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weirdletI keep getting ambushed by new student loans coming due. This is really irritating, especially as I need to take steps to defer or forbear each time. I must also pay the actual balance I owe my school from the past semester when I found out I'd been told I'd paid up, then told I hadn't because I had put in the paperwork for a student loan, which I had run up against the limit for. (Credit card, too, which was mostly (or at least half) run up taking care of bills for the family that I haven't seen a return on.)
Yes, I understand that I must pay back the money. Yes, I understand I must do so even if I did not finish my education, or was not satisfied with it (both apply). Yes, I understand I must do so even though I quit because I couldn't afford to go on- which doesn't make a strong case for being able to pony up afterward, does it?
I just- just- got a job. It's as an associate at Panera. It's high-end fast food restaurant work. I know this is the plight of many a college-age person, but- as with me- it must hit home with each individual with just as much devastating force that despite the work, stress and above all money, both personal and borrowed against the future- we are still nearly-useless, unemployable, and utterly fucked when it comes to even finding out what your dreams were, much less having a chance at accomplishing them in anything like a direct and official manner. We come out of it owing half our income to the school that made us what we are, and will do so well past the point when we remember anything we learned there.
I try to keep a positive attitude. I've wanted to get into something and work honestly with my hands, and this is honest work, something that should never be sneered at. It's still not entirely what I wanted- what I was told I should expect after a college education. Lord knows I'm privileged- but privilege does not solve all your problems, it just leaves you with a bigger gap between what you were told you should, could want, and what reality slaps you with.
Damnit.
At least I got to keep my gaming-Saturdays. And if I keep up with this, I can probably move up to higher-end work (or just support my art-habit on the side), until and unless such times as I find my dream job. Not disciplined or productive enough to be a professional writer or artist, not consistent enough or qualified enough to be an ideas-man to a gaming company, not enough experience, popularity or productivity to be hired for making costumes or comissions.... well, if I ever figure out what my dream job is and how to actually be worthy of it.
My mother makes too much money for us to get much help, but it's immediately eaten up by bills to the point where I struggle to string along the grocery-and-medicine budget week to week. The house is less valuable because we can't keep up with it, but still a white elephant in terms of taxes and utilities versus rent coming in. Mom's told me that it's likely we'll need to move in the next six months, sell the house, pay off the family debts and settle into an apartment or something where we'll be much more comfortable living on what she brings home. Dad, of course, has vowed to be moved from this place at the cost of lives and bloodshed, so we're hoping to have him hear 'we need to sell' from the ombudsman (and what does that word mean?) and come to that conclusion himself. Before I have to stand between him and innocent bystanders- and I swear to God I will if I have to. I love that man, but he can be very thoughtlessly selfish even under the guise of doing what he feels is right for us. There's some things in this world worth planting your feet and standing your ground to the point of giving your life for- this isn't it.
I can kind of half-hear this contemptuous sneer in my head, clearly we were trying to live above our means/our station/our lot in life. But it wasn't above us, for the longest time. This was our house. Our land. Our garden, where my sister's stone with her ashes is parked, where our birthday trees have grown for more than twenty years. It wasn't us trying to be above ourselves- it was everything pressing down on us until we were below what we were originally supposed to be, if you judge social worth by income.
I'm very unhappy about all of this. I'd meant to have a great start in life, to not be bogged down in debt like my parents have been. And yet, because I am so intertwined with their fortunes and allowed myself to be so dependent upon them- I am. My wings are mired and oily, my potential earnings, body and soul, already promised away to half a dozen different creditors long before I've even had a chance to earn them. Much less get a goddamn decent wardrobe with them.
And yet- there is the promise of more availability, if we simply- give up the house I grew up in, that my father wants to stay in, that hosts our Greenman Garden, that we've put tremendous amounts of money into for improvements, for gargoyles, for whimsy (even if that gazebo on the roof was poorly planned- Dad was on heavy pain meds at that point)- even for going green (we've got solar panels that take care of our hot water). On the one hand, I don't want to give that up, nor find that I truly, deeply regret leaving once it's too late to come back, and I know I will.
On the other hand, I feel guilty for not feeling guilty about wanting to have a decent, affordable life and dumping this rotten old money-sink. We tried doing the home-owner thing- we did it for 25 years. Now let's try doing the above-the-poverty-line thing, even without one of the traditional status-markers of being Someone, ie: land-owners. We can put our unique stamps on someplace else, work up to buying another place another time- once that's going to be very carefully looked over for green-ness and likelyhood of not being a drain but an asset. We can even build a proper tower there, with rocks and all. And an elevator. Eventually.
