A depressing post for a rainy day

With the onset of rain, everyone’s energy around here has bottomed out. There is sniping, there is growling and there is whining.

And that’s just the humans. The dogs know better. They hunker down and sleep.For the birds, it’s business as usual. “Oh, is it raining? Huh. Let’s eat.” Except for the Bubba the Blue Jay, who has decided he would rather be hungry than soggy. At least we don’t have to refill the birdbath today.

Today is our final bankruptcy hearing. The worst is already behind us, our lawyer says. The hearing is only a formality finalizing everything. Five or ten minutes, he says, and it will be over.

Not really, though, because The Authorities were never the cause for my guilt in the first place. Oh, yeah, it’s been embarrassing for people to find out about; but that’s minor and, as the economy gets worse, people are starting to understand a little better, especially when the recession hits their own part of the economy. At first it was the subprime mortgagees who burst the housing bubble; then it was the people, like us, directly involved in the housing market; then it was the businesses incendiary to the building trade. Who is next, I wonder?

No, my demon has always been myself. I can truly look back and note what decisions led to this; but, honestly, they weren’t major decisions at the time. We had planned for an end to the glory days of the housing boom. We hadn’t planned on total, unprecedented ongoing annihilation of our market. Considering we made decisions based on our knowledge at the time and it led to disaster, how can I trust any decision I make now?

I say this by way of explaining why, when you come up to me with, say, what you think is an obvious solution to my problem, I am reticent to act. It may seem obvious to you and it’s probably obvious to me. But if it requires a decision on my part, I’m too gun-shy right now to make it.

Ironically, the time my self-esteem is at its lowest is concurrent with having to “sell” myself in the job market. I swear employers can smell desperation in my resume.

So, while I know our lawyer (who is, by the way, a very kind person) will tell us after the hearing that we can start “rebuilding our lives,” it’s like telling me to build the Taj Mahal with a kitchen spoon as my only tool.

And here's another thing I want to know: The news is full of how millions of people have lost their homes and are declaring bankruptcy. Where are they? Where have they gone? Where is their voice? Are we all just too cowed by the judgmental boors who toss us aside as ignorant materialistic trash who liked to play without paying their bills?

Or, I wonder, is the media afraid to give us voice because that voice will sound too familiar; too much like their neighbor or their cousin or themselves?