Down But Not Out

‘My presents from my family members will be things to help me in any way get a new job’

This Christmas will be worse for my family than it was last year. My parents and I are unable to buy presents for any family members. If we’re lucky, maybe we could at least buy them some of those chocolate-covered cherry candies. My presents from my extended family members will be things to help me in any way get a new job, such as how two of my aunts are buying me a new pair of glasses. I don’t have any children because I’m single, and for that I’m glad. I severely doubt I could look into my children’s faces and tell them that their Christmas will be a small one because of how poor I am.

The holidays have become just another day trying to survive with as little as possible. There’s no point in celebrating. Days blur together into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. I don’t expect any major changes from my hometown. It is a dying small town, one that reeks of incompetence and an unexplained hatred of new technology. It is living too far in the past, and it’s sunk too far down for anyone to throw it a rope to save it.

Of course I’ve had to focus less on consumerism. I have no unemployment checks, and my only source of money is from food stamps. I’m forced to buy only what my parents and me need the most. If that means living a week on tuna sandwiches, then so be it. While putting off those big purchases come with the territory, it obviously wears down on your soul. You feel as if you’re lagging behind everyone else, even when you’re all in the same position.

My resolutions for 2012 are the same they were for 2011. To find a new job as soon as possible. To find a new job that I actually enjoy working. To find a new job where I’m not mentally and physically beaten down for pointing out what is wrong within the company. To find a new job where my bosses aren’t kissing each other’s butts and ignoring any major problems I point out to them. To find a new job which lets me escape the trap of “I need experience for jobs but how do they expect me to gain it when I can’t get a job?” To find a new job so I can finally escape my hometown’s void of nothingness, and possibly even move to a new state where it is not afraid of change or the future.

America needs jobs and it needs jobs now. However, I do not expect any politicians to take the American public seriously anymore. Their careers come first to them, and if it means declining a city’s effort to bring in new jobs then that’s what they will do. The divide between the rich and the middle class along with the poor will only grow further apart. The old American motto is sticking together to help your fellow American through tough times is long dead. Now it’s become fend for yourself because very few people will be considerate enough to help you. Wake me up when this nightmare ends.

Andrew Gardner; Tullahoma, TN