I started casually looking around for something, but nothing seemed right. In November, I posted about some “potentially exciting developments,” which was a job I’d been interviewing for that fell through shortly after I posted that, which is why I never mentioned it again. I had two or three other opportunities cross my path during December and early January, all of which fell through, too. It was extremely frustrating. With all of these, we’d gotten to the point of discussing when I could start when suddenly something happened that made it not work out.

Meanwhile, things were really stressful at work for Brett. Details aside, due to some changes in his role at work, we started talking about what in the heck we’re supposed to actually do with our lives, long-term. This conversation began at the end of November, and quickly came around to him wanting — again — to apply to grad school. We talked about how if he were to get his MFA (Master of Fine Arts) degree, he would be able to apply for teaching jobs, since it’s the terminal degree in his field. He’s talked about wanting to teach for years, as long as I’ve known him, really, and due to these changes at work, all of this came to a head and it suddenly seemed like applying to grad school might make sense.

I’ve resisted for a long time the idea of him going to grad school. Honestly, the way that Maine went, I was in no way eager to have him be in school again. Maine was extremely difficult on me, especially, and it was hard on our relationship and our finances in ways that still affect us, four years after leaving.

So after thinking and praying about it, I laid down some guidelines for him. He could investigate grad school, on these conditions:

1. We canNOT go deeper into debt for him to do this. His school loans from undergrad alone will take us a lifetime to repay, not to mention the consumer debt we incurred during that time, which we are still working on; we cannot do anymore. And that immediately ruled out private schools, which cost almost double his annual salary for only one year of schooling, and most programs are two or three years. Yikes.
2. He has to maintain his hours at work so as to keep our health benefits, and so I won’t have to go back to work full-time. Due to my heart stuff, I *have* to have group health coverage, and we need to be able to pay our bills (and I already worked and supported him through one degree) so he has to keep working.
3. I need a support network in place for day-t0-day life, and we need to lay out clear expectations of what our lives and our limited time together and our responsibilities surrounding our home and Elanor will look like if/when he attends school.

So, with that in mind, and with private schools excluded due to cost, we started investigating public schools, and realized that the application deadlines were about two weeks away at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University.

He quickly scrambled and filled out an application for each, and sent them off within hours of the deadlines.

And then we waited.

Meanwhile, I was still trying to find work. Finances were growing ever-tighter (with Brett’s changing role at work also came a salary change…great…just what we needed. I thought things couldn’t get any tighter, but then — hey! they did!), and my anxiety was through the roof. In desperation, in mid-January I posted an ad on Craigslist that I was willing to do childcare.

I had a couple of bites that didn’t work out, and then, just as I was getting ready to, I don’t know, sell some stuff at a pawn shop or donate plasma, I heard back from a family looking for care for their infant girl.

Within two weeks, the deal was struck, and I’m now looking after her four days a week. Obviously, I won’t blog much about her here, but there you have it.

We’re entering our third week now, and everyone is slowly adjusting to the new normal. It’s been rough on Elanor (and of course she was sick the first week, which did NOT help matters) but we’re managing. More about that in a later post.

In that same span of time, Brett’s heard back from both schools — and he was accepted to both UC Berkeley and SFSU! I’m so proud of him. SO proud!! Berkeley is a very, very big deal…he was one of seven students accepted to the MFA program out of over 200 applicants. Wow! Just…wow. I’m so excited for him.

He’s actually at an orientation there today, so I’m excited to hear more tonight when he gets home. But it looks, so far, like the practical elements of my conditions will work out: he’ll still be able to work, the cost of schooling will be manageable, there are lots of benefits available for students with families (grants, fellowships, reduced-cost preschool, health insurance, etc) at a school as large as Berkeley, and he will have the opportunity to even teach an undergrad course (for pay!) in his second year.

With Brett finally taking steps to act upon his long-term goals and dreams, it’s spurred me to do the same, and I’m going to start pursuing becoming an IBCLC-certified lactation consultant! I realized, a while back, that I would be really good at it, and that I’m passionate about breastfeeding and helping women breastfeed successfully. I’ve been involved in our local La Leche League group here in San Francisco since shortly after we moved here, and I love it. It’s going to take me a few years to do this (the process is very rigorous, especially for someone with no nursing degree) but I’m hoping that I can sit for the exam in a few years. By the time Elanor is a bit older (say, elementary school-age), I’d love to be practicing.

