It's Finally Over.

On Tuesday, July 17, 2012, I received a phone call that will change my life.

"Hi Barb, this is Donna from MDOT. I am calling to offer you the position you interviewed for."

I was stunned. I was speechless. I said, "Really?"

"Really," she laughed.

"That's great, that's wonderful!" I said, trying to hide the three years of desperation that has aged me and worn me thin.

She told me all the pre-job things I needed to do, explained the drug test and physical. I said, "So this is when we discuss salary, right?"

"Yes."

My friend Julie told me to request a salary in the upper third of the range. So I did. She gave me the maximum. The maximum. I pinched myself. Was I dead? Did I get transported to a parallel universe? As professionally as I could, I said, "Wow."

The second the call ended I began to sob. And sob. And sob. Three years of stress, feeling like an outcast, less than, over the hill, unwanted, broke, it started to lift. I had no idea of the weight I was carrying. Rationally, I knew it was there and I wondered what the absence of stress would feel like if and when I got a job. And there it was. For twenty minutes I wailed. I let it all out. My unemployment was finally over.

I called everyone I knew, starting with my Beloved. I called my family, my friends, my old co-workers. I had a celebratory lunch with a friend. I told my neighbors and the chicken lady at the market, whom I celebrated with over a mango gellato. I sent emails. I wanted to stand on top of a mountain and cry and shout to the world, "It's over!"  I never celebrated an ending before. It feels great.

I can live again, I can be part of the world again. I can work for change, protect the waters, talk biology with my colleagues. I can get my drain fixed and my cupola repaired. I can fix the tiles in the bathroom that are falling down. I can pay off my debts and have a savings account. I can get my teeth cleaned. I can get a color printer cartridge. I can breathe.

After spreading my good news, I went to my backyard and gave thanks to Great Spirit for giving me the strength to endure the past three years. I gave thanks for the work that I am about to do, that I am honored to protect the waters. I thought of my Beloved, my family, and my friends, whose money, food, emotional support, and friendship carried me like a boat in a storm through this difficult time. I could not have kept my house without them. I could not have kept my car. I could not have my home and the things that make it so. I might not have been able to hold on emotionally if it wasn't for them.

I thought about all the people I don't really know who sent me prayers and well wishes from my sisters' Facebook pages when I interviewed for the job. I know their good energies helped.

I thought of the phone calls where I sobbed that I couldn't take it any more and my loved ones comforted me. They never judged me. They held my hand and told me it would be OK.

I will never forget the things I have learned or the love that was given to me. I will not forget the other people here in Michigan that don't have a job. I know many of them don't have the support that I do. I can't imagine what life is like for those folks. I know how much stress and desperation I felt and I have good friends and family behind me. I am humbled by the experience. And I hope to never go through it again.

So, dear friends, thank you for seeing me through one of the darkest times of my life. I hope that from reading my stories about what life is like being unemployed for a very long time, you have developed understanding and compassion for others in the same place as me and work for equality and fairness in our world. Everyone wants and needs a home and security.
And now I can proudly say I have mine once again. Blessed be.

Penalizing the Poor - A Day in the Life

It is expensive to be poor. I am learning this every month as I try to pay bills with not enough money. There is an economic war going on, there is no doubt in my mind. I have no ammo to fight with. I am being overrun by the enemy and there is nothing I can do about it.

Here is what I am talking about. I am on a fixed income, with an occasional grant coming in now and then. I am also on auto pay for my mortgage, part of a federal program to help folks who are on unemployment. The beauty of the program is my payment is cut in half for a year (the other half is tacked on to my mortgage loan). The catch is they take the payment out of my account on the 5th of the month, no matter what. So if my unemployment check is directly deposited on the 6th, too bad. They will not hold off on collecting the mortgage. I say, "There will be no money in my account until the next day!" They say, "Sorry, there is nothing we can do about it. It is automatic." Automatic. The world is run by computers now?

