WHY MIDDLE INCOME PEOPLE ALWAYS SUFFER THE BLOW?

This is a repost. I wrote this thought of mine years ago at the height and at the time the nation was mourning for the victims of the Typhoon Haiyan. Thought our circumstances are still the same even with the passing of time and as to when we find freedom from all of these misfortunes, The Divine only knows.

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If you’ve made hold of today’s paper, Dinky Soliman, the ever hard working Secretary of DSWD said that, in summary – still a lot of people suffer from depression as evident during the stress debriefing sessions of the victims of the Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), special mention were those middle-income family who have lost, in a matter of minutes, those things that they’ve worked hard for in the past years they’ve been living in this planet. That's aside from the fact that some members of their family were still nowhere to be found.

If I was one of them, (palayo intawon) gracious heavens, I could still be crying a river up until now that’s for sure – it’s because even at while material support come teeming – you can’t just strip away and immediately the trauma and the feeling of devastation from these people.

If I were someone living in ‘kariton’ and have survived the flood, I would just be crying over a lost ‘kariton’ and I’m certain if I work hard again, there would be a better and much improved replacement. And as I know too Good Samaritans surface at the time people need help. While I may suffer the lost of a love one, that’s one of life’s inevitable misery I have to deal with. Our daily subsistence was just ‘hand-to-mouth’ in the first place anyway so there’s nothing much that has changed me receiving daily rations from the center. In fact, I’ll be more at ease as I’m certain at the end of the queue, I’ll get served.

If I was someone rich, like crazy rich. I won’t care about my led TV being washed away, my mansion gets mired, and my car got stuck in the mud. While I can only sigh with disappointment, I can always buy an upgraded model, hire people to clean it up, see the car dealer for a new one and at most, insurance will take care of the rest and get all my resources mobilized to get me served. I may suffer from a painful blow of losing someone, but I can always fly somewhere else, take a break to nurse my pained soul or hire a shrink when needed to help ease my sorrows.

But if it was someone like me, someone who has spend day in and day out working and saving my butt out to pay my monthly housing amortization, my hulugan LED television, my car, that I just loaned thousands to pay out the down payment, my dslr that I spent sleepless nights blogging just to buy one – I think it’ll be the hardest thing ever – cruel as starting all over again. Thought this would warrant deleting my memories, reboot and restart a new life... but first ... fisting towards heavens, asking, why me? 

I believe in everything happen for a reason, but healing would take time.

Even without this kind of life circumstance, people who belong to middle income hierarchy always are the most vulnerable class in any social mobility set-up. They can be pulled up or down, and this instability is a reason why middle-income people always suffer the blow.

But one thing I’ve realized, while my thinking focused only on the material stuff which apparently brings security to us humans, the level of pain of losing someone and of losing everything I think plays a levelling factor.

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Posted in Emotional Weather Report, Feminist Musings, Women of our time