So there you have it. Lots of changes. I’m working, Brett’s going back to school, and we finally feel like we have a viable, longer-term plan for our lives. We feel a little strange that we’re nearly 30 and only just now figuring all of this out, but better late than never, right?

I could keep yammering on, but I’ll stop. That’s the big stuff. Hopefully I’ll get back to blogging about the little stuff soon!

I’m not going to delve into the specifics, but it’s been kind of a long, drawn-out process that we’ve seen coming down the pike for a while now. That said, even having known that it was, at some point, probably inevitable doesn’t exactly make it a walk in the park.

We’re dealing with the news surprisingly well, I think. Who knows, maybe it does have something to do with the fact that we knew it was probably coming and we could kind of brace for it. For the most part, we’re pretty peaceful and are trusting that God is going to continue to provide for us now as he has in the past.

That’s not to say I don’t have my moments of panic. I have had a few, and I’m sure that until we have a steady income stream coming in again, they’ll continue off and on. But that’s okay. I think it’s one thing to have peace about it, and to trust God about it, and it’s entirely another to be completely devoid of worry about it from time to time. A little panic seems warranted; at least that’s how it seems to me.

I can’t help but think that it does suck, though, to have this happen right now, right at the one-year anniversary of my heart thing. It seems ironic, really. Maybe it’s supposed to be that way, though, to let it fall within the same calendar year. Perhaps these two events are the bookends to one hellishly difficult year: near-death on one end, job loss on the other, and a whole lot of other crap in the middle. Maybe it’s not a boring and stress-free 2009 we should be hoping for, but rather a boring and stress free mid-May to mid-May. I don’t know.

At any rate, I am bummed that this means we can’t do something really special for my birthday-non-death-day. I had hoped we could go out for a really nice dinner somewhere, but alas, expensive dinners out are a pretty big no-no when there’s no money coming in.

I haven’t been blogging here lately because, up until now, I really have been pretty stressed out about all of the details surrounding this. As I’ve told a couple of people, it’s as though before last Friday, Brett and I were carrying both the weight of making ends meet and the stress of his job situation. Now that one of those stressors is eliminated, and it’s almost a relief.

I really want to write more, to blog more. I know, I know, I say it all the time, but I really do. But for me, it’s quite hard to blog when there’s an elephant in the room that I can’t talk about. I’m such a transparent person, and such a terrible liar (or truth-concealer, anyway) that it is nearly impossible for me to just blog about mundanities amid something that is, in my own heart and mind, a Really Big Deal.

Anyway, we’re managing, and we have a plan in place. It’s not a very concrete plan yet, but it’s a plan nonetheless, so that makes me feel better. Hopefully I can share more details about that soon.

Until then, part of the plan is that I’m taking in as much at-home work as I can while Brett’s home to hang out with Elanor. This week has been a little hard, trying to find our stride with Brett being home all day and me trying to do roughly double the amount of work. I know it’s only been a few days, but hopefully we can find that rhythm sooner rather than later.

That’s the update. Not exactly encouraging, certainly a little dramatic, and kind of depressing, honestly. But like I said, we’re handling it surprisingly well, thanks to God’s grace, and that is definitely something to be very grateful for.

So last night, after looking at the budget and proclaiming our food expenses to be too high, he looked through our cupboards and declared, in a very Brett-like manner, (I’m sure if you know Brett, you can totally picture him stomping around the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards and the fridge/freezer and saying all of this), “We have SO much food in here! This is absurd! I’ll tell you what we’re going to do! We aren’t going to go grocery shopping until after Christmas, or maybe even until after January 1st! We’re just going to get creative and eat what we have! It’ll be fun!”

This went on for about ten minutes, and of course, every time he’d say something additional about how it would be “creative” and “fun” I would just look at him with raised eyebrows and nod. I finally just told him that if he wanted to do that, then fine — he’s on dinner duty for the duration. He agreed, and that was that.

Regardless of who is making dinner, I did agree to the idea that I will try not to grocery shop for a couple of weeks, despite some major reservations. I’m sure most of you know how it is; you have 95% of the ingredients for a meal on hand at any given time (hence the fullness of the cupboards) but you are missing that crucial 5%. That’s how our cupboards are. I have enough stuff to make maybe four complete meals — after that, I told him all bets are off and I might have to buy one or two things here and there.

