wheeldog

joined 4 years ago
 

I don't think anything is going to stop T-Rump from gutting medicaid- which means I need to go back to work because Medicaid covers a hell of a lot when you live quite near the very bottom of the poverty level. So I am contacting the American Career Center -- going over there tomorrow. I have to find a job that won't hurt my body like when I was working, working ran me into the ground so bad I couldn't barely walk or go up or down steps. I couldn't even ride my bike at all and before I fell apart I could ride it up Mt. Tabor in Portland. So with T-Rump in office again I figured project 2025 was going to make me work again. I do believe I know better than to run myself into the ground again or accept any job that might do that to me. Been working out and getting everything in shape, even got a therapist that works for me, which is rare. Just hoping that the universe can point me to a job that won't kill me. Or bend me in half. Wish me luck. I'm not too skilled at any one thing, but I do have like 8 years of security and 1 year military so here's hoping. If I can only prove it, all my stuff got lost in multiple moves and being homeless. I'm feeling like I can do this. I just need to psych myself up for it. It's been since 2014 I think, that I last worked. I volunteered Sunday to do security for Pride and stood out in the rain for 8 hours and helped anyone who asked, loading cars and all that-- felt good but not sure how many days of the week I can do that. We'll see, shall we? Good luck to everyone who is navigating this current administration. What a nightmare.

[โ€“] wheeldog@hexbear.net 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thank you comrade. It actually means a lot that you said that. I haven't anyone in my life who would say that to me so it's much appreciated.

[โ€“] wheeldog@hexbear.net 0 points 1 month ago (3 children)

62, living in public housing; non-binary, disabled, AuDhD... recently left my entire family behind because they have been abusive to me all my life. The damage is done; I have been in and out of therapy my entire adult life; went from girlfriend to girlfriend, job to job, state to state, city to city trying to fit in somewhere. That never happened. I am completely and utterly alone here in public housing; unable to afford any better place, unable to work, and if I did have to work who would hire me? I haven't worked in over a decade. All my contacts are lost to me, I can't keep records. I'm boned if I am forced to go back to work, it will probably have to be day labor. I'll wreck my body again, it was just starting to heal up from decades of labor work; one day my body just refused to work any more and I have been basically resting ever since. With some exercise to make sure I don't turn into jello but yeah I rest a lot.

I'm scared as hell right now but one day at a time right? Today I have everything I need. I sometimes fear I will go mad from the isolation though. I haven't met one single person in this city (deep south) that wants to hang out and talk about anything leftist other than theory; I want to talk about my work with the homeless in the area; I recycle things I find in the community by cleaning them and giving them to the homeless in the camp. It keeps me busy scavenging; yesterday I found 2 t-shirts both like new, brought them home and washed them immediately and already handed them back out to a couple of guys across the street at the smoke shop.

 Our hospital / police turn these people loose from the ER or from jail with the clothes they were admitted in, sometimes nothing more than underwear, if that. So they go into the hood looking for something to wear, anything. The smoke shop sells individual cheap t-shirts wrapped in plastic, used shoes, I don't know what else I haven't looked that closely yet-- 

I can't seem to meet anyone in this town that I'd hang out with or that wants to hang out with me, so I just walk around the 'hood every day greeting people, smiling at everyone I meet, scavenging the sidewalk for nuts and bolts and washers and other interesting things one finds on a walk in the city;

It's lonely and I feel like someone cut adrift in space - I feel I must get to some place where there is a resistance group forming or formed but where? And to give up my cheap housing would be hard for me. It's the first place I've lived where family can't stalk me! There's a security guard who never leaves the front door. And I have a great view of downtown; one mile from downtown so I can walk to events there. Or a coffee shop. Were I able to stomach going in a coffee shop these days. I'm afraid of what I might hear people talking about and want to slap them with a dead fish across the face to wake them up.

I feel all I can do right now is to be - as Gabor Mate put it- an 'Empathetic Witness'