A New American Dream: How Illness and Hardship Lead me to Entrepreneurship

This article is a revised version of an article originally written in 2016. It has been edited and revised to reflect some but not all of the events that have happened since the original production of this piece.

THE AMERICAN DREAM

Working hard is a virtue. I believe highly in hard work of every nature: physical, creative, intellectual and spiritual. Life is unique journey for us all. As children, we are granted the gift of wonder. This creative fascination and directs us to follow our dreams. We are told about the American Dream and that it is obtainable for us if we stay determined.  

Work hard, they tell us. I grew up with well-educated parents and educated grandparents. Even many of my great grandparents and ancestors beyond were educated in my family line. My closest grandmother (my maternal grandmother), Betty, was a double major in physical education and mathematics. She was an aeronautics engineer for Curtis Wright during the war where she proudly met my grandfather, also an engineer. Betty's father was a pharmacist and even though he had taught her to work hard, he never knew it would lead her so far from home. In her youth, he never imagined that she would become an aeronautics engineer. I am sure he never fathomed that, as an empty nester, she would become a children's clothing buyer for a department store, a job she took on after my uncle decided he wanted to be a lawyer. Education and hard work stood as pillars in my mind from an early age.

In my paternal lineage, there was no less admiration for education. My great grandfather was the son of poor Irish immigrants and ran away from home at the age of 12, because he was old enough to work in the coalmines according to his parents and his community. Dominic had no problem with hard work, but he took issue with the danger of dying in the mines or developing the black lunch illness he witnessed in his Pop and his Pop's friends’ develop. My Pop left home at age 12 and never looked back. He later married a German woman whom he knew from his hometown, but became reacquainted with in another state. At the time they met, Mary Ann had dismissed a life of her own to care for her ill and alcoholic father. After marrying my grandfather, she would produce four strapping German Irish boys. My great grandparents worked very hard raising and caring for the boys. They made sure that their children were educated. Of course, my great grandmother's children benefited from the war educationally. However, the war cost Mary Ann a son too.  

The other half of my paternal lineage is perhaps the most interesting. It stems from privilege and destitution, teetering between oppression and dominance. As in most Southern families, the mixing of those dynamics are present in my paternal lineage’s relation to Greenwood LeFlore. My family still has ties to Greenwood and the museum dedicated to him. He was known by both whites and Choctaw as a "half breed" Chief, both legitimizing him and scorning him. LeFlore was educated in Nashville, a plan for his life conceived before his birth. His parents hoped he would lead the Choctaws toward nationalism, and the nationalists toward a better relationship with native Americans. He became a Mississippi Senator. It was because of him and the signing of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek on September 27, 1930 that as many of the Choctaws left toward Oklahoma on what would become the Trail of Tears. My mostly white skinned family would stay in Mississippi along with a small portion of the rest of the tribe. LeFlore himself was ousted out as chief by a coup because of his tribal transgressions. Despite the excommunication of my family, we inherited many valuable documents and other properties from LeFlore. And it is LeFlore, and not those remaining other Choctaws, who became a wealthy planter who owned slaves. LeFlore’s life is a testament to the strange dualism of the South as so eloquently expressed in many songs by one of my favorite bands, The Drive By Truckers. Nonetheless, the interesting history of Greenwood LeFlore is powerful in showing my family's dedication to education and hard work. Mind you now, the blood of those he oppressed on his Mississippi cotton fields forever overshadows LeFlore’s hard work.

MY AMERICAN DREAM

As a child, I generally excelled in school. I loved learning. I absorbed information like a sponge and many fields interested me. My father encouraged me to think outside of the box. The show Ancient Aliens is popular today, but in the 80s my dad gave me a copy of both Chariots of the Gods and also A Sermon on the Mount. He taught me theories of philosophy, astronomy, astrology, history, science, and sociology. I loved the practice of seeing all sides of the coin, thinking in different ways. My father did a good job of providing this for me.  