He protested and said that we’d just have to make do. I just smiled and nodded, and figured I’d at least get a couple of things out of it: he’d make dinner a few times, and I’d get to make a lot of lentils in the next few weeks. (He doesn’t like lentils much, and I love them, so consequently we have a couple bags of them that just sit in the cupboard, not getting used up since he doesn’t really like them.)

Fast-forward to tonight. I proposed making potato soup for dinner, the recipe for which I’ve put at the end of this post. We’ve eaten it a lot lately, because I like it, it’s easy, and it’s filling, and with the potatoes and the milk it’s a great comfort food item.We have everything I need to make it, and it’s easy, and a good cold weather food, so I figured it would be a winner of a meal.

Brett hemmed and hawed and said he didn’t want potato soup. So I came up with several other options: burritos, homemade mac and cheese, baked potatoes, or some other potentially cheesy/creamy/garlicy potato dish.

He rejected all of them, getting grumpier and grumpier as he kept asking if we had something and I said no, or that it was frozen and would take hours to defrost.

The ingredients for pizza? Nope. No mozzerella and the dough is frozen.

Spaghetti? Nope, the sauce we have is my mom’s homemade sauce and it’s frozen, too. And since Brett doesn’t believe in microwaves (that’s a topic for another post) it would take hours to defrost.

Frozen pizza? No. I haven’t bought any in weeks.

Annie’s Mac? We’re out.

So finally, I gave up trying to find something he’d agree to and went to give Elanor a bath. When I came out from the bathroom after bathing her, he was gone. I had no idea where he had gone. Honestly, it scared me a little, but I trust him so I didn’t freak out too much.

He walked in the door about 20 minutes later, with two packs of specialty organic pasta in hand, and said he’d gone and gotten dinner.

His amazing new grocery regime?

Lasted less than 24 hours.

I had to laugh a little, although I could have predicted it. When it comes right down to it, Brett is too much a food snob and an impulse eater to be able to just eat through the cupboards. When he wants something specific, he wants it, and he’d sooner not eat at all than eat something he didn’t want just because it’s there and it’s food.

It felt like a little victory, knowing that he couldn’t even handle his own proclamation. (Seriously, dude, no grocery shopping for three weeks? Probably not so realistic.)

Anyway, I am definitely going to be trying to cut our grocery budget down; we agreed on that much and I do think it’s reasonable to at least try to shoot for a lower number. I guess a little belt-tightening is inevitable for us right now, but it will be hard for me to shop really frugally. I did it for so long (while we were in Maine, while Brett didn’t have a job) and I got so tired of it. Lately, I’ve taken great pleasure in going to the grocery store and picking really yummy, often organic food. I hope I can still buy a lot of the yummy organic stuff and stay within the budget. I suppose I’ll just try to view it as a game and do my best. I’ll keep everyone posted on how it goes. I am sure I’ll have to make some sacrifices, but hopefully I can do it as painlessly as possible.

Anyway, here’s the potato soup recipe. It’s the one my mom has always made, so it’s really just from my memory. I don’t have it written down anywhere, and I just do it by the seat of my pants every time. Definitely fiddle with the spices if you like; it is definitely the kind of soup that can handle some variation.

I really like to make this with the beer bread I posted a few days ago. Yum!

Potato Soup

• 10 medium-sized baking potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 2 T flour
• 2 T butter
• 2 C cold milk
• Garlic Salt
• Pepper
• Oregano
• Thyme or other savory spices

Peel and cut potatoes, placing them in a heavy-bottomed soup pot with enough cool water to cover them while you are cutting them. (This prevents them from turning brown.) When they are all cut, drain the water and add new water, just to cover. Place the pot on the stove and bring to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Cook for about 15 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.

Meanwhile, while the potatoes are cooking, start a roux by putting butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. When it is just melted, add flour while stirring constantly with a fork or a whisk. When all the flour is added, stir briskly until it forms a thick paste that sticks to itself and slides away from the sides of the pan. I continue this until the flour just starts to brown. (The flour browning is more something I can smell than see…sorry, that’s really vague. It just starts to smell kind of nutty and flour-y and yummy.) Slowly add cold milk while constantly stirring to prevent lumps. Let this simmer for a few minutes or until the mixture begins to thicken.

When the roux has begun to thicken, dump it straight into the pot with the potatoes and water. (I know! This sounds weird — adding it in with the water — but it works, trust me.)

Let it cook for five minutes or so, while adding garlic salt, oregano, and pepper to taste. Sometimes I also add thyme, or other savory spices — really, whatever I have lying around and whatever sounds good at the time. I imagine rosemary would be good, and sage, dried parsley, and dried basil as well.