So they let the auto pay take the non-existent money out. This is a compounded issue. Let's take a look. Maybe I have $100 in my account, to cover the gas and groceries I bought on the 4th. Those purchases haven't gone through yet because I used my debit/credit card. On the 5th they take out the mortgage payment. The credit union pays it and charges me $35 overdraft fee. Then the gas and the food charges come through. The credit union charges me another $70 overdraft. On the 6th my unemployment check is directly deposited, and immediately the amount is reduced by $105 due to NSF charges. Which mean that I cannot pay all the bills that I promised to pay.

So those creditors that I cannot pay now due to having $105 taken out from NSF fees charge me interest and late fees, increasing the debt I have to them, making it even more difficult to pay them back. Oh, but wait, I am now 31 days late on my credit card payment with the credit union, so they freeze my accounts. All of them. I cannot access any money nor deposit any money until I pay the bill. No warning. What if I had been on the road late at night, and needed gas to get home? All of a sudden I cannot access my bank account. What if I needed medicine (thank goodness I don't)? What then? Since when can a bank keep you from accessing your money because you are only one day and one month late on a payment?

Then the dog gets sick, I get a flat tire, and the serpentine belt breaks on my Jeep. Oh the things that can devastate a person who lives life on the edge of economic disaster.

I had a past due bill on my home phone. I contacted ATT and made payment arrangements, telling them I would pay the bill the following Wednesday. "That would be fine," they said. The very next day they cut off my long-distance service. "No your phone line is not down, that is standard practice to cut long distance," I was told when I called to report the problem. "What about my payment agreement?" I asked, getting angrier by the minute. "That is standard practice," the person on the other end of the line responded. I cancelled my home phone service on the spot. I tried to get another home phone provider, but because I am unemployed and am behind on bills, I would have to pay $275 up front as a fee just to have the privilege of having a home phone.

Even the utility companies are involved in this war. Your check comes on the 5th. You have to pay on the 5th or get your utility shutoff. Pay online or over the phone by debit/credit card and get charged an additional $6.75 service fee. Service fee for paying a bill? So you can cough up the $6.75 service fee to pay your bill on the due date or pay $10 late fee (plus the $6.75 service fee) later.

I have always lived my life as honest as I possibly can. I have contacted my creditors and told them, "I have no income right now due to losing unemployment, I have been trying to find a job and have had no success. I want to pay my debt to you, but I truly have no money to do that right now. I will send money as soon as I can." Some work with me. Some ignore my calls and correspondence and send me threatening letters. They all will go through the process of collecting from me. They cannot stop the machine that chews up the poor. Computers, you know. As they say, "You can't squeeze blood from turnip."  Hate to say it, but I don't even have a turnip. They don't want $5 a month. They don't care. You are not a person with a life and a difficult situation. You are an account number and source of money.

Going through the unemployment process is in and of itself a nightmare. Rules change weekly. Even the staff can't keep up, so you are given incorrect or outdated information frequently. I was told incorrect information on reporting wages last year. Now they have been taking over half my unemployment for the past two checks in restitution. I appealed and lost. "Yes, they gave you incorrect information, but they did pay you more than you should have gotten, so by no fault of your own, you must pay restitution," the judge said. I applied for financial hardship, given I had no income. I lost. They said that I made too much money in the past six months. You have to make $900 or less a month to be considered to have financial hardship.The past six months? What do the six past months have to do with today? I paid bills with the last six months of income, today I have no money. Hello?

I share this with you so that you can have a glimpse of what life is like for someone who has been without a job for a long time. Those on the conservative right will say people love to live on government hand outs. They have no clue. It isn't bread and roses. It is depressing. It is defeating. It is humiliating. It is not what I choose.

I have no money to fight this, so the battles go on every day of the week. Negotiating, pleading, arguing. I am tired. I need reinforcements. I need a job.