My mother is an artist. From art teacher to a professional clown her creative spirit permeated my childhood (yes, I really was raised by clowns, or at least the one). My wonderfully spirited mother often moved from medium to medium and my creative side flowed with her for the entirety of my life. Her creative passion influenced my own creativity. Paired with a stern second father drive into me that I was smarter than I gave myself credit. I did well in many areas, academically and extracurricularly. I was set for success. My parents provided me with plenty of tools to fulfill my American Dream, and of course with the advantage of being a middle class white girl.  

College was great. Like in my childhood, my brain exploded with the excitement of learning. I went from class to class, loving everything. I found social and cultural theories that felt like home to me, ideas my soul searched for along my journey. I could not have possibly been more excited to be successful in my life. Deciding what I wanted to do took a minute. As a violist in the state youth orchestra and the regional orchestras among others, many encouraged me to me a music major. It seemed to my mentors a natural progression. However, being a musician, begging for gigs, teaching private lessons at my home, teaching school, fighting to keep a spot in a major orchestra was a juggling act I didn’t want for my future. Honestly, I was burnt out from my previous musical accomplishments. I loved learning about health and nutrition, so I decided to be a dietician.  

I was excited to work at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge as a student research assistant. Creating diet plans for research studies and cooking foor dor the participants was right up my alley. Yet the longer I worked there and learned about the research industry I discovered some very disheartening aspects to the work, including some which I believed to be unethical. Additionally, I noticed that dieticians without PhDs in my lab got all the grunt work. Dietetics is a highly competitive field and requires an intense internship and passing of comprehensive exams among other things. After 3 years of working in the lab, I also noticed that the specific grunt work was in fact the same work I was doing as a student. No way, no how! I did not want that as my life, because the grunt work was measuring food to the tenth or hundredth of a gram all day long. There were very few weeks when we had a new study and I participated in the fun challenge of figuring out the precise diet of our new test subjects. Provided with specifications for the diet, we created recipes that followed the study and the individuals' placement in it. All of this work fit together like a glorious puzzle, and I loved that part of it. The only person consistently did what I considered the fun part was the head of the lab, and she had her PhD.

In an interesting twist and a testament to my personality, I changed my trajectory from research sciences to literary research. I determined that a PhD was required for my happiness. My reasoning for the change from dietetics to literature was that if I was going to go all the way through graduate school to get a PhD, then it was going to be in what I loved the most. Theory and writing was what I loved the most. I wanted to do theoretical research and to write in many formats. I discovered that about myself in my history, philosophy, and literature classes. My parents were dismayed when I told them my decision to change from what was a Pre-Med aligned Dietetic program to Literature. However, I reassured them that I was going straight through to a PhD and everything would be fine. I changed my major to English Literature and minored in History and Philosophy as well as mastered Spanish to the level of never needing to take it again in my postgraduate work. Indeed, I lived up to my word. I stayed in school continuously until the day that I passed the final part of all of my comprehensive exams, both written and oral, for a PhD in Comparative Studies.

I loved my studies. Working in an interdisciplinary program allowed me to study literature and, in addition, work with mass communication, popular culture, cultural studies and film. I incorporated music into the classes I taught and theories I wrote, circling back to my musical training. How I loved it all. However, where I was gifted with the drive, creativity and passion for my studies, I was also gifted a burden. Maybe each special gift is balanced by a burden, one for us to learn and grow. Indeed, I had a burden, chronic illness.

MY AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

I consider myself an athlete and always have been.  From gymnastics and competitive swimming in my youth to loving and learning to surf during my PhD years in south Florida. The list of my athletic accomplishments grew as time went on: an avid runner, Zumba® instructor, hiker, biker, weight lifter. I love to move and challenge my body in different ways.  My natural inclination to learn about the body drove me to a lifetime of eating well and maintaining a high level of fitness.  However, I was only eight when I became chronically ill.

