My.Life.Billed

“That is all I want in life: for this struggle to seem purposeful."

[mylifebilled]

Current amount - AED 145,387

[mylifebilled]

Debt is the worst poverty...”

[mylifebilled]

Fingers crossed

It's been ok for a while now and I have managed to stretch my AED 200 for over 20 something days. It's all going to hit the roof come 18th. In addition to everything, I have to pay back a friend AED 3000 on the 18th as promised. That is 4 days away and I have AED 20 to my name. I have no idea how I will do this but I have hope. Let's just see how this pans out. I am often amazed at my ability to keep calm and not freak out when situations like this especially with money owed have arisen in the past. I have never been not able to pay back anyone who has lent me money. I do this by reaching out to another friend and extending them a repayment period of 30 days. This cycle has been continuing since April. The pro is that I dont have to pay any additional interest or fees. The con is that I am running out of people to reach out to and I suspect( though this hasnt happened yet) that this incessant borrowing will ruin whatever  relationships I have with my friends. I go through a prolonged period of assessing how long I know the person and trying to predict how they would react when asked. I have a wild and vivid imagination being an artist and this does'nt always help. When I approach someone and they offer to help, I express how grateful I am for this. When I approach someone and they tell me they cannot help, I tell them I understand completely and wish them the best and keep it moving. I have no idea how I will come up with the AED 3000 by the 18th but I suspect I will, because the alternative is too depressing and stressful to start considering now. Fingers crossed.

[mylifebilled]

By day I have a job to keep. I returned back to work mid January and took a short planned leave of a week in February. In the last 4 months I have had 22 instances of absence from work on and off. Simply because I cannot afford to commute to work. I can't even afford metro fare. That comes to approximately 7 AED. I earn AED 10,000 a month and on average after utilities, saving a portion of it for rent and paying back the majority of it to cover my loan and 3 cards I am left with 200 AED of that amount, every month. I stretch that out to cover metro fare and phone credit. I have Wifi sometimes at home, if the bill is paid on time. I am often asked by friends why I don't repond on Whatsapp or social media until late at night. Little do they know. The few hours that I am home and not asleep, I squeeze in all my phone and internet time. That includes responding to messages on Whatsapp, emails that I am unable to access at work, download reading material from the web to use for days when I havent paid my bills and the service is disconnected. Oh yes and that is when I also upload all my artwork onto every online available platform.

[mylifebilled]

The aim of this blog is to record everything that is going on in my life right now. 

It's been a bleak but eye-opening six months so far. I am piss broke and in a lot of debt. This debt is a direct consequence of some really bad life decisions I have been making since the year 2009. Things really started to go horribly wrong around January of this year. Right in the midst of all the festivities that I was partaking in , my life was falling swiftly off course. I am starting to finally admit to myself that I am depressed. I never thought that would be me. I have a deeper understanding of what it is like to be depressed now. To simply wake up in the morning and not be able to function or get even simple tasks accomplished. The people in my life around me are completely oblivious of my current situation. My family, friends,co-workers have no idea. I am leading two very different lives at the moment. By day I have a job to keep. I returned back to work mid January and took a short planned leave of a week in February. In the last 4 months I have had 22 instances of absence from work on and off.

[mylifebilled]

Here goes...

So this is it. I start here. This is the story of my life. My life for the past 6 months. It’s been crazy but I am still here to tell my story.

I live in Dubai. I am 27. I have lived here for 25 of these 27 years. I love it here. I went to school here and I work here. I am so grateful to my parents for bringing me here from my war torn homeland. To this day I have never been back there. I came here in 1990 and I havent left. When I say I havent left, I mean just that. That journey was the first and last time I was on a plane. I was 2 when I arrived here. And what a shame because I don't even remember the flight.