Hunger is the Best Sauce

Starving for change

Hunger is the best sauce. (Photo by Siegfried Poepperl on Unsplash)

I wake up, painfully stretch, and my stomach growls. It’s Thursday.

“Shit,” I say to myself. I am already hungry, but Thursday is the day I cannot afford to eat. Thursdays and Sundays. On the other days, I eat only once, in the early evening.

Breakfast and lunch are meals for people who have money.

I chug a glass of water to have something in my stomach. Then another one. It’s cramping and doesn’t want the water — I don’t want the water — but I force it down. It’s the only way to feel full on a less than $25-a-week grocery budget.

At first glance, I’m getting by, but the vibrating, tinny humming of the fridge at night sounds louder than it should. It’s amplified by the rumbling and cramping in my stomach.

Once, I met a homeless man and bought him a burger and fries. He was so happy to have fast food. “Hunger is the best sauce,” he said. It stuck with me because it’s true.

Before the hunger

I would work sixty-hour weeks at my full-time job, then another twenty hours or so at the part-time jobs I did for fun. I had money to burn, money to save, and, most importantly, money to buy groceries. Back then, I never stopped moving until I burned out.

Then I got sick. Yes, I had insurance. Yes, I had savings. Over a decade of illness, copays, medical bills, and life itself drained every dollar. Now, I spend each day stretching my dollars until they snap.

I’m so God damned tired of it. I’m exhausted by the inertia of having nothing. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. It drains me.

Poverty doesn’t just starve you — it takes your dignity.

I grew up in a warm, loving house and never wanted for a thing, even when my mom and dad divorced. They each bought a house in the same neighborhood so we’d still have a stable life. Living below the poverty line was an abstract notion for me as a child. It was something you heard about on the news during Thanksgiving food drives.

They tried so hard to do right by me. What can I do-–blame them because they provided for me? It’s not their fault I was unprepared for a life of poverty.

I was very grateful that I was able to get a disability income. Because I was relatively young and it’s based on age, I only got a percentage of what I would have gotten when I retired. When I medically retired, I said goodbye to eleven years of cable TV, working air conditioning, and a three-bedroom house I loved — my home.

I would have had nowhere to go were it not for my friend. She rented me a bedroom. I was lucky. So many people don’t get that luxury — 31% of people on disability are homeless.

Years ago, I marched and wrote my leaders to support a living wage. Everyone has a right to earn enough for our basic needs. The irony? It doesn’t look like I will ever benefit from those protests.

Here’s some context: The average monthly disability payment is $983, only 17.5% of the national median income. I get the equivalent of less than half my state’s minimum wage. It’s humiliating. How am I supposed to live? Sure, I have clothes on my back–all from second-hand stores.

Generally, despite the obstacles, I’m a very positive person. I have to be, or the fear will win. Just below my sternum is a terror — a constant buzzing. It’s where I’ve shoved all the panic and dread. I can make it through the day with a happy attitude — as long as I don’t have to spend money.

Ten years from now, how will I afford to eat? Forty? I lie awake at night when the terror breaks free and threatens to consume me, along with the chronic pain.

Disability provides a laughable “cost of living” increase each January. It amounts to a few dozen dollars for me. Inflation is rising faster than I can catch up, and that buzzing in my gut is getting louder.

When I received a small cost of living increase, my $100 monthly food stamp benefits were taken away. I explained that it’s not extra money, that food is more expensive. I reapplied but was denied.

Longing for work

If you only knew how much I long to be working again. I miss being someone who busted my ass every day. As someone with dietary restrictions, my food isn’t cheap. A loaf of gluten-free bread is now ten dollars. Since 2020, the USDA says that food costs have increased almost 25%.

11.4% of the general U.S. population lives below the poverty line, compared to 25.9% of the disabled population. There are numerous agencies and organizations dedicated to helping seniors with disabilities. Because there is such a demand, people with disabilities who are under the age of fifty-five don’t always have resources for help and food.

Compound that with my many monthly copays, medical bills, and medical care, and I don’t know what to do. It’s not easy when you’re chronically ill and get tired so quickly. I hustle every month to make ends meet. I have nothing of value left to sell. I float this bill to pay that one.

Thankfully, I now have a bit of a buffer where that buzzing is. I have a roof over my head and a partner who won’t let me starve. He works for himself. Work has been very slow. We struggle. We’re not alone.

If he were gone, I’d have to live in my car — the one I’m grateful to have.

I wish that more small, affordable housing was available. I wish for more empathy in the world. I wish for the ability to help myself. I’m sick of sleepless nights.

Cravings

Having to depend on the kindness of strangers makes me so bloody grateful — yet so very, very small.

I have limitations — if I were homeless, how would I get my life-saving, nine-hour-long IVIG infusion every three weeks? It needs to be administered at home.

Home.

Food.

Things that make me feel human are all I want. I don’t have the answers. I wish I did.

I mostly eat on Thursdays and Sundays now. I try not to think about my lack of control over emergencies. I hope that nothing happens, I hope I can eat, and I hope that this poverty comes to an end.

I hate that I no longer care about wonderful flavors. I simply want relief from my stomach cramps. Once, you could have called me a “foodie” — now, that once-a-day meal is just a way to muffle the terror.

My tiny little dream? Renting a tiny little home in the mountains up north and being able to afford the basics in life. Where I can write and quietly just… be.

Hope takes courage. I don’t know how much courage I have left.

Buy Me a Coffee (or help me visit my Dad!)