I watch the trees go from bare limbs to little buds to blooms in white and light pink and in some cases purple and even red. Now, they are full-on green. Filling out, fluffing up. Dusting the air with the remnants of yellow pollen. Making the mornings thick with heightened humidity.
The trees were still bare and cold when the job went away. Today, they are full. Nothing has changed. I drive the same route each day. Sometimes, dropping my daughter at school when it is her turn. She doesn't know about this. The lack of a job. Because I spend every single day working at finding work.
I write and talk and call and email and respond and fill out forms. My fingers nearly bleed from the typing. My eyes growing red and weary and itchy and blinder. As the buds turned to blooms, there were calls. I took them. I met a person. An interview, I guess. And nothing. And nothing. My prospects now as barren as the January trees. Obligations growing as fast as spring grass.
Yesterday, in the mail. The mail that no one sees, it came. My source of income for the next five or six months. A small piece of plastic with the word "Platinum" across the front.
It has been seven years since I've even used such a device. As the savings ran low, I realized I needed a new option. A good customer at the online bank, I filled out the forms, worried that they'd call to verify my employment status. But, with an excellent credit rating and solid history of payments at this very bank and a rather high reported income (accurate in January, not so much, now), I was approved in less than five minutes. For an amount equal to my take home for 5 months. Which with creative accounting, I can make last at least 6 or even 7.
So, I have that much time to find a job. And of course, if I use all of it, the proceeds from that new source of revenue will go largely to paying down the debt incurred (interest free until late next year).
My first purchase? A sandwich. For lunch. I have to eat and peanut butter and crackers and water is getting tiresome. The kind I used to eat at home for a snack 30 years ago.
But tomorrow, the bills get paid. None have been late, yet. I'm managing through use of savings and creative shifting of monies in various accounts.
But the trees keep on changing. And today I realized that soon, summer will be over, the flowers will fade, the scary decorations will be on the lawns, the leaves will turn yellow and brown and red and magic, and my lot will be the same and my time will be almost out.
Today, though, the trees are full. And a few months of brightness and life are ahead.
