Why I Am Writing This Blog.

I missed the Great Recession of 2008.

Oh, I lived through it. I just wasn't following it much, so I missed out on on its great important.

My mother dies on January 30, 2007. I spent the next 8 days liquidating her estate, cleaning her apartment, and getting ready for her funeral. Then at about 8:45 am on January 8th, as I was driving to her funeral, I hit another car, went off the road, and ran into a tree at 40 mph. I don't remember the 10 minutes or so just before the crash. I remember stopping for a red light, then nothing. Until I awoke in the car with the EMT trying to disentangle my right ankle from the accelerator pedal. Then nothing more, until I awoke again in the ER as two docs were resetting my right shoulder. "Hey, this might hurt a little." There was another patient who was also screaming, so I didn't feel alone.

Right ankle fracture. 4 bones in my right foot displaced. Three vertebrae fractured. Six ribs fractured. Sternum fractured. Right shoulder dislocated. Right shoulder joint fractured. Bad day at the office.

I spent 22 days in the hospital. Two surgical procedures. When discharged, I couldn't leave the bed without a turtle-shell brace, because of the fractured vertebrae and to prevent spinal-cord damage. So six months of home nursing care. My insurance paid for 4 visits all year. So my medical and financial crisis of 2008 was much more immediate and pressing than the national crisis. I am trying to read and learn about what I missed, since I was one of those individuals that was knocked out of the middle class, right during the Great Recession.

Medical problem. Check.Divorce.Check.Loss of employment or business. Check.Loss of home. That came in 2009.

I have mostly recovered. While I have a lot of arthritis and a pain problem, and lots of debt, I'm working. I have an apartment. I'm paying back my debts. Slowly.

And hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, it seems so predicable. Unfortunately, looking forward, we haven't changed.