Once the mixture is thick and the potatoes are falling apart, taste for seasoning, adjust spices, and serve.

It’s easy, relatively quick, and yummy and rich. Enjoy!

However, the main reason behind my funk has to do with the fact that I set a definite date to return to work: April 9. (If you hadn’t guessed, that is the thing I mentioned in my last post that makes me cry when I think about it too much.)

I knew when I got pregnant that I’d have to go back to work full-time. I also knew that God would provide people to care for Elanor when that time came. Thankfully, it looks like either one of her grandparents or aunts or else a handful of our close friends will be able to care for her until the fall — a huge relief off of my chest, knowing not only that she’ll be with people who love her but also knowing that most of this care will be free, allowing us to sock away as much as we can can in savings or toward debt over the next several months.

Still, knowing that I’d have to go back and actually doing it are two wholly separate things. It’s going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, even though for the most part I enjoy my job and truly like my co-workers. While I’ve had jobs I’ve liked before, I have to say that staying home with Elanor beats every single one of them, no contest. I love it. It is everything I’ve ever wanted to do. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but I really feel like this is what I’m meant to do in this life: be with her every day and see to it that our home runs smoothly. I just don’t know from a financial standpoint how that’s possible, though.

Really, it comes back to trusting God, I suppose. I do trust him. I know that he put the desire in my heart to have a baby. I know that he redeemed the miscarriage through Elanor. I know that he made her arrive beautiful and perfect and healthy. I know that he has provided amazing people to care for Elanor. I know that he has put the desire in my heart to be home with Elanor, and any other children we may have. So what I ask myself, then, is that doesn’t it follow that he’ll provide a way for me to be home with Elanor more? Verses like this one make me think that it does. “Trust in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)

And, if for whatever reason that doesn’t happen, and I don’t get to do what is the desire of my heart and be home with her, I will have to trust him anyway, to provide the strength to get through the long 11 hours I’ll be away from this sweet face each day.

Note: I don’t want to jump into a SAHM vs WOHM debate with this post. Just know that it’s how I feel — that I want to be home with her and I can’t be, at least right now. It is in no way an indictment of those who could be home and choose not to.

Note #2: An update on the fun thing I mentioned in the last post is forthcoming, probably this week. It’s exciting, I promise!! Well, at least I think so, anyway. :p

At the top of my list is that Brett and I seem to grow closer every day. I don’t know what it is, but after almost nine years together (!), something seems to have clicked in our relationship over the past few months and I absolutely love it. We have so much fun when we’re together, we fight better, we laugh more, we talk more, we pray together more. Plus, watching him get excited about meeting this baby thrills me in an indescribable way. We’ve come through the fire of the past couple of years and are only stronger for it. It’s wonderful.

Also at the top of my list is this baby. What can I even say? After experiencing the miscarriage, every kick and every movement feels like a gift, every good appointment a relief, every week that passes a triumph. Being able to push on my belly (like I’m doing now…well, when I take a break from typing, anyway) and feel the baby’s different limbs whacking me back or moving around is amazing, and I cannot wait to meet this person. Becoming a parent is a daunting and scary thing to think about, but overall I know Brett and I are anticipating this baby’s birth with joy and excitement at the fore.

My third top-of-the-list item is our financial situation. I didn’t talk much about it with anyone when we were going through it, but between moving to Maine, the economy there, Brett being in school, moving back, and then Brett not having a job, we’ve struggled money-wise pretty much since we got married, with it at its worst about this time last year — basically right through the holiday season and into January. It sucked. There is just no other way to describe it.

A year ago, Brett was jobless, we were financially strapped to a point that I still can’t think about it without practically having a panic attack, and life seemed unbelievably stressful. The prospect of not fighting about money and of having enough money to, you know, pay our bills, let alone consider having a baby, was pretty remote. So now with both of us gainfully employed, making enough money to pay down debt, save, travel, and have fun, and with Brett having a job that he loves…it’s brought a whole different feeling to life. That’s not to say we’re suddenly rolling in the dough (not by any means) but it’s just nice not to have to worry as much and to be able to do fun things if we want to.

We were talking over dinner a week or so ago about Brett’s job, and how thankful he is to have it, and how much he enjoys what he does.

“God really provided amazingly with this job, didn’t he?” Brett asked. “It really is the perfect job for me.”

