February 2002 Issue - Essay # 7
Can
You Spare Some Change?
By Kristin
Dreyer Kramer
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Each morning, the alarm goes off. It’s too loud. It’s playing some popular song with a catchy chorus that I’ll most likely be singing to myself for the rest of the day. And as I adjust to the disturbance--to being dragged out of a nice, warm, comfortable sleep--I ask myself the same question I asked myself the morning before (and that I’ll inevitably ask myself the morning after). Where am I? If there’s a rustling beside me--a deep, tired sigh that isn’t mine--that’s my hint. The body-- and the sigh--are my husband’s. I’m with him. But if there’s no rustling--no tired sigh--and the alarm waits for me to turn it off… then I’m alone. I’m home. I’m in my own bed. But I’m alone. * * * * * A year ago, when Paul asked me if I’d spend the rest of my life with him, I never dreamed that life would be this way. Sure, we lived four hundred miles apart then--in two different countries--but married people live together, right? I always thought so… The plan was for me to move to Toronto. Paul had a good job, and I'd spent the last year of my life unemployed--driving back and forth down the familiar roads to see him. We figured that staying with the stable job was our best bet--but the rental guides suggested something entirely different. Housing was scarce--and out of our price range. Still we looked. Actively. Every day. For months. Time was getting short, then. We had less than three months before the wedding, and we had nowhere to live. So we tried a different path. I already had a place to live--a beautiful two-bedroom apartment in a small town in West Michigan. It was bright and sunny, and the rent was cheap. I loved it. All we needed was for Paul to find a job there… Searching for a job in the middle of a recession isn’t the best plan, we soon discovered. As everyone around us lost their jobs, Paul struggled to look for one. That was six months ago. We’re still looking. A month before the wedding, it became clear that we needed a temporary solution. We continued with the legal process of getting Paul a green card--but we both knew that there were no jobs on the horizon. And since we couldn't--just couldn't--call Paul's parents' basement home after we were married, Paul moved out. He found a temporary apartment --just until we could get settled in Michigan. * * * * * I remember the first time I came to Paul’s new home. It was mid-afternoon on a weekday, and Paul was at work. I had been on the road for six hours – since early that morning. I pulled up to the house and started to cry. This isn’t what I wanted. We’re getting married in a month. Paul should be moving in with me --not into a bachelor apartment in his friend’s basement. It’s all wrong. I walked around the side of the house, down to the back yard. I unlocked the sliding glass door and stepped inside. The tears streamed down my cheeks as I looked around the tiny makeshift kitchen. It wasn’t the cozy kitchen where a young wife cooked dinner. It wasn’t the place where a husband and wife would make breakfast together on Saturday morning. It was a kitchen where a single guy left empty take-out cartons. It was a bachelor’s apartment. I didn’t belong there. The kitchen led to the rest of the apartment-- just one long, narrow room that Paul had divided into bedroom, living room, and office. I threw myself down on the bed. I hated everything about the place. It wasn’t my newly-wed dream--it was a nightmare. * * * * * Time moved right along--with no new developments. The wedding went off without a hitch--no major ones, at least. And everyone commented about how happy I looked. I was --because I was enjoying the day, pretending that that one day was all there was. We spent a wonderful week together in Mexico--in a little suite on the ocean. That, I realized, was my dream. We woke up together. We sat across the table from one another as we ate breakfast. We laughed and explored together. We sat on the patio as the sun set. We walked down the street to the market to buy milk and juice. We even had our own cat, who pretended that she belonged to us. It was perfect. On our last night in Mexico, I cried myself to sleep. I didn’t want to leave--because I knew what it meant. And three days after we came back to Michigan, Paul got in his car and drove back to Toronto, leaving me alone with the wedding gifts and the pictures and a ring on my left hand. But no husband. * * * * * It’s been four months now--four months tomorrow. And tomorrow, I’ll pack my bags again and shove them in the trunk. I’m tired of the drive--and so is my old car. It’s got 161,000 miles on it, and I don’t know how long it’ll hold out before it dies somewhere between here and there. The trip always scares me. I worry about my car. And I worry about crossing the border. When I come back to Canada, I’m always afraid that the border guard will get suspicious and refuse to let me back in. Then what? I have to go, though. I can’t stay here--not legally, not emotionally. I need to leave this confining one-room apartment. I need to see light again. I need to see my family and friends --I need people. I’m lonely here--alone in the apartment all day. Here, I have nowhere to go and no one to talk to. There, I have no Paul. * * * * * Sometimes, I laugh and say that I have two homes, but that’s not the truth. The truth is I’m homeless--homeless as the tired, filthy man dragging his blanket down the city street. We wake up each morning, wondering where we are--and where we’ll end up that night. We carry our possessions with us, never to truly unpack and settle in. We fear what’s ahead – what will become of us if things stay this way. And all we really want is a little change.
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Author's Biography Kristin Dreyer Kramer is
an advertising-drone- She's also the editor-in-chief of NightsAndWeekends.com You can reach Kristin for questions, comments, and generous donations at krdrkr@hotmail.com
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