My parents instilled many wonderful attributes in me but my childhood was also fraught with extreme abuse, childhood trauma and medical neglect. At that young age, my parents attributed my complaints to hypochondria. It was strange to complain about the things I did. I still mustered up the energy to participate in sports, school, and life. Bladder pain and overwhelming abdominal pain was a daily part of my existence. I was expected to hide all of my symptoms from the world so generally I looked ok and seemed ok. My great grandmother complained of similar ailments. Professionals and family members labeled her as a hypochondriac. My mom assumed that I was the same as her grandmother. However, instead of sharing paranoia I believe we shared ailments that went undiagnosed for her. Her screaming, ailing body knew better than to listen to anyone, so my great grandmother continued to insist in the legitimacy of her pain and continued bearing the ostracism of it. However, by high school, my parents noticed that I was abnormally fatigued even for a teenager, and especially for one that was generally high spirited. I was also rail thin, with about 90 lbs on my 5'4" frame. They thought that I had an eating disorder or was depressed. The doctor determined that I had an underactive thyroid (a common condition), which oddly enough was not making me gain weight as is typical with the disease. After some shoulder shrugging and a script for the replacement hormone, the doctors brushed aside my remaining fatigue and chronic pain.

I suffered from retching abdominal pain. Definitely some of it was female related, cycle related, but no doctor could find anything. It took me until 1994 (about 6 years) to learn about the endometriosis growing all over my organs including my bladder in intestines during my first laser surgery. By 1997 and 3 surgeries later, I still suffered. More years went by with more tests and more doctors.  At one point, because of the rejection of the United States public health system, I had a surgery in Mexico.  

Those were difficult years as I was in graduate school getting my masters. I was rejected for help by the public hospital after going every month for over a year with my eldest child in tow to sit for 8 hrs and get either a hormone injection chemically inducing menopause or get a triple dose of the birth control stopping my periods. The head doctor promised that if I were their medical lab rat for a year, they would provide me with a surgery.  However, when that time came and I met with the head GYN, he informed me that there was no way I was getting a surgery.  A student might really hurt me and he absolutely refused to do it himself. This news was devastating. The public hospital rotates their students and for the entirety of that year, every visit made me feel like I was at the bottom of the barrel, an unwanted and discarded part of society. In addition, I emotionally relived all of my physical pain as I told a new student who, despite his or her compassion, was helpless to aid me. I told them everything I had been through thus far, each time anew.

In Mexico, I was accepted as gravely ill and in need of help.  I consulted with the public doctors at the hospital.  My husband's work visa granted me free health care in Mexico. Although the public health system in Mexico still involves waiting and lines, health care workers greet patients with compassion and respect. There were many options given to me from using a military doctor, to admittance to a publically funded hospital for two months to private surgical options. In Mexico, each doctor I met with agreed that I needed help. The doctors were convinced there was more wrong with me than the endometriosis and strongly advised that I stay at a hospital in Mexico City to rest to be in a good position for surgery. However, I was in the middle of graduate school! The day before I left on this Mexican surgical scouting trip child still in tow, I arrived to meet a wonderful doctor who I will never forget. I walked 10 blocks to find this kind doctor. He took me into his office and agreed to help me. Any American girl desperate for help in Irapuato, walking with her baby, clearly needed the help. We agreed on a price for a surgery. Only $5,000 for him, another specialist, and a private Catholic hospital. That surgery was the one that helped me most with endometriosis, yet my other issues prevailed.

By the time I was in my PhD program, my stomach and bladder issues were intolerable. No longer was I able to muster up a full day of smiles hiding my pain. My avoidance of seeking help stacked upon me and was a heavy weight I carried daily. I was a single mom of not of two children. I actually had been a single mom of one child before marrying my ex in graduate school. At this point, I was so ill that I knew I was dying inside. I lived most days in pain and would have daily bouts of passing out on the bathroom floor. Indeed, after much testing and much cost I had an answer. Doctors diagnosed me with interstitial cystitis and celiac disease, autoimmune disorders like the endometriosis and thyroid conditions that already plagued me.  

