But if you are reading this, then I'm guessing that you owe somebody, somewhere, money that you do not have. And it consumes your thoughts sometimes. That constant worry about when your next car payment will get paid, and if your car will still be in the drive way when that money comes. Hell, does your car even run? Mine doesn't. But I'm paying for it. $80 every week. I'm paying on this car that doesn't run because I can't have my credit getting worse.
My credit is a scary thought. It's not so great. I went through a many year relationship with a woman whom not only didn't better her own credit situation, but slowly helped mine get worse. And now that I'm free of her, I want to fix it. But it's hard. It's very hard. There are so many factors at play here. Currently, I have a work at home job. But the pay isn't so great any longer. Before I got a "raise", I was making more. With that raise, I now make less. That's right, my friends, we're back at "money". It always comes back to money. Every situation seems to need money.
Now, here comes the biggest worry that I have right now: my right foot. I had surgery on my foot back in June of last year. It isn't fully healed. And by some amazing stroke of luck, it's actually getting worse. Okay, so that is bad luck, but it's still luck. Now, back in June I had Medicaid. It's this fun insurance where the government helps you out if you aren't uber-rich. I am not. Not even close. That Medicaid got canceled on me a few months ago. I reapplied. But guess what? I didn't qualify. Why? Because I make too much money for a household of three people, to qualify. You read that right: I make too much money for a household of THREE people, to qualify. There are seven people here! I make less than $100 too much, for a household of three. The other four people that we are working to feed, clothe, and shelter do not count. Why? Because we are not married. So because we are not married, the government, which should be separated from religion, has said that her, and her three kids do not count. We have no paper that God took a look at, approved. Thanks a lot on that one God!
So my foot is something that I have to be very careful with until the baby is born. I'm not sure if it'll go that long. So, I started looking for insurance. We have a cool $100 or so extra, each month. So maybe I can find something cheap, right? Wrong. The monthly fee is so high, that there is no way that I can afford that. And the deductibles for even the cheapest one is ridiculously high. So there is that word again: money. The most hated word in the English language, for those of us that aren't in that elite group of the 1% that control everything.
Living paycheck to paycheck sucks. I've never been a fan. But I did it, because it is better than nothing. Still is. I'll point something out here, that may piss a lot of people off, but I'm going to say it anyway: I made more money BEFORE Trump took office. That's right. I did better when Obama was in office. And I know that I'm not the only one. Trump supporters are going to try and hit me with reasons why Obama was worse, but my paycheck disagrees with you!
I'm looking for a part-time job, to help make up some of the loss from the job that I have had for more years than I would care to say. But, it's not easy. Because of that Medicaid snafu, I can not stand on my feet for very long. The right one, which already isn't doing so great, will get worse. Finding jobs that you don't need the use of your feet is hard.
This brings me to a thought that I've tried to push away, but it just keeps surfacing: We would do better, financially, if I just lost my job, got my foot amputated, and went on disability. It would likely improve our financial situation. Oh sure, it would cost the government more money in the long run. But why in the hell should they care about someone that isn't rich? Someone that is only trying to do his best to take care of his family? It's easier to just let me go forgotten, not bothering to help me save my leg, and then pay out disability. I hate thinking like that. I like my right leg. I've come to think of it as a part of me. But they don't care.
The government doesn't care. Trump does not care. Us "paycheck to paycheck" workers do not matter. We don't own major oil companies. We don't run fortune 500 companies. We are the typical working class family. Just voters. Just numbers to get the next corrupt, uncaring asshole into office. We are not free. We are, in our own ways, slaves.
I'm not a smart man. I don't have the answers. I don't have solutions. But I do like to write. I like to get my thoughts out, and share what I'm thinking. What I'm feeling. And right now, I'm feeling like the government has forgotten people like me. Trump has forgotten all of us in the middle, to lower class. And don't try to tell me that he has not. He may have all of you fooled, but not me. And the hell of it is, even if he is not elected for a second term, the next asshole in office will just continue the trend. We are expendable, my friends. All of us.
So I'm going to keep working, and doing what I can to take care of my family. I'm going to do my best to keep my leg attached to me. I'm going to keep doing my best to better my situation. For my wonderful fiancée, the woman for whom I would do anything in the world. For our amazing family. For our baby. Because it's all I know how to do. And when I die, and I go wherever we go when we die, I'm going to let the person greeting me know that it's a mess down here for 99% of us. A staggering number! And it's not going to change. Not because we don't want it to change, but because they don't want it to change. Pharmaceutical companies don't want it to change. Large corporations don't want it to change. World leaders don't want it to change. Trump doesn't want it to change. And it won't. They've got us right where they want us: in the lower class, working our lives away.
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