I am not trying to be insulting, but there is a great disparity in some people and their income and lifestyle, that is just a fact. I have been wondering and frequently bring up to Wife as a discussion of "how are people getting by?" I only wonder because together we make a comfortable living, yet because I am horrible with money, as everyone in my family tells me, we are occasionally still tight with money. If this is the case for us, it must be worse for most middle-income America right now.
I guess a prime example is Girlie's family, in general. We know everyone over there, we were pretty close up to about 8-10 years ago, then after we moved, we slowly lost the connection we had. There have been divorces and deaths in the family and now they are a jumbled patchwork of individuals trying to get by. To me it seems kind of sad, yet most of the outcomes were and are as a direct result of their own actions, so it is hard to really feel sorry for anyone, except maybe the kids. With a couple of divorces, now the parents live with the kids who are now really grown and supposed to be on their own. I can honestly say that Austin is a bad example of a good place to make a living if you are not educated or skilled in some way. Because of the prices on houses around here, a single person would have a hard time just going out and finding a home they can afford easily.
Girlie was sharing a 2-bedroom apartment with a girlfriend of hers, which sounds right on the surface, but then she had her younger sister staying with her for some time helping with the rent, then her younger brother and I believe even a cousin, so there was a lot of "carousel living", every time I asked how things were going, she had someone else living with them. Same seems to be going at her folks, where they managed to get a house before prices went crazy in one of the surrounding smaller cities, and it hasn't been weird to hear her say her cousin has moved in, her aunt has moved in and on and on. Same with another one of the uncles, our old roommate, also managed to buy a house before prices skyrocketed, then because he is a good man (I always liked him), has let the daughter have the house while she gets on her feet (this has turned into a few years now), and even his ex-wife has managed to move in. The younger son also lives there, and again, other family members are constantly in and out.
I am not saying this to insult anyone, it just seems people are trying to survive right now, I don't know that anyone is flourishing at this point. Boy, even with his new degree and good job, can only afford an apartment, we really do have a shortage in housing all across central Texas. As Girlie tells me, almost everyone on her family's side has a side job, her boyfriend works a full-time job during the week, then is trying to make money by buying and selling junk cars which he tries to get back to running condition. Her cousins all seem to have more than one job too. I am happy for her that she is one semester away from finishing college, but that is not the finish line, like Boy, she will have to continue fighting and scrapping to get to a point and salary that can lead to a more comfortable life.
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