Unemployed - Stepping Out of the Race to Nowhere

I can't say I enjoy waking up every morning with a knot in my stomach, or having to talk myself into getting up and putting a smile on my face to greet the day. You would think that once I finally get my eyes to close when I go to bed, my brain would grow tired of the subconscious stream of worry and close its doors for the night. But no. It keeps right on chugging like those natural gas rigs you see in the fields up by Mt. Pleasant. Going over and over the stack of bills I have tucked away in a worn manilla folder, waiting to be paid. When I awake, my defenses against these thoughts are down, I am vulnerable, I am weak. They have me immediately. It takes me a good hour of self talk to get the wall to raise once again, allowing me to function. It is a hell of a life.

Yet, there is another side to long-term unemployment. It is surreal, like stepping into another reality. It makes space for observation and reflection.

Being removed from the 8-5 daily routine makes me wonder why anyone would choose to spend the majority of their lives locked up in a building. I am no longer bathed in florescent lights or recycled air, tied to an ergonomically incorrect chair staring into a computer screen. I am blessed to see the sun rise into the noon sky, to watch the birds tugging at dead grasses, flying off to construct the nest that ensures their genes will pass into the future. I see the cycle of the season unfold before my eyes. It is beautiful.

I have had 921 days to think about anything and everything. Things like what it means to be a worker in our society. We didn't have pre-school when I grew up, you were simply a little darling doing little darling things. We didn't take Chinese in kindergarten so we could grow up to have a competitive advantage over others in the global economy. We got to be kids. I am not so sure I like the idea of grooming our little people to be worker bees for the capitalist bee hive. No wonder people are forgetting how important having fun is to our well-being. They are too tired from working.

There was a study done a few years back that looked at the average work day of indigenous peoples around the world. Three and half hours. That's right. The rest of the day is spent with family, friends, creating art, music, community. Some indoctrinated worker bees might shudder at this thought, proclaiming these people are simply lazy. That is part of the brainwashing that has happened in our industrial society. What is so wrong with working hard for half the day and then enjoying the rest of it? Doing what you love can be productive, too. Heart work it is called. It sounds good to me. No one ever grows old and says "I wish I would have spent more time at my job," do they?

One of the greatest gifts given to me during this time is the test of faith, the ability to stand in the middle of the eye of a hurricane. Let the storm swirl and move, I will move with it. It is so easy to get caught up in the fear of deprivation. Not enough money for my mortgage. Not enough money for phone bill. Not enough money for the gas bill or the car payment or the electric bill. No presents for birthdays or just because. Wow, how much of life revolves around money - the quest for it, the spending of it, the worrying about the shortage of it.

Think about it. How many things do we do that aren't tied to money? You go out to eat. Spend money. You go to work, earn money. You watch TV, and are bombarded with unending commercials to get you to spend money. Your dinner is interrupted by phone solicitors. You drive down the road, billboards are there to join you on your trip, unless of course you are in Vermont. You turn on the radio. More commercials. You open your mailbox, more advertising. You go to your Gmail account, ads on top and beside your inbox. You read this blog, there are ads. You go shopping, out for coffee, out for drinks. Spend more money. What do we do anymore that is not tied to money? Are we being absorbed into this crazy way of life, never to return?

Being unemployed removes me from some of this to a degree because I have no money to spend. These things become irrelevant. I am still surrounded by ads, but I see them from a different point of view. They have become unwanted, almost an infringement on my privacy. It matters not whether we want advertisements in our lives. We have no choice. I like choices.

I think it would be better if the beautiful towering white pines or exquisite waterfalls of Michigan were forced on us. Imagine in between segments of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, we had footage of a Lake Michigan sunset, or the Sleeping Bear Dunes instead of ads for prescription drugs that spend most of their 30 seconds telling us all the horrible side-effects (including death in some cases) we might experience should we take their product. They (the pines, waterfalls, sunset, dunes, not the drugs) would fill us with wonder and awe. They would make us smile. They would enrich our lives and soothe our Souls. I am liking this.