I incurred more medical bills and more debt, and I needed more surgeries. I was thankful when my student insurance said it would cover the costly medical neurotransmitter implant for my bladder disease. Yet subsequently, I was completely dumbfounded when they rejected my claim despite a pre-approval. I was not surprised because I had been through insurance denials before. I fought and lost two battles with insurance companies over endometriosis all because they classified my surgeon as a fertility specialist.  My surgeries were for chronic pain, and he was the only person qualified to perform them. I fought that battle with the State of Louisiana and again fought with the State of Florida to convince them to force my insurance companies to live up to their word. I paid a lot of money in premiums and copays all for broken promises. My fights were futile. In 2007, we filed bankruptcy for the $100K not covered by insurance during that time in my life.  

Little did I know that my journey with autoimmune problems would continue. Diagnosed with other autoimmune diseases, basically, I am a mess. The toll of physical pain and the emotional challenge of faking as normal of a life as possible in a chronically ill body is not the purpose of writing this essay. Oh dear reader, in case you haven’t figured out my personality by now, normal isn't my style. I am driven to exceptionality whether that be an asset or a detriment, I am unsure but it is who I am.

Medical debt does not decline through the course of a lifetime for people like me; one does not stop acquiring it when one is chronically ill. My friend asked me, "Well, can you get better?" The complicated answer is that I am better and worse all the time. I flip flop like all autoimmune sufferers. The reality is, these illnesses are progressive in nature and one of them may very well kill me at a younger than necessary age since vital organs are involved in my battle. Despite my attempts to be in tiptop physical shape, my body betrays me often. It requires tens of thousands of dollars of medical attention each year. Case in point, to my surprise, in 2016, I had a parathyroid tumor removed, If it had not been removed, it would have killed me. My ex and and I canceled our 10th anniversary cruise with my best, that we planned in our minds since our honeymoon, in order to pay for that surgery with the help of some family too. Chronic health problems still need maintenance. I don't suspect that as I age that I will be blessed with better health than ever unless an affordable cure is on the horizon. So let me repeat, I am unable to prevent acquiring medical debt yearly for the rest of my life.  This is the cost to maintain health and wellness in my chronically ill body. Medical expenses are my first challenge.

MY AMERICAN LIE

My second challenge (which I alluded to earlier) was that I was a single mother in college. When I became a mother, I gave birth on a day that I went to class in the early stages of labor. I sat through an entire history class and then told my instructor that I was likely in labor and I would see her next week for my exams. Indeed, I was in labor and held true to my promise. I went back to college one week after becoming a new mom, single and living with my best friend of best friends, who was also a single mom. When I went back to my classes, I took the exams I missed. I will never forget rocking my child as I took an intense exam translating Old English medieval literature. As I sat in the little cubby of my late and inspiring professor of medieval studies, I will never forget her telling my baby to "shut up" so his mom “could be more awesome.” I felt proud as my Spanish teacher told me I made motherhood look easy the day I took a written exam that required me to analyze literature and art in Spanish on my first day back to class.  

I finished my undergraduate degree the semester I had my first child and was ready for graduate school. Many family members discouraged me. They told me to get a job with the education I had, but I refused. I had a dream. I was going for it, for myself and for him, my son. I insisted on continuing with my plans with my son. My feelings were that everyone could sit back and watch me prove myself. Indeed, I did just that. I moved to a different town and knocked out a master’s degree in English Literature. This is when I began taking out student loans. 

A scholarship covered a majority of my master’s degree. I fought with the State of Louisiana to get endometriosis approved as a fundable disability.  My case supported this 100%. I applied for a scholarship through state disability services. I went through a barrage of testing to prove that I was qualified for my field. More tests proved my field fit my personality. Mind you, this is after qualifying as ill enough to be labeled as disabled. Still to this day, the state considers endometriosis to the extent I had it to be a disability which helps other women. My caseworker was happy to relay this to me. In addition to proving my disability, I had to prove my viability in my career path of course after acceptance into a graduate program. Just let that sink in for one second.  

