My "HELP KEEP MY DREAM ALIVE"
Donation protected
Hello dear friends, family and concerned others.
I am here to tell you a story of a series of unfortunate events that begins with an attempt on my part to expand my horizons and embrace a new vision for my life, a new beginning, a dream which I have watched be dismantled and tossed away piece by piece over the last month, along with every last dime I have. I am about to enter a month of fees and unpayable payments that will leave me in a very scary place. I decided this option could be the only one left to me.
I'm not sure how far to go back to explain the circumstances that led to this situation. I suppose it began when a friend of mine began to tell me about how driving for Uber had helped him to reach a new place in his life and that it could be a good option for me. I began to look into it and realized that the flexibility of schedule and the way they structure things resulted in you basically starting your own small business and the potential for income, if done thoughtfully, could result in me being able to climb out of the rut I had found myself in, stuck in a job that would never allow me to advance.
This situation developed due to my healthcare needs. Every since HIV entered my life nearly ten years ago, I have had to make compromise after compromise to stay in a healthy place and receive the amazing care that I get. The main compromise being that in order to afford my medication (2200.00 a month), as well as my other medical expenses. I had to keep my income below the poverty level. I did this mainly by streamlining my work down to one job, bartending at the Paramount, which, thanks to an understanding manager, allowed me to take just enough shifts a month so that I would not go over the allowed income and retain my healthcare. Until I was able to actually get insurance with my pre-existing condition ( the last two years). I was basically stuck in this place. I found that I had to make a major compromise to do this: I had to give up my dream, for the most part, of having a career as an actor. This happened just as I was beginning to make some actual advancement in that area, getting cast fairly regularly as a union actor in the local houses, but I figured my health came first and if I had to limit my involvement in that arena, so be it. I decided that I would begin to develop my skills as a writer and that would sustain my artistic side. So began the years of drudgery. Making just enough to stay healthy. Never being able to have any kind of backup or savings to sustain me, but by living simply and following my doctors orders. I have managed to stay healthy. So it was worth it. Then I got insurance. This created a ladder which I could possibly climb out of this situation with, I could, as I made more income, pay for my own insurance and be able to move towards a more solvent place. I started to look for the right opportunity, a bridge, as it were, to this possible bright, new future. I knew I had to be careful and not risk it until I found the right thing, I could not afford to set out onto a bridge that was doomed to collapse.
It finally came when Uber entered my life. The management at my bartending job had changed, and that combined with the toll that high volume, manual work was taking on my body and psyche, was reaching an untenable place, but I had just been hired by my alma mater to direct a play under a three month contract, which, if I worked it just right, walked the tightwire for a few months, would allow me to finally make the big leap to begin to move to a new place. I turned 50 last year, I figured if I was ever going to do it, now was the time. So I made the leap. I left my job of 9 years, researched the hell out of the self-set schedules of successful drivers. Leased a car from Uber and began rehearsal for the production of The Winter's Tale at Cornish (Which opened this last Friday) and started out on the new adventure.
Uber was amazing. I was immediately thrilled with the way it opened up my earning potential. Allowing me to take the time to work on the play and still make nearly twice as much in the first week, than I had ever made in the same amount of time as a bartender. I began to glow! I could feel it. This was going to work out. I immediately fell in love with the feeling of engaging in actual life again. Thrusting myself into the middle of the crazy, swirly, shifting energy of my changing city and meeting facinating people. I loved the way my friends reacted to what was happening. I began to write of the people I was meeting in small essays on Facebook and was receiving the kindest comments about my writing and what a perfect fit Uber was for me. They were right. I loved it. I began to pay down my debts. I opened a business checking account and for the first time in nearly 8 years, I opened a savings account and began to fell the tiniest bit of security.
Then, only two weeks into this thrilling change in my life, at 5:40 am, while on a small Uber break between my early morning shift.. I had worked out the perfect schedule that not only kept me away from driving during rush hours, but maximized my income to the point that I was a top driver in Seattle already, with a near perfect customer rating, and dreams of a new life dancing in my head, (I had just received a note from Uber the night before deeming me a valued new addition to their fleet and telling me that they were astounded with my immediate success at the job and the high customer ratings I had acheived). I pulled over and signed off of the Uber app to get a cup of coffee at the 7-11 on 50th Street, in Wallingford and as I pulled out of there and started up the hill to head over to 99 to get back downtown and pick up my next possible tourist on their way back to the airport, the sun rose behind me and created a strange effect as I reached the crest of the hill, reflecting in such a way that it blinded me for a moment in my rear view mirror and at the same time created an extremely dark area just before the crest of the hill which made me unable to see the parked car, the only one parked there at that hour, and I hit it, without applying my brakes, going 35 miles an hour.
