Confessions of a PF Blogger: Powerless

Another day, another installment of CoPFB! In the last post, I shared how I ended up becoming homeless after having no way to pay my rent. While I still remember that day vividly as if it had been yesterday, I've since lost most memory of the haze that was the following two weeks after.

Sure, I remember packing up my car with whatever belongs I could fit in it. I remember pushing my couch out onto the front landing of the apartment building with a sign on it that said, "Free to a good home." Most importantly, I remember the feeling of being lost as I wondered where in the world I could live given none of my family even lived in the state where I was at the time and my friends had struggles of their own.

As I drove, for the last time, down the beautiful, tree-lined mountain pass that had carried me to/from my apartment so many times before, I was numb to all emotion. While I had cried my eyes out mere days ago, on this day I had nothing left. The frustration, sadness, overwhelm, stress, and anger of the past month had finally taken their toll on me: I was drained and at the end of my rope. If this was what the phrase 'Rock Bottom' referred to, then I certainly was there.

Miraculously, something clicked in my brain that spawned a spark that would eventually ignite the fire to allow me to get where I am today, financially speaking. I needed a job, and I needed a job yesterday. So I parked my car in the local grocery store lot, walked down Main Street, and applied at every place I noticed a 'Help Wanted' sign in the window. Within 2 days, I had secured part-time employment at a gift shop and a coffee house.

While I'll forever be grateful for these opportunities as they allowed me to crawl out of the financial abyss I had landed in, I can't discount how humbling an experience it was. There I was, an honors scholar who'd graduated college with a dual degree in International Business and Marketing, a person who'd previously held a job making over $65K/year right out of school, working behind a cash register (and praying for tips from the tourists who were buying their $6 coffees so that I could scrape enough money together to figure out the next chapter of my life).

Never one to be too proud, I had accepted my fate and I knew that my past choices were the reason I was even in this position. In a nutshell, I had finally accepted that I was financially powerless.....

(And in case you're wondering, I spent too many sleepless nights living out of my car before a friend was able to take me in temporarily. During that time, I convinced another friend to smuggle me into the local gym so I could shower, I eagerly took any leftovers from the coffee shop for my meals, and I spent my free time at the local Internet cafe where a friend worked and would let me use the computers there for free as I networked and began to figure out my next steps.)


This post is part of my Confessions of a PF Blogger series.  Other posts include:

• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  The Series 
• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  No Happy Meal for You 
• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  $0.25 per Quart 
• Confessions of a PF Blogger: 16 Candles 
• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  $5,500 in Cash
• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  A Slow Slide into Credit Card Debt Hell
• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  $1 to My Name 
• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  Homeless 
• Confessions of a PF Blogger: Powerless