And it is. It’s perfect in ways neither of us could have imagined, and I am so deeply thankful for it. I know so many people told us when he was jobless that the right thing would come along at the right time. After a while, I couldn’t take that anymore. I didn’t want to hear it. Rejection after rejection loomed so large in our lives; I sort of stopped believing he’d ever find something. So to look back and see how faithful God was, and how he provided this job at the perfect time (the same week as the miscarriage)…it blows me away.

Anyway, there are, of course, lots of other things I’m thankful for:

• Our families
• Our home
• Our friends
• Our church

Basically, bottom line, I am beyond thankful for God’s amazing provision for us. The glory belongs to him. We haven’t done anything to deserve this; it’s truly through his grace that we are where we are right now. In the past year, he has fulfilled Ephesians 3:20 in our lives, doing immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. I’m so excited to see what he has in store for us in the next year!

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

I don’t really have too much to say. Life is still very up and down. There have been some really good, much more back-to-normal days in the past couple of weeks, and some really bad, dark days mixed in as well. I hope those are getting to be fewer and farther between. They seem to be, anyway. (This said, of course, from my perspective today, which is a relatively good day.)

Oddly enough, after my first burst of sharing everything about what happened, I am feeling much more withdrawn about it, at least here. And that’s weird. At first it seemed like I couldn’t go on without everyone knowing what happened. Now, I feel really vulnerable and uncertain about how much to share about my emotions. Maybe it’s that the numbness is wearing off and I’m starting to come to terms with things. I don’t know.

In other news, I did our taxes on Saturday, which took far, far too long. I posted a couple of years ago about my Kafka-esque experience trying to consolidate my student loans. Well, dealing with TurboTax (more like Slow-as-Molasses-in-January Tax, but whatever) yesterday was kind of like that. Because of an error with the State of Maine tax forms, it took four hours of re-entering the same information over, and over, and over again until it worked.

Thankfully, I finally got it to work. The best news is that we are getting a really nice refund!!! We will be able to pay off all of our smaller debts and also one credit card. I’m really, really happy about this.

The debt we incurred while living in Maine was horrible. I wrote about some of those issues about a year ago. Since we’ve been back, we had just been treading water in terms of paying off our debt since Brett didn’t have a steady job. But now, with this tax return to help us jump start things, and with his steady income, there is actually an end in sight!! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel where this debt is concerned!

We are paying down our balances, paying off small debts, and saving money for emergencies. We aren’t using credit. We are able to pay all of our bills on time. We can buy groceries without adding up the total as we go because we only have so many dollars in the checking account. We can go out to dinner and not worry about it. I can get a manicure. Brett can buy moped parts.

It feels so, so, so good to be at this place again. So good.

To begin, I’ll tell you what our story has been. Brett and I moved here in late 2003 with several thousand dollars in the bank (money we’d saved when we were both working full-time in Seattle) and no consumer debt (zero credit card debt, no car loans, just a few student loans).

Living in Seattle, we made decent money. Not enough to make us rich, but definitely enough to where we were very comfortable. Brett was making just around $11 per hour ($22,880 per year) as a security guard, I was making about $28,000 per year as an admin, with great health benefits that cost around $120 per month for both of us to be covered completely for medical, dental, and vision.

We went out to dinner frequently, we bought organic, we treated ourselves to coffee and bagels almost every morning and lunch out several times a week. Brett could afford to splurge on records every now and then, and I could go to Nordstrom and buy a pair of shoes without giving it second thought. We were able to buy some furniture, and go on a few short weekend trips — all paid for by what we brought home each month.

On top of all of that, we managed to put away almost all of Brett’s paycheck during the months we were married and living in Seattle. Combining that with a nest egg of money we’d received as wedding gifts, we had a nice little chunk of change in the bank, probably between 3 and 5 months worth of expenses, when we moved out here.

And then we arrived in Maine.

I got work right away, making a paltry $9 per hour working as an admin assistant. (A $10,000 per year pay cut from what I’d made at a similar job in Seattle — not counting what was taken out in income taxes, which Washington doesn’t have.)

Brett worked in a coffee shop for a while, making about $6.25 per hour plus tips, which were maybe another $1-$2 per hour. (Before working as a security guard, he had worked as a barista in Seattle, making about $9 per hour, plus about $3-$4 per hour in tips. Pretty big difference from here to there.)

