It’s 4am and I’m crying, so please forgive any spelling/grammar errors. I just got booted from the Walmart parking lot. My one last safe haven.
My husband and I live in a really small town and work as nurses aides for an agency company. The highest paying jobs in our town only pay about $13, to do incredibly physically and mentally demanding work. We take care of elderly people, people with disabilities, and people in or recently out of the hospital. We are constantly picking people up, changing diapers, getting yelled at, getting hit, and dealing with the reality that most of the people we care for do not get visited by anyone else besides us, so most of them rely on us to be there for them emotionally.
It is an incredibly demanding job, and we are ALWAYS understaffed. Even with both of us working full time and having no kids, we live paycheck to paycheck and often have to make choices between gas and food. We decided to take an agency job in the nearest big city which is about two hours away. We only have one vehicle, a truck, and with gas going up it’s often around $70 to fill up, which we must do each trip to the city and back.
In order to avoid filling up every day, and also the wear and tear on the truck, we usually sleep in the truck and work 12-16 hour shifts for two or three days at a time. We just got ousted from the Walmart parking lot and not only am I upset, I’m also confused. My husband and I are working so much and yet we barely make enough to pay all the bills at the end of the month. We don’t even have running water or electricity, we live in a portable shed on some land in the middle of nowhere.
I’m confused because I feel like something isn’t adding up. How is everyone else fucking making it?? I see people just walking around and acting like nothing is wrong. Some of my coworkers talk about their kids and their houses and it literally doesn’t compute. I’m lucky that I’m a good gardener and a good forager or I don’t think we would have enough to eat. I can’t imagine that people making the same amount I do are able to take care of their kids and pay the bills at the same time.
I’m pretty sure I just needed to vent, even just typing this made me feel a little bit better. But I’m still at a loss. How are y’all just still going???