My Lot might be nothing to you, but to me it is my world.
A world that for now seems uncertain…I say ‘for now’ as it seems like it’s already been forever; a roller coaster on a never ending track leading to who knows where.
And I can’t see where I’m going because I don’t want to; I mean, if you’re going nowhere there’s no point in looking, right?
My Lot is waking up each morning and wishing that you didn’t.
Wishing that it wasn’t really happening.
That it never happened at all.
That what once was, is.
Screening calls, heart leaping with fear every time the phone rings.
Loathing the Postman not just because he comes late, but because he comes at all.
A sigh of relief as there’s nothing for me…and the pang of realisation that it’s probably on its way.
My Lot is going shopping with nothing but two long hands.
I’ve stopped looking. Stopped admiring.
Adept at feigning interest in the purchases of others.
Oh and I’m really good at fake happiness and joy too.
How the fuck am I meant to be happy and joyful?
They ask you that at the Job Centre you know.
I smile sweetly, never letting it reach my eyes, all the while hating that I have to be here.
Amongst the great unwashed. One of them.
Avoiding the gazes. Being there only as long as I need to be.
The shame is too much.
And the shame of my Lot?
I can’t deal with that.
Working so hard to get it, to achieve the dream. Getting it. Then fucking it up.
I’m ashamed, I’m disgraced.
Actually I don’t know what’s worse; the actual shame and disgrace, or the lies I tell to relatives when they ask, “How’s work going? I bet you can’t wait for the next holiday?”
My stock reply being “Yeah, it’s alright.”
But it isn’t ‘alright’ my Lot.
It’s not alright that jobs in my field are scarce,
It’s not alright that you apply for a job that you can do with your eyes closed and hear nothing,
It’s not alright that nobody calls you back to say that you weren’t short-listed, or even acknowledge your existence.
It’s not alright that I can’t pay my bills and that I’m about to lose the very little I own.
My Lot is great, it’s shitty.
It’s that monkey on my back, that ever pervading Black dog that looms.
My Lot has me feeling unworthy of being; thinking of a way out, away or around.
Well meaning folk offering impossible and impractical solutions.
I have a few of my own, but they’re of a more final and permanent nature.
I never thought of myself as one of those people who ‘had it all’,
But in this moment I feel like I have nothing.
And I know that that’s not true, because I have something really special.
My Lot. And I’m living with it.
(c) RSB 2012
