Ugggg.

I will try not to make this post as depressing as I feel. After all this entire blog is about the climb out of this situation and the belief that it will happen.

That said.

My poor daughter has been sleeping on an air mattress for 3 months now. 2 weeks ago, it started losing air. While trying to find the leak, a giant hole ripped open and we fixed it, or so we thought. The next morning it was completely flat again. Despite nightly attempts to find and repair the leak, nothing is working and it deflates rather quickly and my daughter ends up sleeping on the floor. She wakes up sore and with a numb leg, and it KILLS me. No matter how little money we have, I always try to take care of my kids first, and here she is with out even a sub-par bed now, sleeping on the floor in the cold winter. I've been trying to find a way to fix this situation, even temporarily, until payday, but I have been unsuccessful. So every night I go in there and fill it with air and look, listen, and feel for the leak. I can't find it. I fill it up with as much air as I can in the hopes it will deflate slowly enough that if she does end up on the floor, it won't be for long before she has to wake up for school. I put a sleeping bag under the bed for some cushion and insulation, and plenty of blankets on top. I make her wear pajamas to bed even though she finds them uncomfortable.

I'm beat down. I'm exhausted. Days of depression and a baby that just won't sleep after a year and a half have taken their toll. I fall asleep minutes after I put my kids to bed, on the futon. The baby wakes up 3 times before I make it to my own air mattress. She wakes up again just as we are falling asleep. My husband goes to roll over to fall back to sleep, and in an instant, there is a whooshing of air, and now we too, are sleeping on the cold, hard floor. We are not skinny, but well within the weight limit of the bed. I don't know if it is the cold or just wear and tear that caused them both to fail within nights of each other, but now our whole family is screwed.

My husband and I just lay there silently for a minute, both of us staring into the darkness, like, really? The depth of pain and discomfort and anguish being poor can cause a person is unfathomable by someone who hasn't been there. We experienced all of that in an instant. Nothing makes you feel so acutely poor like you and your family having to sleep on the floor.

I tell him to go sleep on the futon. It's horrible and lumpy and hard, but at least it's not the floor. He won't do it, he wants me to because I have a bad back. I refuse, because I don't have to be alert enough to drive and work today. We're both pissed and taking it out on each other and arguing. Que the baby crying. I sob.

Defeated, I go to comfort our baby and consider sleeping upright holding her in the chair. Fear of dropping or suffocating her makes me decide that is a poor idea, and I put her back in her bed. She's quiet now. Thank you Jesus. Why is it that the one family member that has a comfortable bed won't sleep comfortably in it???

I come out and my husband says we are both going to sleep on the futon. Ok. There is no point arguing. I know he needs to go back to sleep and I of course don't want to sleep on the floor anyways. We are both wide awake, and we talk a little bit, and he hugs me a little bit, and we laugh a little bit because we are both giddy from exhaustion. It is so damn cramped, and uncomfortable. But it's warm, and we are close. I'm getting sleepy.  

The baby wakes crying. This time I don't even have the energy to cry. I just go get her, and give her some gripe water, and bring her into our room, and lay down on my flat mattress, and put her on my chest in the hopes she will go back to sleep. An hour later we are both still awake and she won't quit rolling around and playing . I go put her back in her bed, and she falls asleep again. For a little while. Husband is finally asleep and I don't want to wake him, so I go back to the floor. I toss and turn to relieve the pressure on my hips and ribs 3 times before she wakes again. Rinse and repeat. She wakes for good at 6:30, and even though I'm sore everywhere, I'm just begging her to go back to sleep for a little while. She doesn't and because my husband is in the living room, he doesn't even get the option of going back to sleep.

I'm trying to express how trying this all is. I don't think I'm doing very good, it all seems a little robotic.

We have $40 left until payday. We should have saved $150 out of this check for rent, but we couldn't. My husband needs at least $20 for co-pays on Tuesday to get prescription refills. We need gas. We need diapers. And now, we need 2 beds. There is no way. Pay day will come, and we will get more air mattresses - instead of setting aside that money for rent. And then we will be behind on half of it. Will we ever catch up?

Everything that would be a minor annoyance to someone with more money instead becomes a major disaster to us. I remember reading on reddit (wish I had a link) where people were playing a poverty game and scoffing at the string of unlikely misfortunes that would strike them all in a row. "It doesn't happen like that", they said. "No one is that unlucky", they said.

Guys, being poor is exactly that. It is one misfortune after another after another, whose repercussions compound until you are in a hole so deep there is no longer any light to see. No it wasn't a huge thing, the car didn't break down, no one had to go to the hospital, there was no house fire. But when you have $0 to throw at a problem, it doesn't matter if it costs $20 to fix or a thousand, both are unattainable. And a simple matter like having to buy beds outside of your budget has far reaching negative effects.

 We are in the hole - literally, physically, mentally, emotionally. How can we get out under our own power? I don't know if we can.

If you are reading this, just say a little prayer for us please. Every little bit helps.