Yes, I understand that I must pay back the money. Yes, I understand I must do so even if I did not finish my education, or was not satisfied with it (both apply). Yes, I understand I must do so even though I quit because I couldn't afford to go on- which doesn't make a strong case for being able to pony up afterward, does it?
I just- just- got a job. It's as an associate at Panera. It's high-end fast food restaurant work. I know this is the plight of many a college-age person, but- as with me- it must hit home with each individual with just as much devastating force that despite the work, stress and above all money, both personal and borrowed against the future- we are still nearly-useless, unemployable, and utterly fucked when it comes to even finding out what your dreams were, much less having a chance at accomplishing them in anything like a direct and official manner. We come out of it owing half our income to the school that made us what we are, and will do so well past the point when we remember anything we learned there.
I try to keep a positive attitude. I've wanted to get into something and work honestly with my hands, and this is honest work, something that should never be sneered at. It's still not entirely what I wanted- what I was told I should expect after a college education. Lord knows I'm privileged- but privilege does not solve all your problems, it just leaves you with a bigger gap between what you were told you should, could want, and what reality slaps you with.
Damnit.
At least I got to keep my gaming-Saturdays. And if I keep up with this, I can probably move up to higher-end work (or just support my art-habit on the side), until and unless such times as I find my dream job. Not disciplined or productive enough to be a professional writer or artist, not consistent enough or qualified enough to be an ideas-man to a gaming company, not enough experience, popularity or productivity to be hired for making costumes or comissions.... well, if I ever figure out what my dream job is and how to actually be worthy of it.
My mother makes too much money for us to get much help, but it's immediately eaten up by bills to the point where I struggle to string along the grocery-and-medicine budget week to week. The house is less valuable because we can't keep up with it, but still a white elephant in terms of taxes and utilities versus rent coming in. Mom's told me that it's likely we'll need to move in the next six months, sell the house, pay off the family debts and settle into an apartment or something where we'll be much more comfortable living on what she brings home. Dad, of course, has vowed to be moved from this place at the cost of lives and bloodshed, so we're hoping to have him hear 'we need to sell' from the ombudsman (and what does that word mean?) and come to that conclusion himself. Before I have to stand between him and innocent bystanders- and I swear to God I will if I have to. I love that man, but he can be very thoughtlessly selfish even under the guise of doing what he feels is right for us. There's some things in this world worth planting your feet and standing your ground to the point of giving your life for- this isn't it.
I can kind of half-hear this contemptuous sneer in my head, clearly we were trying to live above our means/our station/our lot in life. But it wasn't above us, for the longest time. This was our house. Our land. Our garden, where my sister's stone with her ashes is parked, where our birthday trees have grown for more than twenty years. It wasn't us trying to be above ourselves- it was everything pressing down on us until we were below what we were originally supposed to be, if you judge social worth by income.
I'm very unhappy about all of this. I'd meant to have a great start in life, to not be bogged down in debt like my parents have been. And yet, because I am so intertwined with their fortunes and allowed myself to be so dependent upon them- I am. My wings are mired and oily, my potential earnings, body and soul, already promised away to half a dozen different creditors long before I've even had a chance to earn them. Much less get a goddamn decent wardrobe with them.
And yet- there is the promise of more availability, if we simply- give up the house I grew up in, that my father wants to stay in, that hosts our Greenman Garden, that we've put tremendous amounts of money into for improvements, for gargoyles, for whimsy (even if that gazebo on the roof was poorly planned- Dad was on heavy pain meds at that point)- even for going green (we've got solar panels that take care of our hot water). On the one hand, I don't want to give that up, nor find that I truly, deeply regret leaving once it's too late to come back, and I know I will.
On the other hand, I feel guilty for not feeling guilty about wanting to have a decent, affordable life and dumping this rotten old money-sink. We tried doing the home-owner thing- we did it for 25 years. Now let's try doing the above-the-poverty-line thing, even without one of the traditional status-markers of being Someone, ie: land-owners. We can put our unique stamps on someplace else, work up to buying another place another time- once that's going to be very carefully looked over for green-ness and likelyhood of not being a drain but an asset. We can even build a proper tower there, with rocks and all. And an elevator. Eventually.