All of hardship and cumbersome battling of systematic red tape as a single mom trying to better herself. I will never forget after the many months of regular meetings, tests and reviews, the final "decision man" said to me in my last interview, "How will you do all of this with him?" pointing to my baby. I said, "Because I want to and I want to prove to people like YOU that I can do better than you think for us all by MYSELF."  I was furious with that man as I waited on his decision in the hallway. Yet, I was granted that scholarship and the man said even though he still didn't know how I was going to do it, he believed me when I said I would. I got my baby into a great daycare and got a job there myself.  I was with my son at work and left him there when I went to school. I also worked at restaurants as a server and bartender just as I had as an undergrad. None of my hard work was enough, so I took out student loans.

Being stuck as a single mom once again in Florida working on an even more advanced degree with even more children at the height of the housing boom was an absolute hardship beyond my imagination. Provided with a small stipend and no other assistance, I took every side job that I could hoping that my university would not find out. Working while on a fellowship teaching for the university is against the rules. My secret side jobs were not enough to survive the high cost of living in South Florida. In 2003 at FAU, there was no student housing that accepted children. I was stuck at first at a rent of $750, then $850, $890, $960, then $1420 for a 2-bedroom apartment with less than 850sq ft. When I complete my comps in 2006, it was going to cost $1860 to maintain the existing lease with my new partner. With NO MORE financial backing by the school, we left with every intent on completing our dissertations from afar in the inexpensive rural university town of Athens, Ga.   

Summers in Florida were brutal. My first summer in Florida, FAU granted me a TA-ship.  Yet all summers after that first entailed searching for off campus jobs. I layered on job on top of one another through my days working a series of jobs. I tutored for a wealthy doctor's daughter, was a Jewish deli cashier, was ghost screen play writer, worked as  a daycare teacher, consulted businesses all while maintaining my studies and caring for my children. I worked hard. Not to slight anyone’s experience, but I know few people who worked as hard as I did, and most of them are my single parent friends. Yes, I took out loans but I still ended up begging at churches for vouchers for gas and food and electrical bills. I depended on my partner to help with rent until I could pay him back when my loans came in. Student loans were my second burden. We can argue if it was reasonable or not for me to acquire my debt, but I did nonetheless. I did for SURVIVAL and with the FAITH and TRUST in MY AMERICAN DREAM.  So back to that...

MY JOURNEY AS AN ENTREPRENEUR

In 2006, the time came for me to search for jobs. With the near completion of my PhD and having passed all of my written and oral comprehensive exams, I was officially ABD (All But Dissertation). After 15 years of schooling, I finally qualified for my dream job. I thought that I was approaching my dream coming through with a new partner and two more babies. The only thing is that no jobs with sustainable incomes were available. Only low paying adjunct positions with temporary and uncertain futures were and still are offered by major universities and small colleges alike. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. I tried to make myself marketable by being interdisciplinary. Going across the humanities qualified me for work in several departments. Years later in 2017, I took an adjunct position in South Florida as a single mom of four children. As an adjunct for Broward College, I made less than a cashier at Costco. I supplemented my work with writing contracts, waiting tables, selling art and working as a tour guide for a party bike. None of it was the glamourous or lucrative life as a writer and literary researcher that I hoped for.

Looking for work in 2006, I found some nonacademic work. Blow after blow of hardships enveloped my life. Unemployment and underemployment was the path for my partner and me at the time. We were overqualified and in a small university town where everyone was overqualified. I was paying for out of state dissertation hours to maintain my status and graduate. FAU changed their graduation requirements insisting that during the final phase of the PhD program, I enroll full time for two semesters in a row. I only had one dissertation hour left to complete my degree, but I was required to pay for 18 hours. I slowly realized that the cost of finishing was too great, tens of thousands of dollars.

