I’m Lucy and I am from the Midwest, now living in Los Angeles.

The past 13 months have been the hardest of my life. Below, I am outlining the core reasons I am asking for help.

In November of 2018, my car was stolen. A week after that, it was recovered — but it required about $2500 worth of repairs before I began driving it again (which I did).

In early 2019, I realized that my relationship was not good for me and was taking a serious toll on my health. Many of the details I will keep private, but I will say that it took me a long time to figure out how to exit the relationship. I am no longer with her, but I’m certainly still dealing with the effects now.

In May, I left my beloved job at a company where I worked for 11 years. I wanted a new challenge and to grow professionally in a different direction. I got what I thought was going to be a dream job, but quickly learned it was nothing short of a toxic environment. I was fired after one month, inexplicably, in a three-sentence email with no subject line. In the email they didn’t even address me by name. I still don’t know what happened.

Approximately ten days before that email, I got in a car accident that totaled my vehicle. It was horrifying; nothing like that had ever happened to me. The accident was not my fault, but the value of my salvaged car was so low that I didn’t receive much help from insurance.

So, I found myself jobless and carless, and grappling with some intense personal issues. I was unemployed for two months, which felt like nine.

In August, I began a new job, and got some money together for a down payment on a used car. At this point, things were looking up for me and I was feeling super positive, aside from still having debt from my car repairs in late 2018, and many unpaid fees from the accident in June — plus myriad bills incurred while I was out of a job.

Then, last week, I was driving around for work, delivering Christmas gifts to some accounts late in the evening. I had so much on my mind, both good and bad, mostly concerning all of the heartaches I’d been through in 2019 and how excited I am for 2020. I was completely sober and my phone was on driving mode. I made a legal U-turn but cut it too wide, and found myself approaching a parked food truck in a parking lane in the third lane of what would otherwise be a four-lane street. (LA folks: y’all know Venice Blvd in Mar Vista is singularly pedestrian friendly, but not so much for cars.) I slammed on my breaks but it was too late, and I hit the parked truck. It was no rinky-dink ice cream truck that bounced at my collision, but rather a proper truck with a full cab. The truck had minimal damage, thankfully, and no one was in the vehicle.

I was not seriously physically injured. However, my car sustained serious damage and is considered a total loss. Altogether with a high deductible, corporate insurance company unwilling to compromise with me, and high costs of parts and labor in LA, I’m further in debt than ever.

The past year has served me several serious wake up calls. While I process all of the lessons I’ve learned since moving to Los Angeles and having a rough bout of luck, I also bear the full responsibility of navigating this difficult time in my life. I’ll be taking on a second job to work nights and weekends, but I’m still feeling the dread of too many bills and not enough resources. Continuing to charge these awful car costs to my credit cards is crippling me, and will only inhibit me in more serious ways as I look toward to turning 30 in 2021.

So I am turning to my community with humbling vulnerability, to ask for help. I have done this many times: asking for places to stay, connections to network with, shoulders to cry on — and I believe I have given the same to the people I love. But I have never shared this intimate vulnerability with the masses of the internet, and I have never put out a call to arms for a most precious resource: money.

That’s changing now that I’m in this position. I’m not going to find $12,000+ dollars under my bed or in my piggy bank. But I’m probably going to earn half of that in the first seven months of 2020 with a second job, to get some stability back in my financial life. And I’m going to move forward.

If you can help me by giving me $5, $10, $20, or even $50, I will be so grateful. I never thought I’d be asking for this, but the older I get, the more I’m surprised by how little I know. All donations will go directly to bills. I will be using this money to pay for: a rental car while I figure out the best course of action, the deductible on my insurance, repairs on my vehicle OR a down payment on a new vehicle, the remaining balance on my current car payment, and a balance I owe on various bills from the past year like towing fees and Ubers while car-less.

In return, and no matter what, I’ll pay it forward. Thank you for your kindness and love to me! I promise I’ll never forget the real, substantial help you gave me during the scariest time of my life thus far, while knowing that if I am lucky enough to live many years, this probably won’t be the hardest one.

I also have Venmo and PayPal, which I can provide at your request. Thanks for reading and for being in my life.