Rant: The American Dream has become my nightmare [View All]

[AlienGirl]

When I was a kid, I was raised with the idea that if you work hard, stay honest, and try your best you'll make your way in life. That was the American Dream, after all.

Not surprisingly, I bought into the other side of that, too--if you just can't make it, you've done something wrong; you either aren't working hard, or aren't working smart, or you've made some really bad decisions.

I made some bad decisions, I guess. Like the decision to trust a man who said "...in sickness and in health..." Like the decision to stay home with the children I had with him. And finally, like the decision to have the audacity to get cancer.

Now it's years since he left me and moved to the other side of the continent with my kids. I'm working a retail job for just above minimum wage, and haven't gotten a raise every six months like I was promised; but I don't dare complain because there are so many people without jobs who'd be glad to have mine. Every day I wait on impatient women wearing diamonds who look down their noses at me. I will never own a house, probably never be able to retire, and I can't afford to fly the kids here to visit me this summer.

I'm exhausted and cranky from a day spent explaining to customers that the sales in the paper weren't in the computer yet so everyone was slowed down by having to hand-enter the sale prices. I worked until 11:20 tonight, and I need to be back at work at 8:00 tomorrow morning.

Please wake me from this American Dream.

Tucker