After waiting in the local human services office for 3 hours this past Monday I was told I was not eligible for either Medicaid or the state disability assistance program by not one, but two women (this must have been in case I decided to go postal on my case worker.)The "SDA" was designed to help provide cash assistance for people who have no income and Medicaid was created for people with low or no-income that meet certain um, "criteria." I was stunned to say the least! Altho I have zero income right now, creditors haunt my cell phone daily to inquire if just 3 days after I last spoke with them if anything changed in my income status that would enable me to come up with payments amounting anywhere from $50 to $189. I visualize telling them "why, yes! I just won the Mega Millions Lottery yesterday! -sure, I can gladly pay you Tuesday..." or, "Ya know, my hip labrum tear, femur displacement and rotator cuff tear all miraculously healed, and then I was offered a dream job all within 3 days!-sure, how much money do you need for me to bring my account up to date?"
My federal student loans for nursing school going back to 2005 totaling over $17,000 have been placed in deferment indefinitely. To add salt to this wound, I was informed that I will be responsible for paying ALL of the continually accruing interest on said deferred federal loans! How nice...
In August, I was forced to break a one year lease by just ONE month and I lost my beautiful 2 bedroom 2 bath 1,000 square foot apartment in a quaint middle class Michigan suburban town. (because I was 45 and disabled not 55 and disabled.)
I sold everything I own on either Ebay or Craigslist, including the brand new furniture I still owe the furniture company over $3,000 for, and dropped off remaining various and sundry items for 2 weekend garage sales to friend's homes. I took my Dell desktop PC to a computer geek friend to have it "gutted" so I could sell it as well. (I still need money to make my $317 a month car payment!)
"Loss" has become my middle name for the past fourteen months when just prior to May of 2010, life was much rosier and I had $5,000 in the bank and I was working with a Realtor to purchase my first house at 44 (FORTY-four and there's so much more!...)- financially, my life was quite peachy!
Serenity eluded me this past summer as two days before my 45th birthday, I received a letter in the mail from the worker comp insurance company informing me that I was no longer going to be receiving medical care or lost wages. (Altho to this day at the very least I still need hip and shoulder surgeries.) I called charities, churches and food banks in July and was continually informed that either I did not qualify because I was not a resident of this city or that township, or routinely got a "sorry, but we are all out of funds/ways and means/food..." I still await word from my attorney that my worker's comp insurance company has been ordered to pay for the 2 surgeries I've needed since my slip and fall almost a year and a half ago as well as repay my lost wages. The pain in my right hip has gotten worse and my shoulder range of motion is documented to be less than half of what it was prior to the surgery I had last November. (Good thing I decided to hoard some of my pain medications!)
There have been days I've wondered if I was perhaps born under a "dark star", or "it must be my Scorpio Rising" giving me grief as everyone in the metaphysical community KNOWS that anyone having anything remotely "Scorpionic" in their charts spells a life of more than a few challenges... =) or that I must have been Jack-the-Ripper's first cousin in a past life and now it is time to pay my "karmic dues." Or that this must be my "valley time" in life's peaks and valleys...Hey, I thought I already went thru the "Valley Stage" as a teenaged "Valley Girl" growing up in San Diego in the 80's!!!...like totally NOT!
I even thought, being the undogmatic and so not-religious-but-spiritual person that I am, (after all, my name "Christine" stands for "fair Christian" not "good" Christian or "devout Christian" but "fair Christian!"...)that perhaps this is just my "Job-time" like the famous story of Job in the Bible? and I'm supposed to learn some type of spiritual lesson? And finally, hey! this SURELY, must be evidence of my VERY LAST INCARNATION on Earth! ;)
But no, this is life. No one gets out unscathed. No one. Not anyone. Anywhere...
I have finally come to the realization that no matter how sunny everyone's life looks on the outside, everyone goes thru some type of grief or trauma. It's par for the course...(even for us non-golfers).The soccer Mom and the corporate CEO Dad with a nuclear family living in yuppity uppity middle class suburbia only look "normal" on the outside. On the inside, there are soccer Mom's having affairs with school principals, and nuclear children with personality disorders. There are corporate CEO Dads writing off more than just business lunches. The smiling waitress at Big Boy serving your meals has a mother who just died and she has no money for the funeral. The police officer that pulled you over for speeding has a young wife he dearly loves who is dying of cancer and at the same time, he has to take care of his invalid 84-year-old father with Alzheimer's and pack lunches for his 7 year-old daughter.
What can one do? One can say an abbreviated version of the famous Serenity prayer, and yell out like Seinfeld, "Serenity NOW!" Or "God, help!" She can buy stock in Kleenex and cry. And cry. He can pray, he can scream in his car despite on-lookers...(hey, for all they know, he could be talking on his Blue-tooth!). This too shall pass...
