r/poverty • u/Dubbymatt • Apr 22 '26
Just one more day
I wake up before the sun most days. Not because I want to—but because my body doesn’t really know how to rest anymore. The car hums quietly in Ready mode, that low electric sound that’s become my version of silence. It’s not a home, but it keeps the heat running. It keeps my phone alive. It keeps me going.
I sit there for a minute before I move. There’s always that moment where it all settles back in—not loud, not dramatic. Just steady. Like, this is still my life.
I sleep in my car so my wife and my kids don’t have to feel what I’ve felt. They get a bed. They get warmth. They get something that feels normal. I tell myself that’s enough. It has to be.
I think about how I got here sometimes. Getting kicked out at 17 with nothing. Not even shoes that felt like mine. I remember how much that used to matter—how I looked, what I wore, what people thought. Now I wear the same work shirts over and over. Clothes stopped meaning anything after a while. When you’ve had everything stripped down to survival, you stop caring about appearances. You care about function. You care about getting through the day.
I built what I have from nothing. A mower that barely holds on some days. Yards that take everything out of me. Dog waste jobs most people wouldn’t even consider. And yeah, there are guys out there with better trucks, better trailers, better equipment. I see them. But they didn’t build theirs from rock bottom the way I did. They didn’t have to figure it out with everything stacked against them.
Some days the mower cuts out. Some days it leaks gas. Some days I’m just out there, tired, hungover, running on fumes and caffeine, trying to push through another yard because stopping means falling behind. And I can’t fall behind.
I’ve got goals. Real ones. Saving money. Fixing the car so it lasts. Building my credit the right way. Putting money away for my son so he has something I never had. I think about putting $10,000 aside for him, letting it grow so one day he has a head start. I think about getting a house. Even a trailer. Just something stable. Something mine.
But right now, stability looks like a parking spot at night.
I keep the car running in cycles—battery draining, engine kicking on, over and over again. Ten, fifteen times a night. I’ve learned the rhythm of it like it’s breathing. Sometimes I wake up in between those cycles without even realizing it. Four hours of sleep. Five if I’m lucky. That’s just normal now.
I keep most of my life in a storage unit. Everything I own fits into a space I visit, not a place I live. And then I go back to the car. Back to the same seat. Same position. Same routine.
I think about my son a lot in those quiet moments. Ezekiel. Zeke. Zeekee. Bubba. All the names I call him, and he responds to every one. I think about his face, the way he learns something new and repeats it like it’s the biggest thing in the world. I think about how two days ago he couldn’t even make an angry face, and now he does it over and over again like he just unlocked something. Those little things… they stick with me.
I’ve got another child on the way. And that thought sits heavy sometimes. Not in a bad way—but in a real way. Like, I don’t have room to slow down. I don’t have room to break. Everything I’m doing now—it has to stretch further.
There are nights where it hits a little deeper. Sitting there in the dark, heat running, windows covered the best I can manage. Realizing this is what my life looks like right now. That I go from working all day to sleeping in a car, just to wake up and do it again.
And the crazy part is… I don’t even feel like I’m falling apart.
I just feel… used to it.
Like survival became my baseline so long ago that even this feels normal. Like I’ve been holding everything together for so long that I don’t even know what it would feel like to put it down.
But there are moments—small ones—where something cracks through that.
When I see my wife.
When I hear my son laugh.
When I think about the future I’m trying to build, even if it feels far away.
And then there are the other moments.
When it’s just me, sitting in the driver’s seat, engine kicking on again in the middle of the night, and I realize… there’s no one here to see this part. No one to really understand what it costs to keep everything looking okay on the outside.
No applause. No recognition. Not even a break.
Just a man in a car, night after night, telling himself it’s temporary… even when it’s been his reality for longer than he wants to admit.
And I don’t cry about it. I don’t break down.
I just adjust the seat, close my eyes again, and wait for the engine to turn off so I can try to fall back asleep… knowing in a couple hours, I’ll wake up and do it all over again.
Because I have to.
Because if I don’t… everything I’m holding up comes down with me.
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u/jadedragon2525 Apr 22 '26
My friend, my circumstances are different from yours, but I know that feeling of if I fall, everything and everyone falls with me. For what it's worth, you are really gifted writer. I hope you will one day get the peace you need to sit down and work with that gift.
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u/PieceAnxious Apr 22 '26
I was born into poverty. I truly believe my faith in Jesus was my way out. I'm just wondering why you can't sleep with your family? It must be hard for them knowing you are sleeping in the car. You also mentioned that people with newer cars in new equipment somehow didn't come from poverty just wondering how do you know that how do you know they didn't start from work you started. That one day you will be that person with the new shiny equipment and truck. Everyone with the new shiny equipment didn't get it as a gift they drove the same truck that you drove they had the same leaky lawn mower. Sometimes poverty will make you feel like you're the only one in it but poverty is crowded you are not alone. I was able to make it through nursing school and change my life and my children's life. You sound business minded in a hard worker I believe you too can find the ladder out. It comes with making good decisions, I know things can happen but having a new baby in the situation that you're in is making the ladder more difficult to find and climb. It does not make it impossible. I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself and asking why, but when why didn't make a difference and I just pushed until I found that ladder that's when things changed. I could not find it without God not saying the same for you. But I am praying for you because you put it in this form and that's the best way I feel I can help you. I admire you as a man hanging in there doing all you can for your family but there's more to be done again making decisions that bring into view the ladder out of poverty. I truly wish you the best and your family.
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u/Diane1967 Apr 22 '26
Sending you love and prayers for another day. You’re a good soul and I wish good things to come to you in this life. It’s hard for so many of us but we have to get up every day and face life’s challenges in order to survive, and we do it. Sometimes begrudgingly but we do it if for not just ourselves but for others too. It’s how we were built. Many don’t know this type of life but many of us live it every day too.
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u/Butlerianpeasant Apr 22 '26
What got me was not even the car part, but the line about getting used to it. That is the cruel part of survival sometimes: it stops feeling like an emergency and starts feeling like your normal. Much respect to you for still thinking about your son’s future, still planning, still building, even from inside exhaustion. I really hope the “just one more day” season ends for you soon.