I have only had one accident in my life, a minor thing. I had never even had a moving violation. I was engulfed by airbags from every side, the smell of baby powder... for a moment I wasn't sure if I was alive. I was covered in hot coffee, which brought me around to the reality of what had happened. I climbed out of the car and in the ridiculously quite dawn, stared at the car, my new office that I had begun to love and see as my combination workhorse/life-saving/life-changing machine, crumpled into 1/3 of it's normal size.
I took a deep breath and as the scalding coffee I was drenched in began to cool, I called 911 and began to "deal with it". I wanted to sit on the curb and cry, but for the next hour, as the sun came fully up and the morning traffic buzzed around me, I handled the problem gathered as much as I could from the car into bags that the, sweet couple who's car I had hit, brought me from inside their house, received assurance from the police officer that "accidents happen... that's why they call them accidents", she also told me that this was not an uncommon one in this spot at this time of day. The tow truck came and towed away my just under two week old Toyota Corolla, the cops drove off, the couple went back into their house and I stood there, in shock, I think, steam from the ice cold coffee rising off of my drying clothes as the sun hit them full force, gathered my bags and walked the nearly three miles home, up and down the hills, forgetting about the bus pass in my pocket, my car2go card, I barely remember this walk, but I do know that when I did get home and set down the four bags of random things, I realized that my fingers were about to fall off due to the bags digging into them, they began to throb in pain. I took a shower and started to make phone calls. I went to rehearsal that night. I told very few people about the accident. I didn't even tell most of my siblings or close friends. I was determined to deal with this myself and get back to my amazing new job and future.
My insurance company, which is amazing, worked with me from the very beginning. The accident was not covered by Uber since I was not signed on to the app at the time. I had hooked them up to a very lucrative connection at the car dealership and they were very thankful for that and assured me that they would do all they could. The car was deemed a total loss and we began the process of getting everything taken care of. Thus began the strangest month. Going back and forth between my lovely, very responsive insurance agent and the many different, extremely slow-moving, over-whelmed with massive expansion divisions of Uber, I have spent more and more time every day trying to move the resolution to this get past this unfortunate event and move forward.
In the meantime, I have had to close my new business accounts, watched my resources dwindle away very quickly, had my rent raised three hundred dollars a month, have been faced with emergency dental expenses, medical expenses and had to turn to my family for help. They, of course have been wonderful, within a week it became obvious that I would need thier help extensively to avoid going into more debt due to late fees and automatic payments. I, too quickly had zero cash. I began to realize about a week ago that the Uber Leasing company was not going to move any faster than they were glacially moving. I realized also that I could not continue to turn to my family to pay every single dime to keep me afloat, I, in short, realized that I was entering a danger zone. I turned to two dear friends for help with smallish amounts that needed to be covered, and they were quick to respond and as I began to see that I was being overwhelmed financially, worn down by stress and possibly a touch of post-traumatic stress, (the smell of coffee makes me wince), I stopped sleeping, I was letting worry over my future consume me, I isolated myself from friends embarrased and not able to deal with the growing knowledge that this might me something I could not overcome, rehearsals started to feel like too much to bear and I was becoming unfocused and unable to deal with the responsibilities there, I was making myself sick. Luckily, I had a bit of an intervention.
Richard E.T. White, the head of the Cornish Theatre Department called me into his office and we talked about concerns that were arising do to my (this is very hard to admit) growing sense of unprofessionalism. The students were concerned. He told me that he didn't recognize me. We talked and I admitted that I was having a hard time holding it together at the moment. He gave me some amazing advise. I went home and looked at myself in the mirror and didn't recognize myself. I looked terrified and exhausted. I saw a vision of myself completely falling apart, I was, quite literally, a couple of weeks away from not being able to pay my rent and it was becoming apparent that I was at least a month away from Uber getting my account resolved and allowing me to get another car and begin working again. I was extremely depressed.
