How Do People Afford to Live?
It’s a Tuesday evening in mid March, the sun is beginning to set over the suburban houses that sit neatly row by row in the small town I grew up in. We’re driving to Metro, its 7:15pm and Mark has just gotten home after a two hr commute from Toronto, we sit in silence parked before he breaks it with a question that daunts us daily, “how do people afford to live?”
You see we dont live in Orangeville, although we wish we did and this is truly painful to talk about because truth is, without help, I have no clue.
We cant afford to live anywhere right now, we thought house sitting my friends place in Orangeville for a few months would help us, but it has only made things harder for us. I lost my job in December which has finacially burdoned us immensly. I am in a legal battle over that job loss, making job hunting almost impossible for me. I have come to the conclusion I have to leave my industry which I paid 13K to go back to school to be in, as no one will not hire me based on my inability to discuss most of the last year of my work life. We are surrounded by people our age or younger who have so much more than us and it’s a reality check the city did not provide and has me battling depression daily.
Our lives have been anything but normal, when our friends were getting ready for college, supported by their family…we were in hospitals, fighting for ours. Now its important to know Mark and I never met until 2022, but our lives have been in parallel with each other unitl we did. When I met Mark on our first date, he was the only person that has ever made me feel normal … wanted even. My painful story did not scare him and he did not use me because of how insecure it’s left me. You see Mark lost his Dad at 19 and my Mom suffered an Aneurysm when I was 21. The following years were just filled with needing them but no longer having them. We spent our 20’s just trying to understand what the hell life was, Mark without his Dad and me with a very sick mother who no longer had the ability to look after me and run our house. The confidence you have in your 20s comes from the foundation of your family and freinds, for myself I lost both and Mark im sure it felt the same. We had no foundation and no one to help us build it again. No one we know really understands what it is like to have no one and I mean NO ONE in your corner to help you when life happens, and your soul goes dark. In fact I was mored judged, walk away from and left by most of my friends and family members. I was still just a kid and I needed an adult to help me, I needed a friend to spend time with me when I wasnt fun to be around and I needed GRACE. I wish my aunts, friends and others understood that more. All I needed was love and for somebody to tell me I was still me and was going to be ok without my mom the way I had only ever known her to be. I needed someone to love me despite how broken I felt and acted.
I can say for both of us, our 20s were pure survival. I wasnt worried about saving money, or planning for the future… I was just trying to get through the day without hurting myself in hopes one day I would wake up and feel happy again. This way of life allows you to be used by people and we were. We let ppl in our lives that left us empty after already feeling defeated. We have both been in incredibly controlling relationships that have only hurt us in time despite what we thought they did for us when we chose them. At the age of 35 and 36, we finally found each other and we finally feel confident enough to actually show the world we exist, are proactive and worthy. However, after all that work to survive, the world doesn’t seem to care. The world see’s holes where it should see potential, the world see’s liability instead of worth and the world shows no mercy to those that deserve it the most.
So as we sat there thinking about how much we have overcome, done, tried, continue to try and genuine kindness we give… hoping it is enough, I came to a conclusion. People afford to live because they have help financially, emotionally, mentally and/or they were set up for success by ppl that love them.
I dont know whats in store for us, I don’t know how to afford a house, I don’t know how to afford the minute things necessary to be successful and not struggle. I just don’t know anymore and I really need to figure it out.
All i’ve ever wanted in my life was to be a mom who provides a safe and nurtured home for her husband and children. I want to teach my children about the science of nature and emotional intelligence, I want to help them take on the world so they never have to feel like I have.
I dont know if my life will give me the one thing I dream of, a house with a family, In fact, the more time passes the harder I find that dream to hold. My heart breaks thinking I have no way to attain it no matter my efforts and attempts to be better. I feel like mark and I are just watching the life we desperately want and worked for just disappear into a fog that we spent all our lives escaping.
I don’t know how to live anymore in this economic climate, all I hope is we don’t give up because we are all we have to figure this out and life’s not getting any longer.
#reflections
