A Button On My Neck

So, we endure and wait for things to get better

Working overnights in sub-zero temperatures has not been easy. Crossing my fingers and hoping to get to the end of the week before seeing the words “insufficient funds” has not been easy. Living with another person in a one room studio has not been easy. This winter has sucked. Bad. The fact that I have not been very impressive to my new employer has not been easy, either. Going without therapy because of finances has made it all a little worse.

So, when you take all of those variables and then add one more–that being a notice from the IRS that your refund is taking longer to process because it needs to be gone over a little more stringently–you can probably imagine what that might do to a person. From the outside, it might appear to people as mysterious how one notice from the IRS could send a person into abject despair, but that’s just because most people only see the tip of the iceberg and not the mountain underneath the surface.

Now with regard to suicidal ideation, like most people, I have a kind of lazy way of dealing with it. In other words, if there was just an on/off switch on my neck, I might have pressed it hundreds of times by now. I’m fairly certain that’s why humans don’t have an on/off switch on their neck. I think most people who live in squalid conditions feel that way. The only thing we have to thank for our continuance is how violent the act of suicide usually has to be. We’re utterly miserable but not ready to agree to that kind of commitment.

So, we endure and wait for things to get better. Which they did. The thing is, when that refund arrived, our one room studio did not become a Disney technicolor wonderland, nor did we dance a jig. Our marriage had suffered some substantial damage by then and it was in bad need of repair. I was suggesting that we take a little time apart and Julie had mentioned that when this happened last winter, she knew we’d be okay because she really missed me. She went on to say that she was interested to see if she’d miss me again.

The younger me would’ve been thrilled about the prospect of having a pocketful of money and no supervision for a week or two. I believe I have changed because I found myself texting words to her that I don’t think I have ever typed to anyone in my life:

I don’t want you to go.

It was only then that our marriage began to repair itself. We cuddled for a while and I asked her if she wanted to go to our special restaurant. The place we used to go when I was still at Tesla making a living wage. She agreed.

It was magnificent. We had these Street Corn Carrots (essentially carrots prepared like Mexican street corn) and I had Bangers and Mash and Julie had Scallops over Risotto. When we got back home, we cuddled again and listened to audiobooks and talked out what we had just gone through over the past month. We admitted things to each other that helped us grow. Kind of like muscles when you work out–how they tear, repair themselves and come back stronger.

That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.

It was our night time trip to Shoprite that finally delivered us to a place of fun, celebration, and love. Believe it or not (and if you’re in the same boat financially I know you believe) the ability to go to the supermarket and pick out anything our little hearts desired was incredibly freeing. We hadn’t had that kind of freedom all year. And I’m not talking about devil dogs and hamburgers, either.

I’m talking about corn meal and gluten-free Bisquik and sheep milk ricotta and cannolis and a chunk of pancetta and fruits and vegetables. Between the two of us, we cover every food allergy known to man. So a lot of those things, as strange as they sound, brought us great joy.

But it wasn’t just what we bought, it was how much of it we bought. For the first time in too long, our refrigerator and cupboards were bursting with abundance. We went to bed feeling secure and safe and like we had enough to survive.

It’s sad to say, but that’s where we are in this country. I know for a fact that I am not the only one. Food security and the ability to pay for another month of shelter is the pinnacle of joy. It feels like victory.

So, for anyone who comes along and wants to study sociology, my personal essay is the result of wealth being distributed in ways that would embarrass the residents of Versailles before The French Revolution. A revolution, by the way, that was started by one of the last groups of “undistracted” people in world history.

Now, armed with iPhones, we’ve become a race of people who are still here only because they don’t have a button on their neck.

And that’s no small thing. The reward for pushing through is a day like Julie and I had yesterday. Beautiful and hard earned.