"I'M ON A DIET"
I wish you could see what I'm seeing.
I've now had three friends, in three very different situations, living in three different provinces, call me in a panic. Each is in their thirties, with degrees (some of them holding several), and piles of job and life experience. Some are business owners, others work at major institutions. As of May all of these people will be out of work, and are so far unable to line up anything reliable going forward. To add to the absurdity, one has just been evicted (so the owner can "make needed repairs" and then double the rent), and another simply will not be able to pay rent (having made very reasonable decisions that, in their situation, we all would have made.) All are frugal, have always been smart with money (with the only debt they hold being student loans), none of them have human or animal dependants, and none drives a car. Two of them have had to choose between food and other necessities over the last few months, and two of them have had to rely on friends and the food bank in order to feed themselves. Twice now I've been told jokingly "I'm on a diet."
These are the most skilled, thoughtful, creative, lovely humans I know. These people represent the best of a generation, no doubt, and in the prime of their life. They're your neighbour, your co-worker. I've had very serious conversations with them telling me, usually involving a lot of tears, that they've been here before and that's why they went back to school (or started their own business, or both) -- that now they just feel stuck, helpless. Of course they all blame themselves for their circumstance (these 'A' students, diploma holders, highly motivated, self-starter types who've done all the right things all along.) I've gotten phone calls from two of them now, in the middle of the night, in which suicide has worked it's way into the conversation... You would be shocked and horrified to learn who these people are. They're more experienced, more skilled, have more to offer, and are just more beautiful human beings than you or I.
If this is happening to them this is happening to hundreds of thousands of Canadians, and you're not hearing about it.
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