I have a lot of things swirling around my brain that I need to process, and flesh out, and give words to but I haven’t had the mental energy or focus to do so. YIMBYtown took a lot out of me and I have like three things I need to write up about that because holy shit your boi here accidentally ran an international conference. But I haven’t had the energy to do that either.
The world got a lot dimmer this week. I don’t know, it was like something just flickered and died. I can feel it in my soul and it’s discomforting and weird. Trauma has a weight.
The trauma I carry, and the trauma others around me carry, they have weights and we can sense it. Mine is carried in the small of my back, like two granite stones. If I’m not careful they’ll pull me into a spiral. I’ve noticed that my trauma likes to hang out with other people’s trauma when we’re in groups and sometimes it takes me longer to recharge from that.
I enrolled at Laney, I have classes and everything. Tomorrow I go to schedule the Compass test for math and hand in my “I actually live in CA, please let me pay in-state tuition” papers. I’m taking what is basically Intro to Machine Tech, Arithmetic (unless I place into algebra), Spanish, and Jazz (dance) on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
In addition to my activism work. So I need a way to afford school which is where the crossroads lies, but……..if I’m really honest, I already know the answer.
I could try to get a part time job on top of full-time school and activism.
Or, I could hustle the shit out of myself and freelance.…which is what I’m actually going to be doing, even if I do toy with the idea of not having to be tracking work down all the time.
Some of the things I keep wanting to write about but haven’t been able to get out of my head:
- Why cities are important to me after being isolated in suburbs as a child (and related to that: how being in a suburb and not rural nowhere is good for child safety)
- Why I YIMBY (and how the intersection of homeschooling fits into housing politics)
- Shit I learned doing YIMBYtown
- Some of the things I’ve learned about my trauma and how I have to take care of myself
- All 10 of the mountains I just climbed to enroll in the Machine Tech program and do trades and science and math…
I also want to make some shorts with pockets, and if they turn out to be okay, I might sell them.
I also have a few more pieces for Autostraddle in my pocket that I need to be able to write down.
I’m really tempted to start dabbling in local journalism doing more than writing press releases.
But I only have so much time in a day, and my energy is being eaten by existing this week. I feel like we’ve all aged about a decade.
This has been a rambly update, but now it’s out of the way so maybe I’ll be able to write something more cohesive later.
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