Change for Change

$1.54, they counted, as the sweat beamed from the corners of the crevasses of their near see-through, drenched, shirt. A dollar and fifty-four cents exactly fit neatly into a jumbled mess of their jean pocket. No. That's not what this life is. This life is a dollar and fifty-four cents, tucked into a sleeve; which was cut off a shirt, when the days grew too hot, a while ago. This is a sleeve that has been tied into a tight knot to make sure nothing fell out, since the concept of pockets weren't exactly a thing in the fashion world or whatever. A dollar and fifty-four cents which was to last until the payday. Why, you may ask? The moment that paycheck hits, the money will go to bills and it will be like this all over again.

Life wasn't meant to be this way, but it is what it is. The minimum wage should be able to cover a least a studio apartment and the groceries necessary to survive. However, in this day and age of expensive living, studio apartments are sometimes more expensive than one bedroom apartments or just as such. You often get to work a long while until you get tired but when you grow tired, you must turn around and work the next morning. It's not exactly a lifestyle most people would fancy.

If they knew a month ago that the two and a half year commitment that they were in would come to an end, they would have been saving up for a place of their own. It would have been a lot easier to plan out. However, the end was abrupt. The end was silent and deadly. Most of all, this was a slap in the gut to the both of us. It was because of one simple miscommunication about a dad that set the whole relationship ablaze. Boxes were built up and filled by 8 PM, when the love came strolling in, and we parted for a bit. It was not until the very next morning that things were spoken about rationally and without anger. That's when he let them go.

When life happens, you blink, and it's just all there. You blink and blink and it will keep going with or without you. A never-ending cycle if you will. For the better part of 18 years, you have things decided for you, you have no financial things to worry about. Not a care in the world rests upon your mind. A thought to always keep on the back burner, though, would be that anything your parents do, is out of love after you turn 18; but before then, it's kind of a legal obligation. Otherwise, one figures, child support would not be a thing for divorced and unmarried/separated/split people.

That is until either you or your parents decide it's time for you to go out on your own, with the minimal life skills you have learned in school. You know math, you got the money part down. You know science, like the sound barrier being broken when a plane flies overhead, and how to explain the lag of sound trailing behind it. You know this equation that's ingrained in your mind; how to calculate the difference from one point to another in a triangle. What you don't know, is that heartbreak is a fall from hell and living alone isn't all as beautiful as it seems. You don't know anything until it happens, and even then, the world goes on while you sit and count out a dollar and fifty-four cents.