I resolved to pull my shit together and to not give up. I resolved that I was not going to let these students down. Most importantly I was not going to give up on the new life I had gotten only a glimpse of but knew was the right move for me. I reinvested my energy into the production I was obligated to see through and of course, in doing that I felt things come back into focus. The students saved me, the teachers saved me, Jan the production manager and Richard saved me, in a way Shakespeare saved me. The play opened this last Friday, and I am so proud of them all and so thankful for that meeting where Richard reminded me what he knew I was capable of.
I just got off the phone with Uber and it is going to take more time. I am working on figuring out how to start making more temporary income until it is resolved, but until then I am tapped out and a bit desparate. I began to contemplate this GoFundMe account a week ago, but I felt ashamed. Then I thought it through. Accidents happen. I looked at a small hand-written letter I recently found in an old box, it is from my father, who we lost nearly four years ago, he was not much of a letter writer, but it is from many years ago, when I was at a different point in my life and struggling and he felt moved to write me a note of encouragement and love. I decided that there was no reason to be ashamed. I am in need of help. It may come through this plea, it may not, but there is nothing wrong in the asking.
That being said, I need help and I need it now. A new month of bills is about to cycle around again and my family, though willing, really should not continue to draw against available funds needed to care for my mother. I chose the amount I am asking for carefully to assure that I will not fall behind again if the process takes another month before I get a paycheck. So I turn to you and hope that you will believe in me and my vision of lifting myself up, back to the place of exhilaration and hope that I found myself beginning to believe in again before the air-bags and the baby powder. Even the smallest donation will be a great boon and I will give regular updates of my progress to all who find it in thier hearts to donate 5, 10, 20, or whatever you can towards my effort to climb out of this hole and not get washed out to sea by the coming wave of expenses until I can begin to earn again. Thank you for taking the time to read this and thank you if you manage to make a small investment in me and my future. I have always realized that there is nothing more valuable to me than the lovely, caring people that I am lucky enough to call my community. Whether you are personally able to help at this time of need, I thank you for being there.
Thank you,
John
I am here to tell you a story of a series of unfortunate events that begins with an attempt on my part to expand my horizons and embrace a new vision for my life, a new beginning, a dream which I have watched be dismantled and tossed away piece by piece over the last month, along with every last dime I have. I am about to enter a month of fees and unpayable payments that will leave me in a very scary place. I decided this option could be the only one left to me.
I'm not sure how far to go back to explain the circumstances that led to this situation. I suppose it began when a friend of mine began to tell me about how driving for Uber had helped him to reach a new place in his life and that it could be a good option for me. I began to look into it and realized that the flexibility of schedule and the way they structure things resulted in you basically starting your own small business and the potential for income, if done thoughtfully, could result in me being able to climb out of the rut I had found myself in, stuck in a job that would never allow me to advance.
This situation developed due to my healthcare needs. Every since HIV entered my life nearly ten years ago, I have had to make compromise after compromise to stay in a healthy place and receive the amazing care that I get. The main compromise being that in order to afford my medication (2200.00 a month), as well as my other medical expenses. I had to keep my income below the poverty level. I did this mainly by streamlining my work down to one job, bartending at the Paramount, which, thanks to an understanding manager, allowed me to take just enough shifts a month so that I would not go over the allowed income and retain my healthcare. Until I was able to actually get insurance with my pre-existing condition ( the last two years). I was basically stuck in this place. I found that I had to make a major compromise to do this: I had to give up my dream, for the most part, of having a career as an actor. This happened just as I was beginning to make some actual advancement in that area, getting cast fairly regularly as a union actor in the local houses, but I figured my health came first and if I had to limit my involvement in that arena, so be it. I decided that I would begin to develop my skills as a writer and that would sustain my artistic side. So began the years of drudgery. Making just enough to stay healthy. Never being able to have any kind of backup or savings to sustain me, but by living simply and following my doctors orders. I have managed to stay healthy. So it was worth it. Then I got insurance. This created a ladder which I could possibly climb out of this situation with, I could, as I made more income, pay for my own insurance and be able to move towards a more solvent place. I started to look for the right opportunity, a bridge, as it were, to this possible bright, new future. I knew I had to be careful and not risk it until I found the right thing, I could not afford to set out onto a bridge that was doomed to collapse.
