Hard Times....

I don't think a day goes by where the news is.....job cuts, lay-offs, hiring freeze, recession, depression, aggression....it is hardly a holiday season.....more like the season of our discontent. I am definitely concerned (if you haven't guessed by my first two lines) about not just my existence here in Portland but concerned about the people around me.

I have never seen myself as a solitary person just trying to get mine in life. I've always thought I was sailing through life with a boat-load of people and what affects them affects me and vice versa.

I have very vivid memories of being about 8 or 9 years old and riding next to my mom in her yellow 2-door Mustang driving down Dixie Highway in Boca Raton, Fl and seeing some scruffy, dirty and disheveled looking guy wandering down the side of the roadway with a knapsack on his back and wondering what happened to that guy that he was in the state he was in. When you are young and privileged with a nice, clean house, food in the pantry at all times and two parents that give love, consistent messages and a healthy home routine that helps a child thrive. I just assumed at such a young age that everyone lived like we did.

You can imagine my horror as a young adult living in Ft. Lauderdale seeing all kinds of homeless people living around the backside of the nearby Publix supermarket and working poor immigrants hanging out on US 1 looking for work and financial help so they can achieve the American Dream.

Now that I am forty years old and seeing the decline of the middle class and working class people, like myself, struggling to make their living expenses (note: the cost of housing has more than tripled since 1979) their transportation expenses, pay ever increasing food costs, and any pay for medicines or medical care (that we all DESERVE to have as a right and not a privilege) I know that I was right in my thinking as a child.....we are all in the same boat, sailing through life together and what affects one affects all. Now....what to do with that reality is unclear as I sit here and contemplate in the coffeehouse how I am going to secure some kind of day work so I can keep my promise to the car dealership last year to pay off my 2001 van by making my next month's car payment.

I am very stressed out right now. I am not ashamed of saying it. I have never wanted this blog to mask the reality of my whole life. Yes, I am a wonderful, delightful, lovely companion for kind and respectable gentlemen who wish to share special, intimate time with me....but reality is that I have ALWAYS taken care of myself (except when my parents have sent their independent yet monitarily-challenged daughter money when I have really needed and asked for it) and that is the price a woman has to pay when she seeks a partnership based on love and not security. Creating an income, whether it is with a special friend or slinging hash at a cute little diner right now is really important. My back is sore from tension and my jaw hurts from clenching my teeth when I sleep at night and I have a raging headache at the moment.

The best thing I have going for me is that tomorrow I will get up and will go door to door down the main streets in town and ask if anyone is hiring. It is all about HOPE right now...right??? Ok, well, I got a little bit of hope that tomorrow will be my lucky day!

I apologize if this is such a downer posting....but this is life folks!!

Sending lots of HOPE, courage and a well-constructed sailboat your way!!

xoxoxoxoxxoxo

Emma : )