Artifact- Journal entry
As a mother of 6 kids and working prn as a nurse. I was part of the “in” crowd in my church. I had the large expensive house with a house keeper that came in every other week. I had the children that wore clothes from the Gap and Dillards. I was able to take my kids on vacation every year and was able to finance just about anything that I wanted. I was the mom that was always happy to bring the cupcakes and volunteer in the children’s classes. My ability to act was based heavily on my spouse’s income. Although he worked full time, he worked for himself and ran his own company. We had very little in common but we were raising children together and seemed to understand what the other needed in terms of materialistic needs. He did his thing and I was busy doing mine.
The year the economic decline hit us started long before it affected others in the same circles that we ran in. My husband took a job for a contractor that had a loan out for tile and supplies for 75,000 dollars. We financed this loan during the course of the project like his company always did. However, when it was finished the contractor could not come up with the money to pay us. This soon started to happen repeatedly for many jobs that were under construction. My spouse was not sure how to handle it, so he started to mortgage everything including the house. He took out ridiculous loans with extreme finance charges. During this time the extent of our financial down fall was not communicated to me.
After 9 months of these financial missteps, I started getting phone calls that were from bill collectors requesting money when approaching my husband he stated that he had taken care of it and would call them back and deal with it. A few short weeks later my husband’s accountant asked me to come into the office to sign some papers. When I arrived he explained that we would need to file bankruptcy and that I would need to lose the house, car, and anything else of worth. I was devastated. Although I knew we were tight as my spouse would like to say I did not know exactly how this was going to affect me. Within a few short months I went to working as a full time traveling nurse to make the income required to support my large family while my spouse went to a stay at home dad.
The formal definition of powerlessness is unable to produce and affect or lacking power to act. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/powerless Powerless is not having the ability to change a situation that you feel fully impacts the life of yourself and those you love. It is a feeling that can consume you and cause you to feel depression, bitterness and an overall life changing experience.
Financial stability provided me the benefits of acting like the mother that was always available for her children first. Able to be the person who if the church needed help I was there. I was considered a role model to others and was always willing to help with all service projects. I was able to give my children the comforts of what they wanted before they even knew what they wanted. I felt I had the power to make a difference in the world and so adopted and worked with an orphanage for I had the financial means to provide for them. I worked because I enjoyed the time out and enjoyed my job also to keep my license current. I was able to pretty much do what I wanted to do. This provided me with the THOUGHT that financial security provided me power.
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