Despite this drop in income, we were paying the same in cost of living expenses. Not a good combination. Things got really, really tight. That only got worse when I lost my job in March 2004.

We were able to wing it for a month or so until I found work. Thank goodness for those savings (which were eaten up then) and the tax return. That was the first time we had to rely on the credit card for some basic expenses, if I recall.

The next job I had paid a little better. I was making closer to what I had been making in Seattle, which helped for a while. We did ok during the summer months, when Brett could work full-time, but when he went back to school each semester and had to cut his hours, things got really tight.

At my current job, I make even less now than I did at the job I had before this one — right now, I make roughly 11% less than I did in Seattle. At his current job, Brett makes the most he has in Maine, but it’s still about 18% less than he did in Seattle.

Our cost of living has gone up, too, since we moved here. We had to buy a car (when we hadn’t needed one in Seattle) just to get around the area, since the public transportation system is a joke. That means not only a car payment, but money spent on gas, tolls, insurance, and maintenance. We pay through the nose for heating oil (at around $2 per gallon for a 275 gallon tank…well, let’s just say it was freezing in our house this winter). Our electric bill is now about 5 times what it has been in any place we have ever lived in.

It’s really discouraging. On top of all of that, healthcare costs just for me are about $170 per month, for medical only. To add Brett on would double that, which is something we just can’t afford. So he has a catastrophic policy through his school, and we just pray nothing happens to him.

I’ve drawn a few conclusions about our experience. Most of the people I’ve talked to about this agreed with those conclusions, which are:
– The wages in Maine are virtually unlivable when compared to the cost of living
– If someone is from away, it’s likely they moved here with money in the bank and perfect credit and now have massive credit card debt and little or no savings
– Money is a constant worry, from how to pay the bills (or picking which bills get paid this month and which don’t) to how to afford food and gas for the week
– Many people never thought they’d be in this position, fretting about how to pay the bills and concerned about how it will affect their credit. They always considered themselves to be financially savvy and able to make sound choices about money
– The chances of buying a house in this inflated market are slim-to-none
– If a person plans to stay in Maine, there is no hope of this situation ever getting better

This is a huge problem. No wonder young people are leaving Maine. They can’t afford to stay here!

To clarify: most of the people I have talked to, not to mention Brett and me, are living frugally. Very, very frugally. Few dinners out, few extravagent purchases, few vacations — if any. It’s not as though we’re spending irresponsibly or are abusing credit to get what we want now. On the contrary, we use credit for things like groceries, gas, school supplies, plane tickets to a family member’s wedding…that probably being the most extravagant purchase invovlving the credit card. (And how can you tell your cousin, “No, I can’t be a groomsman for you because we can’t afford to come for your special day, even though you took off work and took the time to come to ours.” I guess some would say that that should be your answer if finances are that tight, but as most people know, family politics are more complicated than that, and not coming to a cousin’s wedding could have more far-reaching consequenses within the family than it might appear at first glance.)

The financial aspect of life in Maine is a huge part of why we’re moving back to Seattle. We have dug ourselves into a really scary hole of debt and financial instability since we’ve been here. That’s something I never thought I’d say, but it’s true. At least we have the hope of getting out of it, with a lot of hard work and sacrifice, once we’re back in Seattle. We’re the lucky ones since we actually have a way out.

Many of our friends and acquaintances won’t leave; they can’t leave. Their families are here, their careers are here, they are invested here. One man I talked to moved here from the DC area a few years ago. He experienced a situation very similar to ours (no debt, plenty of money, etc) and now he’s in the same boat we are (deep in debt, making too little to cover the bills). He said that he’s thought about moving, but his parents live here now, his girlfriend is here, and her family is here. He doesn’t want to live thousands of miles away from them. So the choice for him, like many others, seems to be: abandon family to find financial stability, or abandon the thought of financial stability to be near family.

It’s an awful Catch-22.

So much of the data relating to this topic is anecdotal, although I did some Internet research and found some data from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as well as the Maine State Housing Authority (MSHA).

I did a little research and put t his chart together, comparing the Median Household Income and Median Housing Cost for Seattle (according to a 2004 HUD report) with that of Cumberland County (according to a 2004 MSHA report).

I think it’s pretty telling.
Notice that the Median Household Income (MHI) for Seattle is 56 percent higher than that of Cumberland County. 56 percent! That’s almost double the income here in Maine!

