「故事·听力」I Have To Work To Survive After My Parents Lost ...
I Have To Work To Survive After My Parents Lost Everything
This girl’s name is Marianne. On several occasions in her life, other people's stories have helped her a lot, so she decided to submit her own story that took place over the past year. Writing it turned out to be harder than she thought!
For as long as she could remember, Marianne’s family had always done well for itself. She was born when her parents were already in their thirties, and even before they became a couple they were business partners. They started out as two solitary employees in a tiny office in 1999, and within ten years grew to be owners of a prominent cargo transportation business.
And so, while she was growing up, Marianne always had everything she needed and wanted. They lived in a really big house, more of a mansion really, with a pool and a play room for her…But even though she grew up privileged, she was always eager to share and to help others. Her friends were always welcome at her house for pool parties and sleepovers. And when some of them reacted in a strange way, she never thought that they might be jealous.
But it seems that sometimes she may have sounded rude or even mean, because she lived in her own little world and didn’t understand the struggles some of her friends and their families had or were going through.
So the events in this story started happening around about a year ago. Her parents had had stressful times before because of their work, but it had never been like this. Both her mom and her dad had become irritable, especially when the conversation turned to money. And of course, Marianne noticed changes in the way they lived. They had earlier had three cars, but now two of them had disappeared. A lot of valuable stuff they had in our house, like little statuettes or works of art, was also vanishing.
She tried to ask her parents what was going on, but her mom would say that everything was fine every time, like a broken record, and her dad would just leave the room, change the subject, or simply ignore the question.
But one night she found out the truth. She couldn’t fall asleep, and went to the kitchen to get some water. Her parents were there having some kind of tense conversation, and she stopped before entering and listened for a while. She didn’t hear the whole story, but what she understood was that their business was failing and that they were now spending most of their time in court. They had to sell stuff to cover their expenses, and the family was basically broke.
Later, she found out the full details – because she made her parents talk to her. Their business problems had started more than two years earlier, but her mom and dad had been sure that things would eventually work out...until it was too late.
Marianne was determined to stay positive – if they had to start saving, she was fine with it!
But it didn’t take long for her to fall into complete despair. She didn’t have trouble with the situation itself – she had trouble with the little things. Like, when she couldn’t afford to go to a concert or to go shopping anymore. Yes, she knows that may sound whiny, but it was a huge shock for her since she had never lived like that before. Now, sometimes she couldn’t even afford to have a pizza with her friends, so she’d make up excuses to stay home.
It wasn’t easy for her mom either. She looked broken, wouldn’t leave the house for weeks, and just sat in the kitchen watching TV. They lived on the money they got from selling the rest of their stuff. And several months afterwards, their old life officially came to an end: they had to sell their house and move into a tiny apartment.
That’s when she started to feel terrible. There were several times when she would blame her parents for all that had happened out loud, and what shocked her most was the fact that they didn’t even answer her. They just got more and more upset.
Marianne’s life had changed more than she could ever have imagined. She lost touch with a lot of her friends who were well-off, and that was not because of them. She was too embarrassed to keep going out with them. Of course, pretty soon her classmates found out, and the guys and girls who had earlier been jealous of her were now visibly happy. Once that happened she just became more and more miserable.
The person who gave her real motivation to keep going was her dad. After several weeks of being depressed and having no idea what to do next, he made an effort to get out of the hole he was in. He took part of the money they’d made from selling their house and went to Alaska. Her uncle lives there, and he invited her dad out there to try to start a new business. And having nothing to lose, her dad decided to give it a shot.