God of the Valley
On January 3rd, I woke up at 11:30 a.m., thinking I was waking up at 1:30 p.m. because I stayed up late watching a movie the night before. I was actually relieved to find out it was only 11:30 even though it was an hour later than I wanted to wake up originally.
My bank account showed that I had $347 in it. I still had not been Auto drafted the $505 that I owed for one of my loan payments. But today is payday. So there was still time.
However, because my paycheck was going to be dented by the loan payment, it meant that I did not have half of my rent available to pay. This also meant that my car payment was going to be late, or I would have to choose between one or the other if I could not come up with the money by the 4th.
I didn't mind being late for my rent. (Even though it would be the first time in over 10 years that I was late). But I had to have my car in order to make my rent money. So I called my car dealership to ask if they were going to help me with my car payment again this month.
The reason they had been helping me with my car payment is because I use my car to make a living. And, because when the dealership bought the car, they bought it from a guy who used to live in California and moved here. When they sent to California for the title, California accidentally sent the title to the previous owners old address in California; so, the dealership had to file for a duplicate title in California.
So far, it has been 4 months since I bought the car in September. I have not made one car payment because I have not been able to do Uber or Lyft. Those are my biggest paying lines of income, and right now they are on hold until I can get my tags.
I was directed to the guy who has been helping me out, and he told me he had to call the business office. He took my number down and said he would call me back.
He finally called me back, and I went and got my check, then deposited all my money in the bank. I had enough to either pay all the car payment and half the rent, or all the rent and hope to get most of the car payment in the next 3 days. I decided to be late on rent. After all, I'm already planning to be home-free in about 11 months. But, I honestly don't want to be home-free before then.
I didn't feel well after that. My head was pounding. I felt drowsy. I suspected it was all of the stress catching up with my body. My body has always reacted that way to stress. It throws me into a physical state of depression that only laying down and sleeping - a LOT - will help. But, I don't want to do that again. The last time, I stayed on the couch for nearly 6 months, and it nearly killed me. When I finally decided to get up, I nearly couldn't.
It took at least 3 years to rehabilitate myself back to some semblance of normality.
I made about $30, then shut off the apps and decided to call it a day. I haven't taken a day off in a while - since my phone was down about a week ago - so I decided to take the rest of the night off.
All I could do was pray:
Lord, please help me out of this valley. I've been climbing for so long. I want to see the view from up top again. In Jesus' Name, Amen.