The cost to complete a degree that I already felt betrayed by due to the employment crash of the entire US university system did not seem worth it. To compound the issue, FAU also changed their dissertation advisory panel rules. One of my advisors was Dean Dr. Anthony Tamburri.I greatly admired his writing and research style as it was most similar to my own. I was honored for him to be a part of my committee and actually wanted him to become my primary advisors after I had strayed in methodology from my original advisor. Dr. Tamburri surprised even himself by accepting a job at the prestigious John D Calandra Italian American Institute at Queens College/CUNY. FAU made the devastating decision to disallow committee members to be anything other than a “fourth reader” for PhD student dissertations. Considering I was already working remotely and in the final stage of my dissertation, finding a new committee member was literally impossible. All signs pointed to abandoning my hard work toward my PhD.

When my inspiring Grandmother, mentor, and my true best friend, Betty, died, I was gifted with a small amount of money. With that gift added to another inheritance from her sister, my great Aunt Ann. that same year, I had enough money to pay cash for the rest of my degree. However, I was completely disillusioned at that point with universities and the complication of my committee sealed the deal.  I could only reason that it was unreasonable to pay for a degree that was worthless to my situation. To complete my PhD would have been a financially terrible decision despite the enormity of the debt I had already incurred. In fact, it would have been bad enough of a choice as to render myself intellectually undeserving of receiving that degree. With 2 more sons in tow, I opened my first business, using my inheritance and paying cash for every expense. I vowed not to go into debt. I did not want any credit card or business debt of any kind. I owned my business in Athens for 4 years and closed it. Making money off the closure. I decided a new town would be a better venture than the small-scale atmosphere of Athens, GA. In 2012, I prepared for a clean slate and moved to Memphis to start a better life.

I moved to Memphis greatly in party due to the downfall of the University system leading to economic hardships for residents in wonderful, creative, and charming university towns like Athens. Athens has no escaped hard times as I see business after business close and people still very close to me suffer in poverty. The kindness and resourcefulness present in the people of Athens spouted a wonderful community of homesteaders and culture of bartering. It is beautiful to watch even the poorest of my friends give all they have to help an even less fortunate community member. Such is the beauty of a town like Athens, where people come together and live well, despite hardships. Sadly, bartering is bad for business when your medical bills require cash and blood, not eggs and soap.

In Memphis, I came full circle by starting another wonderful and exciting business Service: Style & Design. Again, I saved money to open it debt free. I worked and paid cash for everything. I renovated an airstream creating a vintage clothing store and I published a coloring book with Little Brown and Company. Shortly after opening my vintage clothing store and having the deadly parathyroid tumor removed, I fell deathly ill once more. I ended up closing shop and moving back to South Florida, once again abandoning a dream. Once again, I was living a nightmare.

This time, my illness almost took me out. I was again sick with celiac. What I didn’t know at the time was that my thyroid medication contained unreported amounts of gluten. All that I knew was that I was dying. I dropped 30 pounds. Celiac crisis bombarded my body with a slew of terrifying symptoms from difficulty swallowing (and choking) to the inability to regulate blood sugar, body temperature and heart rate. I was also sick with the worst stomach issues all the time. I was confused knowing that I had gotten so far in life with a path I loved only to have it ripped away from me. Each new path was yanked out from under me like a failed magician’s tablecloth tossing glass broken all over the floor.  

After settling back in South Florida and starting a new life as a single mother of four children, I purchased with cash a boat to live on. I began renovating it just to watch a toxic and abusive partner destroy it. Repeatedly in my life, I have picked up the shattered pieces and set out to repair my heart. Chronic illness and poverty have felt like sand falling between my fingertips, dictating that my hands remain empty. Yet, I continue and I scoop up the remainder of my pride moving on to a different direction. I have learned that the consequences of celiac disease does not end when you go on a gluten free diet. In fact, the challenging journey only begins there.

Living on my boat for almost eight years now, I learned to work on boats and opportunities in the marine industry come my way serendipitously. Twenty years ago when I was taking my comprehensive exams, I would have never guessed that my journey would be so different from my dreams. I would have never knows that I would be a published artist, a marine electronics technician, a published poet, or a vintage clothing store owner. I would have never guessed that I would work with my hands so much. I would have never guessed that the consequences of celiac disease along with the collapse of the university system would shoot me like a canon into a path so far away from my imagination that I hardly recognize that earlier version of myself.