And then notice the rental amounts. (A note: I couldn’t find any data comparing the exact same housing data. Seattle’s is for overall housing cost and Cumberland County’s is for 2-bedroom rentals. It’s not exactly apples to apples, but it’s the closest thing I could find.)

Seattle’s Median Housing Cost (MHC) is lower (LOWER!) than that of Cumberland County, Maine.

No wonder we’re all in debt up to our eyeballs and living precariously from paycheck to paycheck.

I don’t really have any conclusions here, other than the obvious one: something in Maine’s economy must give way. It has to. The cost of living here has far outstripped the wages. There are so few jobs that pay a livable wage. Most of them are highly-skilled jobs, either working for one of the hospitals as a pharmacist, nurse, or physician, working for the bio-medical research company IDEXX as a researcher, or working for either National Semiconductor or Fairchild Semiconductor.

Most run-of-the-mill jobs — receptionist, admin assistant, security officer, retail, maintenance work, etc — pay between $7 and $11 per hour. If you’re lucky, you’ll be in a job where you can accept tips to help supplement that. And again, if you’re lucky, your job will offer some kind of health insurance, which will likely be at least 10% of your pre-tax income. If it doesn’t, then you’re probably out of luck. Even catastrophic insurance is extremely expensive here.

Otherwise, you’ll be like most young Mainers — working multiple jobs just to keep your nose above water. One friend of mine works 3 days per week for a chiropractor, nannies 2 days per week, works for a church for a few hours a week, works at a local juice bar one morning a week, and babysits on a regular basis. She’s in almost the same position we are — in debt, scraping by, with very little way out. And she’s working FIVE jobs! On top of that, she has no health insurance, so a recent bout of the flu left her unable to work for a week and paying out of pocket for a doctor. Just another financial setback, and another common story.

I could go on, and on, and on. I have stories galore about this, of friends in the same position we’re in.

It’s extremely discouraging.

I’m relieved we’re getting out now, before it gets any worse for us. If we stayed, even a few more months, I have no doubt we’d be in a much worse place than we are now. Granted, the cost of moving isn’t cheap, but better pay a few thousand dollars (rather, put a few thousand more dollars on the credit card) and be in a much better financial place a year from now than we would be if we stayed around here, twiddling our thumbs as we watched our credit score plummet and any hope of getting out of debt in a reasonable amount of time fly out the window.

So why write all of this? Why advertise to the world our frightening financial position?

Because it needs to be talked about if anything is going to change. People in this position need to overcome the stigma associated with financial problems and stand up and say, “I cannot make it here. Something has to change.” Awareness needs to increase, and legislators and business owners need to take a hard look at what they can do to improve this situation. I don’t have any solutions, and I realize this kind of change can’t happen overnight. But the reality is that the process needs to get started — NOW.

Another reason to write all of this is also associated with that stigma of not talking about financial trouble. Talking to others in the same position is extremely comforting, as one acquaintance of mine said. Knowing that we’re not alone. Knowing that it isn’t just by “using credit unwisely” that brought us here. (If you had a choice between not getting home because you have no gas, or not buying groceries this week and putting it on the credit card, what would YOU do?)

Admitting we’re in debt, admitting that the bills don’t always get paid on time because it’s a choice of buying gas to get to work and paying the electric bill, admitting that we’re scared out of our minds about our financial position — it is so freeing.

I think it’s a basic human tendency to derive comfort through knowing you’re not alone, through sharing adversity. So that’s why I’m writing. Because I think it’s important people stand up, not only to start the ball rolling in terms of changes to the economy, because a key part of that is realizing how widespread this is. However, it’s also important that people realize that they are not alone, and that there are many people in this state struggling with the exact same things.

In this situation, not having money (and having debt) doesn’t make you a bad person. It shouldn’t make you a second-class citizen. I’ve come to realize that my person-hood is separate from my bank account, or the balance on my credit card. When things are really hard financially, and I’m feeling crushed by the debt and the inability to buy groceries or pay a bill, I remind myself that I am NOT the sum of my assets or of my debts. It helps to remember that.

Thanks for reading this far, if you made it. This turned into kind of a tirade, so I apologize for that. However, it doesn’t surprise me, since this issue is a favorite soapbox of mine.

I truly hope the economic situation in Maine improves, even though we won’t be here to see if it does. Our friends here deserve to have a better life than one of being crushed by debt and never seeming to make ends meet.

And with that, I’m done. I’m going to go make some chocolate pudding cake and try to forget my financial woes for a while.

*steps off soapbox*