Boy howdy.
[Points around to everything]
I have been at my new job since January 21st. Which feels like a year ago and also just yesterday. The job is going well. I have been doing a ton of training and orientation, but I can already tell that I really like my coworker and boss—right now we’re a team of three with a part-time community health worker who works in tandem with us, but there will eventually be another peer recovery specialist like myself. But being as we are funded indirectly by the federal government, who knows how long any of us will have a job? We are funded for the next several months. After that who knows if those dipshits at DOGE will try to defund the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the name of “efficiency”? Let us hope that SAMHSA survives the onslaught and that I can remain gainfully employed—I have become habituated to sleeping in a warm bed, being clothed, and eating regular meals lo these fifty-one years.
I don’t even know what to write about right now. I have not been doing anything other than going to work, commuting home and immediately getting under a blanket, eating something, watching something (falling asleep in front of the television about 50% of the time), and then going to bed. Repeat. My weekends are spent doing basic life maintenance like laundry and taking out the trash, disassociating, and napping. I try not to doomscroll, but that is easier said than done. The world is on fire and the arsonists are in power. I don’t possess enough privilege (or money) to completely ignore what is going on, but I know that I must look away from the daily disaster for my own sanity’s sake. My own survival depends on keeping myself aware of the world around me, but I must not let it drive me to despair. I must survive. I will survive out of spite if I must.
How are y’all holding up?
Thank you, as always, for reading.
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