Reality

So for the first time in my life, no, more like the second time in my life, the reality of the world around me has finally set it.


I know I haven't posted anything in awhile, but it's because everything I would have posted just made me sound like a silly little girl who is so wrapped up in her own problems. But now there are bigger problems at hand.


For a very long time now, more months than I can count. I think it's been over a year, the economy has pretty much been at rock bottom. None of that really hit me though. For me, it's sort of like the war going on in Iraq. We know about it, but we're so detached from it, so desensitized that when we hear about it, the graveness of the situation never really hits us. Until something happens to someone we know. Or until it effects a family we know.


The same goes for the economy. Every time I watch the news it just seems like everything is getting worse, but no one in my family ever really acts like it is. Sure, we talk about the fact that the economy is circling the drain, and we talk about the reforms Obama wants to make, etc., etc., but it's never really hit home. Well. Now it has.

My dad worked in the steel mills around Chicago from the time he got out of college until I was in fourth grade. Now, my dad is really smart. He went to IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) and received his degree in Chemical Engineering. At the time he graduated, the oil companies were going through hard times, and he could not find a job where his degree would be in great use. So he worked in steel mills.


We moved around a bit when I was really young. I lived the first three or so years of my life in Arkansas where my dad was working. Then we moved to Memphis for a summer, but before we could ever be permanently situated there, my dad realized that he couldn't stand his job and we moved back to our small home in Berwyn, IL. This was when I was in about first grade.


I was... 10, I think, on September 11, 2001. And my life really crumbled a bit. I was young, so I never truly realized how horrible the situation was, but looking back I realize how much worse it could have been. The steel industry was going through horrible set backs. No one was buying any, no one was producing any. My dad lost his job. He wasn't unemployed for very long. He ended up finding a job where he worked in Mexico at a plant supervising for about six weeks or so. He went down there twice, and then he found a job as a plant manager for a grease company soon after that. Then the economy went up, and everything seemed to be alright.


I don't remember why, but a little more than a year ago, my dad switched jobs within the company. He was now selling the grease he once produced to steel mills. And I thought everything was going fine. My dad had never been a salesman in his life, but he had connections in the steel mills, so it sort of worked out for him. Everything seemed to be going fine. But then of course, when is anything ever as it seems.


This morning my dad came home from a meeting with his boss and his boss' boss. He has been layed off. Due to cut backs in the company.


Part of me knew this was coming. I am part of a family, both immediate and extended, where eavesdropping is a big thing. Everyone does it. Everyone knows everyone else's business regardless of whether it is said through a loud speaker or whispered into an ear.

This will be a hard, hard time. But then again, I suppose that's what reality is: the cold, hard truth. If we can make our way through it to the other side, then we will be stronger people who try to change the reality they live in and shape it to the reality they want it to be.

Author's note:
This was written like three weeks ago, but never published. I am publishing it now, regardless of how I think people will respond. I'm going to take a chance in letting people know, for once, what's going on in my life. Since this was written, my dad has had several interviews, and everything looks hopeful. But then again, it has only been three weeks.