Final Nail

I said this before and now I'm feeling it again. No matter how much one prepares psychologically and rationally for a layoff, the actuality of it happening gives you one gut-sucking punch. Late this evening, my husband received an email calling him in for what we believe is his final blow tomorrow. No amount of karma or prayer saved us from this one. No one wants to be in a situation where both wage earners are laid off. Economic lightening should not strike the same household twice so it seems. After all, we have paid a lot of dues and are still paying.

My mom says "the lord is good" because we appear to be positioned for survival. So thank you lord for giving us the foresight to aggressively pay down our business debt, large though it still may be; the will to save the requisite 6-9 months emergency fund; and the fortitude to not shop nor truly enjoy our wealth during the boom times when we supposedly had it. Thank you for forcing us to live below our means so that we are positioned to survive this crisis. Thank you for giving me, then taking away my dream job because the short period of time helped us to make a dent in the debt. Thank you for letting my husband lose his job so that we can drain whatever savings we have and continue to struggle for countless years more. After all, we don't work on Wall street so we really shouldn't expect our earnings to return to peak levels even though theirs will thanks to us lowly taxpayers.

On behalf of the 5,000,000 people who have lost their jobs during this recession, who have been ripped off by the Madoffs of the world, whose savings are slim and whose retirements are all but a wish unless you get a union pension, whose houses are underwater and whose future is bleak, we thank you for teaching us how to make lemonade out of lemons. I'm sure ready to have a nice tall glass of our current predicament right about now.