Maid - Stephanie Land Page 0,47

upset her and in part because I didn’t have a plan. I posted ads online for a roommate or a barter arrangement or a room to rent. Nothing came to fruition. Every apartment I looked at cost more in rent than I received in wages. With my earnings, which hovered around $800 a month, there was no way to come up with a first and last month’s rent, as well as a deposit. There was no way for me to earn enough to pay for gas, utilities, and rent, even a room. Apartments ranged around $700, at the least. The thought of more than one bedroom was impossible for me. I had no savings or credit to fall back on, nor even an ability to apply for a loan. I’d never be able to pay it back. Additionally, I’d have to set up electricity and Internet to do schoolwork. I’d have to get a router. I’d have to get so many things.

After I reached out to a few friends, they encouraged me to set up a PayPal “donate” button and embed it into a blog entry with a simple explanation:

Travis has given me until the end of June to move out. Unfortunately, I don’t have the money for a deposit. I have set up a PayPal account. If you can donate even five bucks, it would help tremendously. Thank you.

I hated asking for money. I hated admitting that I’d failed again at making a relationship work. Most people didn’t know Mia and I had lived in a homeless shelter, but it still felt like history was repeating itself. Then, the messages from friends through Facebook started coming, full of encouragement and love. People sent $10 or even $100. Every donation, no matter how small, made my eyes wet. I made a wish list through Walmart that I shared through a Facebook post. Soon, boxes started showing up at Travis’s with pots, pans, clothes for Mia, and silverware. I’d sunk to a new low, but I wouldn’t let it sink me. I couldn’t go back to being homeless. After my dad told my family I’d made up stories for attention, asking for help was the hardest thing I’d ever done. It opened me up to judgment. It held me accountable for my actions, especially for involving Mia in what I felt like I should have predicted was a doomed relationship. I feared what people might think. But each friend who reached out lifted me up to a newer height. I’d rise above this.

When I’d moved into the homeless shelter, I had called Melissa, one of my oldest friends, and she listened as I went through my plans for rebuilding my life. Nearly all of those plans involved the help of some form of government assistance: food stamps, WIC checks for milk, gas vouchers, low-income housing, energy grants, and childcare.

“You’re welcome,” Melissa said pointedly.

“For what?” I asked, peeping through the shelter’s worn blue curtain at a deer walking through the backyard. Mia napped in the next room.

“My tax money’s paying for all of that,” she said, then repeated, “so you’re welcome.”

I didn’t say thank you. I hadn’t said thank you. I wasn’t sure what to say.

“Hey,” I said, with false urgency. “Mia’s crying. I should go.”

Mia’s door creaked when I opened it. I sat on the edge of the bed, watching her chest rise and fall. Melissa had, at first, sounded so happy to help, but I knew that wasn’t the case. I had heard her talk negatively about people who took advantage of welfare before. She didn’t like the mother of her stepdaughter complaining about how she had supposedly abused the system.

I wished I’d had the courage to speak up for myself, to speak up for millions of others who were struggling through the same hardships as I was: domestic workers who worked for minimal pay, single parents. Instead I hid. I silently blocked Melissa on Facebook and turned my back on any comments or media that spoke poorly of people on welfare. “Welfare is dead,” I wanted to say. There was no welfare, not in the sense they thought of it as. There was no way for me to walk into a government office and tell them I needed enough money to compensate for the meager wages I needed in order to pay for a home. If I was hungry, I could get a couple hundred bucks a month for food. I could visit a food bank. But there was