To My Dear Friends,

Earlier today, I approached a co-worker with a deeply sensitive and, quite honestly, extremely embarrassing favor to ask. I work about 45 miles from home, my gas tank was almost on empty…and I didn’t have the money to buy enough gas to get back home. You see, I recently had an “extreme depressive episode” as my therapist calls it, which basically means I had a nervous break-down and couldn’t go to work for 2 weeks. So when rent was due, my paycheck was a whopping $250!! This, by the way, was just enough to put me back into the black, before my $255 direct withdrawal came in from one of the financing companies, that I am so far behind in paying…so here it was, Tuesday evening on the 7th of the month, and I was back in the red, without having paid rent or any other bill for that matter. And the only possible way for me to get home without running out of gas on the way, was to ask for help.

My friend, bless his soul, is one of the few truly kind and generous people that I have met here in LA. And I must say, he is most definitely the ONLY person I would be able to approach with a request like this at work. In any case, he and I began talking about how sad it is that people feel so ashamed of asking for help, these days….especially financial help. I mean, for myself, if I knew of someone else in a similar situation, I would welcome their request with open arms and a warm and open heart. I think there are few people (even here in LA) that would not easily give a friend $20 to help them out in a situation like this. Heck, most people I know would easily give $20 to a friend who just forgot their lunch money for the day. So why is it so hard to ask for help anymore? I suppose because everyone is so caught up in their own lives and are assuming everyone else is busy with theirs and anyone who needs help is slacking.

Well, how’s this for slacking? I worked for 3 months for this guy, doing financial and personal assistant work, working over 20 hours per week most weeks….and what did I get in return? I got $150!! On my last day of working for him, he threw some temper tantrum b/c I didn’t read his mind and just KNOW that he wanted me to ask all of his visitors to leave so he could be alone. And for that, he has justified not paying me the $8000 he owes me!

Not only that, but while everyone else around me sleeps in daily, gets to make their own schedules, but either live under my roof for free or come to me when they are short on rent or bills or whatever…while they do this, I get to wake my butt up every morning and go into a job that I hate! And for what? Essentially so that I get to come home to a disgusting mess everyday…..and then get up the next morning and do it all over again.

So in the end, I find myself in a place where I still haven’t paid my rent. I am hated by my household b/c I actually stood up and put my foot down and said, enough is enough! I’m no longer going to allow people to keep taking advantage of me! I’m no longer going to sit back and be the one everyone else gets to come to for help, when I can barely help myself anymore due to overextending myself too much!

So now I am coming to you, my friends, acquaintances, email buddies….I need help. I still have not paid my rent, which is about $1000. I can’t ask one person or even 2 to help me with this, but I was thinking the other day….if 50 of my friends, out of the goodness of their hearts, were willing to give me $20 each. Then that would be it. I’d have my rent covered! So this is my plea to you. I’m starting to loose faith in this world b/c I don’t want to have to believe that people aren’t willing to help each other out anymore.

I don’t believe that we are meant to live in a bubble, all on our own. We are meant to be there for each other, to help each other when we are in need. And I have lived by that belief for many years. But now I find myself in a place where I have over-extended myself too much and I can’t allow myself to believe that nobody else cares…nobody else is willing to help ME this time.

So I ask you all, out of the goodness of your hearts, can you help me? Can you give me $20 so that I can pay rent and get out of this whole I am in? If you can do more, by all means, I would love that! If you can’t do $20, can you ask someone else in your life to offer $20 to someone who is honestly loosing faith in this world and in life in general? You have no idea how much this would help me. It would give me more than $20 towards rent….it would give me a sense that people still care, that I am NOT alone in this world.

To all of you who give, I thank you from the bottom of my heart! I have a paypal account. The email address is: dswithvg@gmail.com. If you can give, I would ask that you please send the money through there…I can then transfer it to my bank account from there. And please know that from the bottom of my heart, you are all so dear to me and I will be eternally grateful for anything you can offer, no matter how small or large.

All my Love,
Delanie