Because I am unemployed, my life has slowed, I have become more appreciative of things that really matter and want to live a more thoughtful, intentional life. I want to love more, appreciate more, slow down and live more. I want to notice the world around me. I hope you do, too.

Surviving Unemployment...Still

On February 18th, Michigan's federal unemployment benefits were cut. This meant 29,500 people lost their unemployment. Including me. I went down to their local office so that I could find out exactly how this would affect my bi-weeky checks. I was told that on the 18th I would no longer get a check, and that I could not get anymore unemployment, period. Oh, and he said he felt bad. I believed him.

Since then I have been watching the contents of my wallet diminish down to a few business cards and a Chinese fortune, which says my goal will be met in two months. I dated it the day I got it, February 15th. That means April 15th I should be fully employed and well on my way to recovery from the most stressful period of my life. I will let you know.

Yesterday I went back to the unemployment office for an unrelated though no less stressful matter, and the gentleman at the desk asked me why I wasn't collecting unemployment. I could feel the blood rush to my face. He said something about 20 more weeks. Really? You mean this whole past month while those who love me have been helping me eat and have gas in my car and pay my mortgage I could have been drawing a check?

I had images of storming the place with a water cannon, yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs. This social safety net, like all the rest, is so mired down in red tape and misinformed employees that it almost drives me to drink.  The safety net is really more like a fishing net, set up to tangle and drown you like a tuna. So you give up out of shear frustration. You give up on everything.

I maintain my sanity right now by making myself a study subject. I observe the feelings that come up when I receive yet another letter from a creditor accusing me of ignoring their requests for payment, after having sent them a letter several weeks earlier explaining my situation. I have maintained constant contact with them all along, trying to do the right thing. THEY don't care. THEY are computers. Can you spell F-R-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-O-N?

A time when honesty was valued.

I have realized, sadly, there no longer seems to be a "right thing". Perhaps being a stand-up gal is dead. People have been screwing the system for so long that everyone is now considered corrupt, dishonest, and incorrigible. Guilty and never considered innocent. The more honest and up front you are, the greater the negative consequences. So now I am left with a choice. Maintain my dignity and self respect (and be punished for it) or ignore my debts, cheat the government, live from a place of entitlement and have NO consequences for it, because that is what is expected by the corporations?  Hell of a choice isn't it?

Back to the study. I have observed feelings of shame, worthlessness, disenfranchisement, despair, anger, rage, and hopelessness in my self. I have also observed deep love and gratitude. But it is those first feelings that have the potential to destroy a Spirit. They are like a pebble in your shoe, always there, reminding you with every step you take.

I have developed coping strategies to deal with the constant stress of long term unemployment. I allow myself 15 minutes to melt down when needed. After that, I must get back to the business at hand. I breathe. I call my lover, my sisters, my Dad, my Mom. I tell myself that today I am OK, I have a roof over my head, my dog has food, my car works, I am loved. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, so I don't think about it. It may bring a job or it may bring foreclosure. I know my mind. If I let it go there, I know what it will think about. So I focus on the moment. Not one second back, not one second forward. Just the now. Because that is all I have.

Today is a milestone. I am more broke than I have ever been in my life. $8.46 in the bank and a few dollars in change sitting in the bowl by the back door. I have two weeks before I will get unemployment again, and there is a line a mile long waiting to snatch it up. Interesting. I notice that I look in the cupboard and fridge and take stock of my food. I look at my gas tank. I check my coffee and creamer supply. I open the lid on the dog food bucket and see how much is left. I check the toothpaste and toilet paper. I learn what is most important to me. Food, coffee with cream, gas, dog food, toothpaste, and toilet paper.

It was a beautiful smiling moon in the western sky last night, with the brightest star shining right next to her...Venus. Did you see it? Go look tonight.

These are the moments I hold on to. The beauty of the moon and a star, the sunshine, the tiny green buds now appearing on my apple trees, the twinkle in my dog's eyes. I know things will turn around. They have to.

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.