Sure, I remember packing up my car with whatever belongs I could fit in it.I remember pushing my couch out onto the front landing of the apartment building with a sign on it that said, “Free to a good home.”

Most importantly, I remember the feeling of being lost as I wondered where in the world I could live given none of my family even lived in the state where I was at the time and my friends had struggles of their own.

As I drove, for the last time, down the beautiful, tree-lined mountain pass that had carried me to/from my apartment so many times before, I was numb to all emotion. While I had cried my eyes out mere days ago, on this day I had nothing left.

The frustration, sadness, overwhelm, stress, and anger of the past month had finally taken their toll on me: I was drained and at the end of my rope. If this was what the phrase ‘Rock Bottom’ referred to, then I certainly was there.

Miraculously, something clicked in my brain that spawned a spark that would eventually ignite the fire to allow me to get where I am today, financially speaking. I needed a job, and I needed a job yesterday. So I parked my car in the local grocery store lot, walked down Main Street, and applied at every place I noticed a ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window. Within 2 hours, I had secured part-time employment that would help me get through the next few weeks before it was time to move to Boston.

While I’ll forever be grateful for these opportunities as they allowed me to crawl out of the financial abyss I had landed in, I can’t discount how humbling an experience it was.

There I was, an honors scholar who’d graduated college with a dual degree in International Business and Marketing, a person who’d previously held a job making over $95K/year right out of school, working behind a cash register (and praying for tips from the tourists who were buying their $6 coffees so that I could scrape enough money together to figure out the next chapter of my life).

Never one to be too proud, I had accepted my fate and I knew that my past choices were the reason I was even in this position. In a nutshell, I had finally accepted that I was financially powerless…..

 

This post is part of my Confessions of a PF Blogger series.  Other posts include:

• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  The Series
• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  No Happy Meal for You
• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  $0.25 per Quart
• Confessions of a PF Blogger: 16 Candles
• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  $5,500 in Cash
• Confessions of a PF Blogger: A Slow Slide into Credit Card Debt Hell
• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  $1 to My Name
• Confessions of a PF Blogger:  Homeless 
• Confessions of a PF Blogger: Powerless
• Confessions of a PF Blogger: A Second Chance