Riding the CTA provides endless snapshots of perseverance. The man whose cuffs are threadbare, but he's still in a suit. The woman who got up, provided she slept, to take a train downtown and work minimum wage. You can remain numb to these things, blissfully unaware, for only so long and from only so far away. But I'm at the epicenter of white collar and dire. It's a strange precipice.
And I'm standing on it myself.
So many cliches come to mind in these circumstances. "I never thought it would happen to me." "At least we have each other." "No matter what, someone always has it worse." It's true. I feel humble, and somewhat at the mercy of the world. Not hopeless, but hopeful of what the conditions we are now in (one meager income) will provide in terms of opportunity.
I am not caught up in the struggle; the anxiety. I don't know how this could have been different. I am marveling at the spirit I seem to have that I didn't know was present. I feel connected to others and mostly my husband, who has emerged as a feeling and struggling individual with dreams that may just be realized.
"You just have to suck it up and make it through."
"You're going to get through this. Just a big grieving period ahead of you."
I know that many are thinking, "Phew, I'm glad that's not me." I might be overthinking, but that's how it feels. You become self-conscious when you become unemployed; become poor.
But the gentleman with frayed cuffs and a fedora is on a whole other level than me; than you. He knows the pain of poverty for sure, but you sense a richness rising off of him. That he must be someone special to be up and moving with the rest of us even with hurdles aplenty.
I am listening now.
