To say 2016 was a bad year for my family unit would be an understatement. It completely took me off course for goals, made me very discontent, and also made me question why I am who I am. Religious people will often use the words "refining" or "making a great testimony". I prefer the concept that it burned up the good and bad in me, and I'm left trying to figure out what is left.
This is also why I haven't posted in a long time. Here I was having a blog saying how nice it is not to feel the need of participating in the rat race while I am losing everything and questioning my sanity. If I was more humble I'd have documented every moment of it, but that isn't the case.
To go back in debt is like going back to an abusive girlfriend. She regularly takes from you every month and doesn't care that you don't like that. I'm sure financial people would yell terrible sentences at hearing we went back into debt, but the choices were limited. How many people lose everything they own, a place to live, and their only car in just a few months, oh and almost die? Something had to give and our emergency fund was only set up for 1 or two of those things to happen at once, not all 4!
Family and coworkers were what made us not slip through the cracks, we could have easily become the family on the street corner living off a gym membership to keep the hygiene and going to a motel when possible. One coworker in particular let me live with him for months until we were back on our feet. I don't know what we would have done without him (remember, we had 0-1 cars during this process).
Theologically, I am having a hard time compartmentalizing why all of this happened. I thought I was doing okay in avoiding greed. I had more time for my family back then and was much less stressed (abusive girlfriend debt! She stressed me out man!). We've also had to deal with the joy of people helping us by donations, and the grief of trying to forget all the items that are gone while we quietly replace them without going into more debt. Also, I've never been one to look at what others have and become angry, but that is another good that was burned up in this process. Why do regular people not go through Job like fire? Sure the 1 arm, 1 leg veteran with 1 kidney and no job is shaking his head at that question from me, but from my vantage point, what underlying cause made our family have to go though this? I'll probably never know and just want to forget it ever happened.
You can only stay in the "poor me" zone for so long before that becomes you. I don't want to become the resident bitcher. You know, the guy who is the opposite of Dilbert's topper who bitches about everything. You talk about how you got a raise, and the bitcher talks about how he hates his job, and debt is a nasty girlfriend.
Who did this to us? That dives into legal stuff, which I can't do on a public space. If you want that kind of information, feel free to talk with me in person.
For the 1 reader out there, thanks for reading this. This is definitely written for you, cause who else is out there? Have a great week.
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