Unemployment: Looking into the Eyes of a Cobra

1982...

Grandpa and I are talking.  My Grandparents are encouraging me to go into computers, as it was clear computers were going to take over the world and I could make good money and have a steady job.  "I don't like computers," I said.  "I want to study nature."  Grandpa just shook his gray, bristle-topped head and said, "You'll always just go along in life smelling the roses, won't you?".  "I hope so," I replied.

2012....

Today I awoke with that same sinking feeling in my stomach that has been my constant sleeping companion for the two years, four months, and twenty-eight days since I lost my job.  I have had a few glimpses of sunlight in the form of a consulting job here, a small grant there, even the promise of a well-paid position in a consulting firm, but that abruptly ended when they ran out of work for me.  I have braved the waves and swelling seas of congressional approvals and rejections of unemployment benefit extensions. And now, even that life boat has gone, and I am on my own. I no longer have any reliable income.

I always view challenges in life as learning opportunities, although I am human and it is hard sometimes to endure the pain and disappointments.  But in the end I do seek out the greater meaning of an experience and add that lesson to my book of life in hopes of becoming a wiser woman.

But this one, this unemployment chapter, I am finding difficult.  Very difficult.

I have noticed over the past couple years that I no longer feel part of a team or a group with a common purpose. My life lacks structure and the camaraderie I once enjoyed with my co-workers and friends at my former job.  No longer can I have coffee with a fellow biologist and talk about the awesome adventure we had that day searching for rattlesnakes in the fens.  Or contemplate the latest turn of events in office politics.  I miss that.

It is not for lack of trying that I remain unemployed.  I apply for every job I am even remotely qualified for.  I work writing grant proposals every day, develop a wild foods business that sometimes makes me enough money to buy food, seek out gigs for my music.  I am "on" 24-7.  Yet being so scattered takes its toll.

No one ever teaches you how to navigate this complex web of long-term unemployment.  You must be a social worker and know how to find help from the myriad of government offices, few of which give you the opportunity to speak to a living, breathing, human being. You spend days negotiating and renegotiating, finally slumping in resignation and saying "I can't pay you anymore until I get some work".  You watch the credit rating you worked so hard to build up sink in a matter of days or weeks.  You have to choose. Gas or food. Meat or vegetables.  Fruit or maybe next time.

How do you deal with having your income cut by 2/3, yet your debt load remains the same and there is NOTHING you can do about it.  Everyday you know that interest charges and late fees are being added to those debts, they don't care that you can't help your situation right now.  Poverty is big business, you know.  I feel like I'm being swallowed in quicksand.

How does taking a minimum wage job help when it won't even pay the mortgage and utilities, forget the car payment or student loan.  No need to worry about the health insurance payment, there isn't any.  Please don't let me get sick.

The worst part is the fear of losing Home.  It went into foreclosure over a year ago, then out of foreclosure because I immediately got that consulting job, then the very kind woman at the mortgage company kept giving me more time and more time as I would promise that something had to turn up soon for me.  Finally a reprieve came from President Obama's Help for Hardest Hit Program in the form of one year of reduced payments.  BUT, if I miss one payment, deal's off.  My house goes back into foreclosure.  I have one more month before that may become a reality.

I look around at the golden walls of my living room, paint purchased lovingly by my dear Father.  At dusk, the western sunlight filters in through the wooden slatted blinds and creates the warmest glow I have ever seen.  It is the glow of my Father's love.

I remember my twenty-something friends coming to help tear out the carpet in this very first house of mine, to expose the beautiful hardwood floors that hadn't seen daylight since the house was built in the 1950's.  I walk around the back yard and see my bee hives, apple trees, raspberry bushes, and grape arbor, and watch my Beagle sniffing the ghost trails of squirrels.  This is not just a house, this is my Home.  I whisper to my Beagle and my Bees, "Don't worry, I won't leave you behind".  I can't say the same to those golden walls that hold my Father's love or to the Apple trees that spread the wonderful scent in the spring.  I begin to weep.

Tiny Barton III.

To live with the constant pressure of not enough money to meet basic expenses is like looking into the eyes of a Cobra.  You become frozen, transfixed by the utter hopelessness of it all.  Swaying to-and-fro, somewhere between life and death.  You become immobilized with fear and despair.  But it is precisely at that time that the fire inside of my Spirit rises and I stare right back with a fierce determination so intense that Cobra sinks back to the ground and slithers away into the tall grass.

I know what is important in this world.  It is not how much money I make.  It is love, friendship, family, Bees and Beagles, my Beloved, sharing good times, making music, being honorable, doing good work in the world, reaching out to others less fortunate, carrying on traditions, being a friend, doing my part to make the world a better place.  This is what I have learned these two years, four months, and twenty-eight days since I lost my job.

Grandpa, I hope wherever your Spirit dwells, you can see that, yes, I am still smelling the roses.  And tomorrow I will go see about computer school.