Since I left my degree program, I have been many things; elder care provider, activities leader, preschool teacher, fitness instructor, contracted consultant, community educator, shoe sales person, account manager, festival pizza slinger, glorified secretary, writer, matchmaker, artist, housekeeper, marine electrician, all to make ends meet. Confused at my path, at my debt, and at my chronic illness, I remain thankful that I have my education. I am blessed by my work ethic resourcefulness. I fortunately have a wide range of interests and abilities. To my own amazement, I do not allow my financial status or my chronic illness affect my spirit or my momentum.

Despite my consistent vigor for life, the journey has not been easy. So at this point I must address those that would question my worth (insert the name of any prominent billionaire or apathetic politician). Please, do tell me, do you work harder than me? Do you think I need more education? How about more drive? More passion? Has any destitution I experienced of my own doing? Did I do everything wrong, misstepping across the path put before me. No, I did everything I should to achieve. And yes, I have been able to pull together the start of multiple businesses. However, despite paying over $1,000/month for rent for 20 years and having no credit card debt, my credit is indeed totally shot due to medical debt and defaulted student loans that ballooned 6x their original cost. Despite declaring bankruptcy and maintaining good status with my basic bills and despite paying cash for multiple surgeries, vehicles and the boat that I live in, my credit is worthless. Chronic illness has injured not only my body but also my general livelihood.

School debt is one matter that accumulates only because of the interest, but medical debt is not under ones control. Our system is set up for us to fail.  I am not a failure, but I might never own a house, have a retirement fund, or have a funeral fund. I could very well could be a great burden on my 4 sons. As I age, my illnesses might take over, swallowing the hope that I hold so dear. I promised my sons that I will work until I cannot, but the times in my past that I have spent bedridden are stark reminders that the time of dependence comes without warning. I created a work schedule and situation that accepts and forgives my ill body. I created a nontraditional work life. I had to because our current systemic models do not support chronically ill Americans that want to maintain a career.  

MY NEW AMERICAN DREAM

The American Dream fed to me from birth by my parents and grandparents is a dream I reached for beyond my physicality. They had it, so I should have it. We all should. I turned though the pages of those lies in my own life. I followed the hollow and antiquated set of rules only to discover that the rules are worthless. It wasn't until I broke free of them that I was successful. However, I am trapped both by my body, and by an unforgiving system that is ill with greed. A system that feeds us a lie and makes even our brightest lights grow dim as it extinguishes the flame of our hearts one by one.  

There are others like me, fraught with chronic illness and caught under financial avalanche that traps them beneath a pile of debt. We collectively have a new American Dream; one where our hard work is appreciated. A dream that recognizes each of us as a part of a mutual web that is life. A life where we don't go into debt trying to survive just a little bit longer for a rusted and dying dream that is never just around the corner. The New American Dream is a threat to what exists because we tried the first dream and we rejected it. Internet freelancing, working artists, mobile stores, local small businesses, farmers, and more are taking their lives back. We don't want to buy your land. We won't sharecrop off of you any longer.

You taught us to work hard in order to reap the rewards of labor. Some sit in judgement and think our problem is that we have not worked hard enough, yet we have arguably worked too hard. We are strong. We are educated. We are taking over. We want to care for one another. We want changes. We will create the New American way with our votes and our vote is for compassion. We have compassion for the burden of others. I learned one thing to be true and that is that you can do nothing alone. My burden, my debt, my illnesses…they are yours. And for that I am sorry. But brothers and sisters of this world, your burdens are mine. I hope that I am having a good day and I can help you with your burden.  I know the tapestry of people who have helped me through the years with mine and for all of them I am grateful. For anyone who thinks that you are alone in your success, you are now alone. Let us carry our burden together, rejoice together for all of our successes. Let us support one another.  Let's support our new American Dream.