This is not a thing I ever wanted to have to write.
I’ve rewritten this about twelve different ways in my head because I hate asking for help, and there isn’t really an easy way to explain how we got here. It wasn’t one huge catastrophic thing. Its basically been a series of unfortunate events where every new thing took away a little more breathing room until there just wasn’t any left.
About a year ago, I left a job after a long stretch of medical problems and being treated badly enough after an emergency surgery that staying there stopped being a reasonable option. Before that, I’d already seriously injured my knee, and that still limits the kind of work I can physically do. I can’t just go grab any job that requires me to stand or walk for eight hours and call it good without it being a bigger problem for Future Me.
I knew leaving was a risk.
I also thought I’d be able to find something else.
I have been trying. I’ve applied for jobs I’m qualified for, jobs adjacent to what I know how to do, jobs I could physically manage, jobs I honestly thought I had a decent shot at. I’ve reapplied places. I’ve interviewed. I’m still applying now.
And I keep getting rejected– story of everyone's lives, right?
We’ve already cut what there was to cut. I sold my truck so we could afford to file for bankruptcy, which also left us as a one-car household and made everything from job options to basic family logistics harder. And we still can't pull the trigger on filing just yet because we're behind. We’ve had to put a few things we genuinely needed onto what is essentially a loan because there just wasn’t cash for them.
There isn’t another subscription I can cancel and magically fix this. There isn’t some big luxury expense sitting around waiting to be eliminated.
There just isn’t enough money coming in.
Right now, about $6,000 would catch up our mortgage and keep it paid through the end of the year. We’re around $500 behind on water and $450 behind on gas. We need tags on our vehicles, and our daughter’s car needs a tune-up and the heat/AC situation fixed before winter.
Put together, we’re asking for $8,500.
That is an absolutely horrifying amount of money to type into a box.
But that money would catch us up. It would keep the house secure, bring the utilities current, take care of the car stuff we can’t keep putting off, and give me some actual breathing room to keep trying to find work instead of losing another inch of ground every week.
And this is the part I really hate– the asking, the putting it out there, the being honest about where we're at because you're not supposed to talk about politics, religion, or money. Very 80's concept, I know. I know the world's changed, too, but old habits die hard and there is no small amount of shame and embarrassment attached to this kind of transparency. And it’s funny, in a way, because I could tell anyone else in the same situation: don’t worry about it, I got you. Why are you ashamed? It happens to the best of us. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The only way out is through. We’re all just walking each other home. I got you.
I can’t extend that same grace to myself, I guess.
I grew up with something I call the five-dollar rule, except it was never actually about five dollars.
It’s more like this:
If there is a need in front of you and you can fill some part of it without putting your own people in jeopardy, you do it.
You don’t ask what they're going to spend the five dollars on. What were you going to spend it on that was so much more righteous, really? You don’t make somebody audition for food or gas or a coat or whatever else they need. Mercy and grace aren't contingent on Terms and Conditions. You don’t give because you think it earns you karma points or because the universe is going to pay you back later.
You help because you can.
And you don’t look in your neighbor’s bowl to see what they have. You look to see whether they have enough.
For a long time, I’ve been lucky enough to be the person who could say, “Yeah, sure. Lemme get it" no strings attached. Sure, it's burned me, it's put me in my own bind. But I'd rather live with the burn than "What if..."
Right now, I’m the neighbor whose bowl is low.
I know we are not special. I know everybody is getting kicked in the teeth by something right now. Jobs are bad. Prices are five feet high and rising. Everyone's hanging on by the skin of their teeth and getting by on a wing and a prayer as is.
None of that makes anybody else’s problems less real.
It also doesn’t make ours less real.
So I’m asking.
If you’ve got five dollars you can comfortably spare, thank you.
If you’ve got more and want to help, thank you.
If five dollars is your five dollars and you need it, keep it. Seriously.
If all you can do is share this somewhere it might reach somebody else, that helps too.
I’m not asking anyone to fix our whole life.
I’m trying to buy us enough solid ground to stand on while I keep working on the rest.