It finally came when Uber entered my life. The management at my bartending job had changed, and that combined with the toll that high volume, manual work was taking on my body and psyche, was reaching an untenable place, but I had just been hired by my alma mater to direct a play under a three month contract, which, if I worked it just right, walked the tightwire for a few months, would allow me to finally make the big leap to begin to move to a new place. I turned 50 last year, I figured if I was ever going to do it, now was the time. So I made the leap. I left my job of 9 years, researched the hell out of the self-set schedules of successful drivers. Leased a car from Uber and began rehearsal for the production of The Winter's Tale at Cornish (Which opened this last Friday) and started out on the new adventure.
Uber was amazing. I was immediately thrilled with the way it opened up my earning potential. Allowing me to take the time to work on the play and still make nearly twice as much in the first week, than I had ever made in the same amount of time as a bartender. I began to glow! I could feel it. This was going to work out. I immediately fell in love with the feeling of engaging in actual life again. Thrusting myself into the middle of the crazy, swirly, shifting energy of my changing city and meeting facinating people. I loved the way my friends reacted to what was happening. I began to write of the people I was meeting in small essays on Facebook and was receiving the kindest comments about my writing and what a perfect fit Uber was for me. They were right. I loved it. I began to pay down my debts. I opened a business checking account and for the first time in nearly 8 years, I opened a savings account and began to fell the tiniest bit of security.
Then, only two weeks into this thrilling change in my life, at 5:40 am, while on a small Uber break between my early morning shift.. I had worked out the perfect schedule that not only kept me away from driving during rush hours, but maximized my income to the point that I was a top driver in Seattle already, with a near perfect customer rating, and dreams of a new life dancing in my head, (I had just received a note from Uber the night before deeming me a valued new addition to their fleet and telling me that they were astounded with my immediate success at the job and the high customer ratings I had acheived). I pulled over and signed off of the Uber app to get a cup of coffee at the 7-11 on 50th Street, in Wallingford and as I pulled out of there and started up the hill to head over to 99 to get back downtown and pick up my next possible tourist on their way back to the airport, the sun rose behind me and created a strange effect as I reached the crest of the hill, reflecting in such a way that it blinded me for a moment in my rear view mirror and at the same time created an extremely dark area just before the crest of the hill which made me unable to see the parked car, the only one parked there at that hour, and I hit it, without applying my brakes, going 35 miles an hour.
I have only had one accident in my life, a minor thing. I had never even had a moving violation. I was engulfed by airbags from every side, the smell of baby powder... for a moment I wasn't sure if I was alive. I was covered in hot coffee, which brought me around to the reality of what had happened. I climbed out of the car and in the ridiculously quite dawn, stared at the car, my new office that I had begun to love and see as my combination workhorse/life-saving/life-changing machine, crumpled into 1/3 of it's normal size.
I took a deep breath and as the scalding coffee I was drenched in began to cool, I called 911 and began to "deal with it". I wanted to sit on the curb and cry, but for the next hour, as the sun came fully up and the morning traffic buzzed around me, I handled the problem gathered as much as I could from the car into bags that the, sweet couple who's car I had hit, brought me from inside their house, received assurance from the police officer that "accidents happen... that's why they call them accidents", she also told me that this was not an uncommon one in this spot at this time of day. The tow truck came and towed away my just under two week old Toyota Corolla, the cops drove off, the couple went back into their house and I stood there, in shock, I think, steam from the ice cold coffee rising off of my drying clothes as the sun hit them full force, gathered my bags and walked the nearly three miles home, up and down the hills, forgetting about the bus pass in my pocket, my car2go card, I barely remember this walk, but I do know that when I did get home and set down the four bags of random things, I realized that my fingers were about to fall off due to the bags digging into them, they began to throb in pain. I took a shower and started to make phone calls. I went to rehearsal that night. I told very few people about the accident. I didn't even tell most of my siblings or close friends. I was determined to deal with this myself and get back to my amazing new job and future.
