EDD Check: $250 per week ($0 left in award balance)
I'm not poor, nor have I ever been. I've lived on couches and felt the burning pain of hunger, but those were by choice, and I always had the resources and power to end those situations. What I can't control is the lack of self-worth I've felt collecting unemployment. You may think it's wonderful to be home all day, doing whatever you like, but you're limited by the sparse income and sudden lack of energy brought on by depression. Your life loses structure.
In these hard economic times, it's no surprise that in my new home of Tuscaloosa, AL, a small college town of 78,000 residents, the suicide rate reached a new record last year––31 dead––and is set to eclipse it this year (20 already dead by July, 31) . While people choose to cash out on life for different reasons, this article in the Tuscaloosa News quotes Dr. Beverly Thorn, the chair of the University of Alabama's psychology department, as saying that "hard economic times could be at the root of some of the cases." Four times as many men in this town committed suicide this year than women, most often by a gunshot wound. The article opens with a man in his thirties shooting himself in the head in his home and being discovered by his parents, but never talks about his economic situation.
While I assume the higher suicide rate among men in hard economic times is due to the loss of one's ability and social/instinctual need to provide, that cannot be proven. And since only seven of the twenty suicides this year left notes, and the article doesn't disclose the contents of those notes, we may never know how poverty or a loss of employment directly correlates to suicide. By reading Urdo Grashoff's strange collection of German suicide notes, called Let Me Finish, I've learned that lost love can be just as responsible as lost wages for suicide and general economic standing doesn't determine the likelihood of suicide. Rich people kill themselves as often as poor people.
What I've also discovered by moving to Tuscaloosa sans personal transportation is that living in a city designed for automobiles can prove unmanageable for those who cannot afford a car. I've only been here less than a week, but riding my bike in 100 degree heat across town (20 minutes each way) to buy needed supplies at Target, such as a pot in which to cook oats and rice, can make anyone feel suicidal. One must rely on the kindness of strangers or new friends with cars in order to survive. At least I have that option. I can also afford a car, so I feel sorry for those who can't. They must feel trapped in their homes.
As you can tell, I'm struggling to find a new angle on poverty here to write about, but that's not the point (suggestions are welcome, though). For me, the point of this "experiment" has been to highlight the plight of the poor in our country and to develop a culture of volunteerism in my own life, which has sadly been lacking until this point. As soon as I get settled and my classes are humming along, I shall begin finding ways to volunteer and continue writing about the poor. Stay tuned . . .
In the meantime, here is some Gil Scott-Heron singing about my life:
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