I work 40+ hours a week. I made a deal with my boss to work 2nd shift Monday through Thursday for a bump in my pay but I needed Friday first shift so I can pick up my daughter (she lives with her mother, my ex-wife) for the weekend (I get her every weekend). This Friday after my shift I have a job interview for Saturday work driving a bus. It's only 5 to 7 hours every Saturday. I need to do this to make ends meet, to pay bills, I give my daughter more than I had growing up. I have a tattoo on my arm of a skull with the words “spend time with your kids while you can, no one ever said I wish I worked more”. Here I am trying to work more to provide. Giving up what little time I have with the only thing in this world that has stopped me from painting the walls red. I make good money at my full time job but I'm still drowning in bills and debt and I have nothing to show for it. My socks have holes, my boots are worn and my jeans are 5 years old. I go hungry most nights to save food for when I have my daughter so she has something. I've tried to apply for assistance and I was told flat out that because I'm a white male with a full time job and no dependents with a mental or physical illness I do not qualify for assistance. I am constantly worried I'll come home to an eviction notice, worried my car will be repossessed, worried my ex will withhold me seeing my daughter because I'm falling behind on child support because after I pay bills and buy groceries my bank account is in the negatives. How is this fucking living? I wake up every day feeling like I'm just trying to survive. Begging for the night. Not a morning comes or a night falls where I don't feel like an absolute failure. I've had people tell me “it'll get better” which is the equivalent to “thoughts and prayers” but when I ask them “when will it get better” there's no answer.
I will die working, I will work myself to death. I will die poor and they won't have to waste dirt because I'll be buried in debt. My legacy will be a stack of past due bills and the banks will have nothing to collect. Everything of what little I have will be six feet in the ground and none of it is worth a single cent.
Be good to yourself.
Love yourself.