Today is Monday, not just another Monday, but a Monday after a week at a new job, a new job that I thought would give me new hope, a job that I thought would bring me a way closer to keeping the family house, but it's not true.
A week before my mom died in 2021, we had a conversation. She asked me what I was gonna do after she was gone? I didn't really have an answer, because I spent most of my life taking care of people, my mother, my friends, and I never thought about myself, so when she asked me that question I told her I was gonna stay here because I don't have anywhere else to go. That's not true either, I do have somewhere to go. I just never thought about it, and so through these five years of up and down, no job, some job, whatever, and now I'm in foreclosure with a threat of losing a house and just being homeless, I have to really think about this matter and think about what I'm gonna do and move forward with it, because in these five years I've been back-and-forth whether I'm gonna keep the house, sell the house, and reality is that over the time that I've been waffling, things have been getting worse, now the house is in disrepair. On top of the fact that there's a mortgage that's still left, I have to be realistic in the fact that there's no miracle gonna come and save me. I'm not gonna get a magic bullet job. That's gonna save me from leaving this house. I got prepared for my future, don't know where it is. Thought it was right here in South Chicago, quantum coming to South Works site. Hey, I'm a tech. Why not be part of all of this? But for some reason, I'm sitting here in the dark in my living room.
I follow everybody. I try to be involved, but it's hard when you come home. I have to think about what you're gonna fix yourself to eat. How are you gonna be able to get around because you don't have a car and you barely have money for transportation, it's hard when the financial burden is on you to strive and be the best you can. I aspired to open up a tech shop with a nonprofit, to have one side be the repair and the other side to be the educational center. I still want that to happen. Will it happen here? I don't know. Will somebody else read this and say, wow, this is a great idea? I think I'll steal this from he's in no position to make this happen.
I now work part-time at the Hyatt Regency as a valet. It's part-time, but it's something. It's definitely not enough to change my fortunes. I'm still out hunting for a job. I worked about the entire week last week, this week I only had two days, so something has to give. I have to do something else, so right now I just have to work for me. A lot of the volunteer work that I'm doing is gonna have to take the side, because if I don't do something for myself soon, I'll be in no position to do anything for anybody. Technically I don't even have the time right now, but I always make time.
The job search over the last five years has been treacherous, being in the tech industry is a grueling thing. I don't know how many times I've applied for jobs and I would get no reply. Then I would apply to other jobs and get a response, an interview, then a second interview, then sorry, we picked somebody else. I've heard that so much, when I hear it I just sigh, just move on. But I keep pushing on, hoping that the one hiring manager that looks at my résumé understands that despite the fact that I ran my own MSP doesn't make me an overpriced employee, because I know that's what's happening. They're looking at me like, this guy ran his own company, this guy is asking for a support position that's paying extra amount of dollars, but he's worth more than the position. A hiring manager would rather hire this young guy who I can pay at that price than an older person who could ask for much more. The funny thing is I just want what's there, I don't even care about trying to get people for money, but whatever.
Better, cause I know people are like, wait, but you have a business? Yeah I do, pretty much a name only since about 2018, because when I stopped to take care of my mother and grandmother, I let everything go, so when I came back in 2021 after my mom passed it took me like a year or so to even get in the groove of trying to market and talk to people and get my name back out here as somebody that's in the space. I don't even think I was successful with doing it for the most part, but I did get a few people that I worked with, most locally, most people I've known. I want to go back into business. Yes, I think it's the easiest thing, but economically it doesn't work out, because the time that it takes for me to wrap the business up, to be able to live off of, takes too long. By the time I do all that I'll probably end up being homeless and then not having any real income, I'm gonna be shunned in the system. You have to generate something, you can't be somebody that's generating nothing and taking everything. It's the reason that these Republicans are out here trying to take away all this stuff, cause they feel like people are just taking and not giving and not doing. Hell, no one wants to sit out here and just, well I'll take that back, but most of us out here are not trying to just take and take and take and not do anything, not give anything, especially me, a person that has given most of his life to his friends and family.
You know I expected to be rewarded for that, but I realize when God rewards you, God rewards you in the way that you needed to be rewarded, not in the way you want to be rewarded. So I had to continue to work and I had to continue to have faith. It gets hard some days, like today, to wake up and know that I don't work again until Friday and all I got is about 40 something dollars left in spare money. And I'm sure I'm gonna end up finding a way that I have to spend that, I've already put my transportation money to the side, because I knew that if I didn't do that, I would end up having to pay some bill or part of some bill or something else, and I'll probably look around and have to ask my best friend of 30 years for transportation money again.
This definitely isn't something out here to put your heartstrings to give me stuff. I've never been that guy, but I realize that I can't be quiet either, because my quietness makes people think that everything is OK when it's not. It hasn't been OK in a long time for me, but I didn't wanna burden other people because you've already had your own burdens to deal with, so much, you weren't even gonna think about me, not like that, you pray for me, you hope that my life will be better, but that will probably be the extent of what I would get. I'm definitely not mad at that, prayer works. But kind of a way to do this is a really long way of telling you what's happening with me and how I'm feeling, and of course, right on time, my kitty Adora comes up and meows. And she comes to sit under me. She's been one of the best things I've had around. She wakes me up. She makes sure I get up. She comes and makes me feel better when I'm bad. You know, when she first got here, she used to sleep on the shelf with my mother's and grandmother's urns. So I believe that cats can speak to the spirit world, so I believe that they gave her some instructions to care about me, cause of course God works his ways through people in his animals. Last night I was at the Metra, and a pigeon walked up, looked at me, and sat down, and just calmly looked around as people walked past. It was amazing to see, because the bird never flinched once, it was like, here I am, I'm gonna come sit with you. I don't even know where to take this. I think I just wanted to say it.
But, in the end, this I really need to say: if you read all of this, thank you for your time, cause I know I wrote a novel in about 10 minutes of talking into this iPad. I will do it again. I'm gonna make sure I keep saying things, cause my voice needs to be heard
