I'm incredibly fortunate. I'm in a dual-income, no kids relationship, and both our careers are completely COVID proof. So, while so many others have been devolving into misery and poverty, we have deep and serious discussions like, "Should we buy a piano?"
But I grew up dirt poor. I have a lot of friends and family hit by this pandemic. I know what financial insecurity feels like. Just this week, a friend's job is about to go under due to lockdown. The owner has held on as long as she could. She's giving out. His hours were already trimmed to the bone, and he burned through a lot of his savings. He called me worried about rent, this or that. You could hear the panic in his voice. And I told him, "You're not ever going to be on the street. So I want that weight off your shoulders. Don't think about that." We have empty rooms. It's not a question.
But just that insecurity. I'm shuddering just thinking about it. I remember not eating for three, four days at a time because I was just trying to keep the lights on. Our social safety net just isn't what it should be. Our COVID relief has just not met any livable standard.
No one in my friends or family is going without on our watch. We bring food over to nieces and nephews twice a week so their single mom who's a nurse isn't worrying about any of that shit. I send my elderly mom things over Amazon, because I don't want her going to stores during the pandemic.
Some of us are fortunate. Many of us are not. My credo: If you can do something, you have to do something. My conscience is the closest thing to God I have, and at the end of the day, I have to answer to it.
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