Regrouping

I guess I am not done with this election after all.

I'm not sure how much that changes what I have had in mind to write for next. On one level, I feel like any self-improvement and examination I want to do had better be done quickly, because life feels very unstable.

On the other hand, how much has it helped? All the reading where I try and understand everything, and all the times where I engaged tenaciously and with care, what has any of it really accomplished? Not that I expected to influence the election - I said I didn't think I could. Even so, seeing that there are that many people who chose racism and fascism, well, I see the attraction of nihilism. What is the point?

But realistically I'm not going to become a nihilist.

I care and I try. My personality is pretty well set. It has been hard feeling so poor and isolated and tied down, like there's not much that I even can do, but a lot of people are talking about organizing. Maybe there are things I can do that I haven't thought of.

This is something that I thought I would write about today anyway. A week ago I had hope for the election, but not a lot for myself. I have come to see how much the last job loss and this one hurt my employment prospects. It doesn't matter whether there was an economic downturn or how good I was at different jobs; it's like taking a pay cut then and looking while unemployed means that I will have to take another pay cut. Realizing that when I am contemplating become Mom's home health worker - which fills several needs but is a cut in pay and prestige - well, it looked like a pretty bleak future.

What helped was not that now everyone has a bleak future, but before that a friend reached out and came and got me, solving all concerns about time and transportation and money. She gave me a chance to talk and laugh and maybe cry some but also to be enjoyed. Then another friend called and set up a time to get together. I knew I needed socialization, but I was too low to muster the effort to arrange it. People came through for me.

Then, after I got home from that, a message I had sent a while ago (August 30th actually) suddenly had an answer, because I had reached out to someone, and we got to relate to each other, and boost each other. I do have some impact.

So I have to keep being me, because I don't really know any other way to be.

It does feel like I might start swearing.