It's A Giveaway!

My entry for DL Hammon's High Drama Giveaway is the first post on my blog which I just began creating yesterday at about 2pm at The Best of Blogging with River Lin.  Even though it's under construction, for the sake of High Drama, I've decided to jump right in and submit my post!



We were 2 weeks from homelessness. And did I mention unemployed? Fourteen days inside the all-time adventure of our lives: how many websites, telephone inquiries, job leads and inside connections could we navigate in the next 336 hours? This evening I put myself in the back of the boat. I was riding in the surreal tranquility found in the center of this raging storm. I was tempted to turn my gaze toward those tumultuous waves, splashing a wet appetite for despair trying to drown me, but I kept my focus straight ahead.

Sail on! I said to myself. I’ve no other choice but to ride the helm as my Sea Captain sliced into the biggest career change of his late-forties. Was there any kind of precursor to avoid this arduous adventure in unemployment? Because we did promise our daughter to keep her securely wedged into her academic environment. It was an expensive private academy, but oh so validating to her as a writer in the making, a teen who gets in your face asking questions and doesn’t accept an idea just because that’s the way it’s always been done. Camille is creating and learning to think; to figure out life in her own way, often at times on her own terms, facing her fears.

Tomorrow, my captain told me we should divide and conquer. He would continue his Wi-Fi infinite internet postings, promising paradise in employment and I was to inquire about a room at the homeless shelter.

Would I what?! How did we get here?! I moaned, brushing the tears aside as they gathered in a wet puddle on my lap. Even in our current circumstances I wanted to keep that promise to our Camille, but it’s impossible. I can’t climb that mountain in front of us; neither can I bore through it. But I felt pressed to communicate to my man, our captain, that it is exciting to ride the crest of his dream. And I am thrilled to squint through the spray of a crested wave, watching him drive his spear headlong into the unknown.

Did I say thrilled? Shut up! What were we thinking when we just loaded up the U-Haul with all our stuff, leaving Delaware because we were ‘let go’. I was down-sized and Joe wouldn’t give into the sexual advances of his Supervisor. We called it an opportunity to chase after our dreams!

Along the way, Camille begins to facebook her frustration about being on such an emotional rollercoaster. She finds friends whose parents are working through similar hardships of job loss and moving around the country to stay with family, making all kinds of changes in their lives, learning to find security in relationships and hope in the unknown.

“But in further meditation and prayer, she writes, I have come to believe that the past 8 months have been a test of faith. He is my father, and I admit I am biased, but my dad is definitely a warrior for God!”

Did she say warrior?! She seems to have a kind of intuitive understanding about suffering and fighting. I want to be hopeful and optimistic too! But the circumstances against us are so dismal and overwhelming that I find myself acquiescing to the defeated.

Ugh! Why is this happening? A small crack of light squeezes under the door of my despair. John did get a job at the shelter, so we bypassed living with the homeless, but we can’t afford a place of our own with his current stipend. Is this why we finished seminary and graduate school, I muse? Is this some kind of mission!? No! Its death and humiliation all rolled up in a mattress on the floor with no frame. We’re sharing a home with a divorcee who took a risk to let us into his life after he got burned by an ex-con. I’ve thought about living in a tent, but the rain is pretty wicked here in Texas. And I’m really not ready for that kind of drama!