I turn 34 in almost exactly one month. The thirties have not been a kind decade. I can already feel the strings of my body coming undone. The slow march towards death. I can feel my body becoming leathery and corpse-like. It has also been a decade of failed ambitions and unrealised dreams. I have no tangible accomplishments - nothing that doesn't exist as writing on paper.
The burdens of my student loans are starting to come to fruition. In total I owe nearly $300,000. Of those, about $60,000 are in private loans. The payments for these private loans have ballooned in the last month. Previously, they were about $160/month. But now they have increased to about $380/month. I do not have the money to pay these loans. In nearly a year of looking the best job I have been able to find is an adjunct teaching position.
This semester I will teach 6 classes and earn about $9,500 before taxes. After taxes this will net me about $7,600. The cost of rent and utilities will likely cost me about $800/month or $4000 for the semester. Other expenditures: food ($200/mo), transportation ($100/mo) and unexpected expenditures ($200/mo). This is another $2500. So in total, I'm looking at at least $6500 in costs for the semester. This leaves me with only a remaining $1100 in cash. If the rest is applied to the ballooned student loan payments (and assuming I don't have to make any payments on the federal loans Income Based Repayment) then I'd run out of cash in less than three months.
I have no options. Brazos Loan Servicing - the loan service that owns the private loans - has been completely unwilling to work with me. Their only options are a maximum one-year forbearance which I have already used. They will not restructure the loan in a income based scheme similar to the federal model. I have two options: pay, which I am unable to do for the reasons listed above, or go into default.
But again, I have not been able to find a job in nearly a year of looking. I should also mention that I am a bona fide patent attorney and I still cannot find a job. If I go into default I will also lose my license to practice law. The legal field is contracting. As a result, long-term internships have become the norm. Instead of paying new attorneys they are expected to enlist in indentured servitude for a period of time with the hope (but not the promise) of finally finding paid employment. One person I talked to said his sentence of enslavement lasted for two and a half years before he finally found a job.
So this is what I am stuck with. I can't accept slavery because by the time I will be able to buy my freedom I will have already defaulted on my loans several times over (with Brazos you default after 120 days of non-payment). As a result, I will lose my license, and then, never gain employment in the legal field. But at the same time I cannot obtain a paid legal position without first subjecting myself to slavery.
In total, I have five options - all unrealistic. Pay what they ask, go into default, become crippled, die or flee the country.
A couple of days ago I came home to my parents house to stay before the semester starts. Two days ago I discovered the problem with Brazos and their ballooned payments. Yesterday, after getting into a fight with my father about it all I needed some fresh air. I drove to the other side of the river - to a public park - their house sits on. My parents are successful, but not so successful that they can (or should) bail me out of this situation. I sat in this park and looked at their house - at their successes.
Leaving the park I drove to the neighborhood I was born in. A lower middle-class neighborhood surrounded by lower-class apartment complexes. We had lived in a quant one-story house. I walked along that block - remembering the things that had happened there until I was about 8. My parents were 25 when they bought that house. My mother was a nurse and my father a high school religion teacher. I am 33, a patent attorney with a MS in biology, and the best I can do is rent a room in one of the surrounding apartments.
From there I drove to the next house we had lived in. It was a large brick house in a upper-middle class neighborhood. This is where we lived for the remainder of my childhood until my mid-20s. When I became aware of my parents as independent beings they were 33 years old. This is how old I am now, and how old they were when they bought this house. For the remainder of my life I cannot imagine ever being able to afford to live in this neighborhood.
Finally, I drove home - to my parents new house in a lower-upper or better upper-middle neighborhood. Onto a beautiful house idyllically sitting on the water. A house they were able to obtain through their lifetime of successes in their late-50s.
I do not begrudge my parents their successes. They have certainly earned them. I simply lament my own failures, both professionally and as a person, as they are my basis of comparison.
Next month I turn 34. A year older than my parents were when I realised that they were persons separate than that of being my parents. At that time they were hitting their stride - three children, a nice home, and successful businesses. In comparison I have none of those things. No significant other, no property, and no job with long-term potential. The things that I have are a failed attempt at higher education, solitude, and almost $300,000 in student loans that I have no realistic way of ever being able to pay off.
I am only 34, but I feel old and tired. I feel that it would be merciful if death came to me sooner than later.
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