My insurance company, which is amazing, worked with me from the very beginning. The accident was not covered by Uber since I was not signed on to the app at the time. I had hooked them up to a very lucrative connection at the car dealership and they were very thankful for that and assured me that they would do all they could. The car was deemed a total loss and we began the process of getting everything taken care of. Thus began the strangest month. Going back and forth between my lovely, very responsive insurance agent and the many different, extremely slow-moving, over-whelmed with massive expansion divisions of Uber, I have spent more and more time every day trying to move the resolution to this get past this unfortunate event and move forward.
In the meantime, I have had to close my new business accounts, watched my resources dwindle away very quickly, had my rent raised three hundred dollars a month, have been faced with emergency dental expenses, medical expenses and had to turn to my family for help. They, of course have been wonderful, within a week it became obvious that I would need thier help extensively to avoid going into more debt due to late fees and automatic payments. I, too quickly had zero cash. I began to realize about a week ago that the Uber Leasing company was not going to move any faster than they were glacially moving. I realized also that I could not continue to turn to my family to pay every single dime to keep me afloat, I, in short, realized that I was entering a danger zone. I turned to two dear friends for help with smallish amounts that needed to be covered, and they were quick to respond and as I began to see that I was being overwhelmed financially, worn down by stress and possibly a touch of post-traumatic stress, (the smell of coffee makes me wince), I stopped sleeping, I was letting worry over my future consume me, I isolated myself from friends embarrased and not able to deal with the growing knowledge that this might me something I could not overcome, rehearsals started to feel like too much to bear and I was becoming unfocused and unable to deal with the responsibilities there, I was making myself sick. Luckily, I had a bit of an intervention.
Richard E.T. White, the head of the Cornish Theatre Department called me into his office and we talked about concerns that were arising do to my (this is very hard to admit) growing sense of unprofessionalism. The students were concerned. He told me that he didn't recognize me. We talked and I admitted that I was having a hard time holding it together at the moment. He gave me some amazing advise. I went home and looked at myself in the mirror and didn't recognize myself. I looked terrified and exhausted. I saw a vision of myself completely falling apart, I was, quite literally, a couple of weeks away from not being able to pay my rent and it was becoming apparent that I was at least a month away from Uber getting my account resolved and allowing me to get another car and begin working again. I was extremely depressed.
I resolved to pull my shit together and to not give up. I resolved that I was not going to let these students down. Most importantly I was not going to give up on the new life I had gotten only a glimpse of but knew was the right move for me. I reinvested my energy into the production I was obligated to see through and of course, in doing that I felt things come back into focus. The students saved me, the teachers saved me, Jan the production manager and Richard saved me, in a way Shakespeare saved me. The play opened this last Friday, and I am so proud of them all and so thankful for that meeting where Richard reminded me what he knew I was capable of.
I just got off the phone with Uber and it is going to take more time. I am working on figuring out how to start making more temporary income until it is resolved, but until then I am tapped out and a bit desparate. I began to contemplate this GoFundMe account a week ago, but I felt ashamed. Then I thought it through. Accidents happen. I looked at a small hand-written letter I recently found in an old box, it is from my father, who we lost nearly four years ago, he was not much of a letter writer, but it is from many years ago, when I was at a different point in my life and struggling and he felt moved to write me a note of encouragement and love. I decided that there was no reason to be ashamed. I am in need of help. It may come through this plea, it may not, but there is nothing wrong in the asking.
That being said, I need help and I need it now. A new month of bills is about to cycle around again and my family, though willing, really should not continue to draw against available funds needed to care for my mother. I chose the amount I am asking for carefully to assure that I will not fall behind again if the process takes another month before I get a paycheck. So I turn to you and hope that you will believe in me and my vision of lifting myself up, back to the place of exhilaration and hope that I found myself beginning to believe in again before the air-bags and the baby powder. Even the smallest donation will be a great boon and I will give regular updates of my progress to all who find it in thier hearts to donate 5, 10, 20, or whatever you can towards my effort to climb out of this hole and not get washed out to sea by the coming wave of expenses until I can begin to earn again. Thank you for taking the time to read this and thank you if you manage to make a small investment in me and my future. I have always realized that there is nothing more valuable to me than the lovely, caring people that I am lucky enough to call my community. Whether you are personally able to help at this time of need, I thank you for being there.
Thank you,
John
Organizer
John Farrage
Organizer
Seattle, WA
