As I walked out to my car, arms loaded down with my office paraphernalia, I suddenly remembered what one of my co-workers had said one day, many years back , over coffee, “You know, most of us are only 1-2 paychecks away from needing the support services we are providing our clients today.”
That day I felt a chill go up my spine. Could it be that precarious? Could I find myself in such disastrous circumstances? What would I do? I remember doing a quick mental check of my bank account, bills and such. I indeed could find myself there, but I didn’t think it would happen to me.
On this day, after sitting through the, “We have failed you, you haven’t failed us, but the reality is we are going to have to let you go” speech, I was remembering that long ago conversation. I was indeed going to have that opportunity to find out if I was one or two paychecks from being homeless
It’s not like I hadn’t been fired before. I had. From a waitress job that I took to help get my daughter through college. It happened like this. I wasn’t scheduled to work New Years so when I didn’t go in the owner called to ask where I was. I responded that I was at home. She said I should have come in like everyone else. I said I didn’t know that, I wasn’t scheduled and I wasn’t coming in I had family obligations planned. She said I didn’t need to ever come back in. She kept my tips from a previous evening when I had worked and the dinner party had paid a check for the whole thing and she was suppose to give me the tip. She didn’t.
I had felt weird about getting fired, but the waitress job was a second job anyway. I just tightened the old belt, made the college loan payments and went about my business. Only now I had no business. In fact when I woke up that next day I had no place to be for the first time ever that I could remember. For the first week I fought the depression on a daily basis. Day time was fine, nights were almost impossible. I wanted to sleep but I couldn’t. Oh, I fell asleep alright. Slept for about two or three hours then woke up with my heart pounding and my body bathed in sweat. I knew I had to get a grip or I wasn’t going to weather this thing at all well.