"You are your own child"

I went out to dinner with L & M yesterday and talked about preparing to leave my workplace of the past six years... Complaining about the things I've said here so often–– the management, the minimum wage pay–– and I stopped.

I've said those same things for five years (took me a while to cotton on). I'm not leaving because of the management or the pay.

I'm leaving because the (my) story there is over.

I've lived through a couple rotations of staff and volunteers now, and I see the same story playing out. The only original coworkers remaining at the store are Big Boss and Manageress.

But more importantly, I've answered (or come to terms with) a lot of the questions I brought or that came up for me at the store.

Let's see... Off the top of my head... Each of these could be a post in itself, but, briefly...

1. Absolutely, the Number One Lesson:
I AM NOT THE SAVIOR.

This is not a choice--to set good boundaries, say, or to practice self-care. It is the bald truth. Realizing this, full-on, was enormously liberating.

2. Other people are their own/belong to themselves.

That seems self-evident, but I didn't fully grasp it before.
And, I am my own.
Ditto--enormously liberating.

3. Poverty is bad.

And this is news?
Well, kinda, to me. I see now that, more than I knew, that I didn't fully grasp it before. Six years ago I still held some middle-class, romantic ideas about how poverty ennobles, like suffering makes great art.

No. By definition, poverty impoverishes.
From pre-Latin *pau-paros "producing little; getting little".  

Whatever GOOD is in people who live in poverty comes from the people, not the poverty.
If it's good, it's not poverty. It's kindness and empathy, it's grit and bounce. FUN and play! It's curiosity and innovation and intelligence(s). Grace and grit. Et cetera.

And poverty is not only about money--though that is key, obviously: No money, no dentist.

It is about littleness. Little choice, little resources, and, maybe most of all--little respect.

mattadmon came in yesterday, to ask BB for his job back. He'd disappeared on the store three months ago.
BB did not deign to hire him back. (Because BB is not a good person. He has hired far worse workers. But he doesn't like md.)

I had coffee in the break room with mattdamon after, and he said, "People LOOK AT ME because I don't have a job."

Now, the guy has issues. I mean, in the store's neighborhood, no one cares if you have a job. They don't have one either.

But in his mind, he carries the people who do care --and he's entirely right.
I said, "You know what Mr Furniture says: Welcome to America. Our highest value is money, and if you aren't making any, you don't get respect."

I fear that mattdamon is not going to make it.
Once again, I "loaned" him money for rent, for the room he lives in. He won't accept a gift, but this time I knew to say,
"Don't pay me back. One day you'll be on your feet, and then--pay it forward."
I also gave him some social services numbers. (That he hadn't found them on his own during all this time is one of his problems--some mix of pride (shame) and paranoia.)

Here, "I am not the savior" and "Other people are their own" come into play.
I would not be surprised if mattdamon ends up evicted and throws himself off the Lake Street Bridge. He has said he would, and I believe him.
On the other hand, he's got skills, and I can imagine one day in twenty years, he finds me and gives me a million bucks.

His story, however it goes, is his.

I have done for him what I chose to do, out of my own story.
I gave him the blonde girlette with the chewed-off toes who looks like him last summer when he had terrible plantar fascitis. (He showed me a photo of her up on a ledge with a toy chicken!)

I could give him all my money, or invite him to share my apartment.
But you know what?
I don't want to. I sense he is a black hole and I am not pouring any more of my resources into it.

4. Cultivate Your Pluck: "You are your own child"

This is not to say, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but, feed your self.  Not as some fluffy self-care thing, like a bubble bath, but to survive.

The other day, a regular customer, Ebony, was telling me how she'd made a fuss at the doctor to get the care her daughter needed. It worked.

"If I had a child," I said, "I would do that too. But I don't always do it for myself."

"You are your own child!" she said, with some force. "You take care of yourself!"

The last thing I said to mattdamon was, essentially, to cultivate his pluck.
"I know this is hard," I said, "but you have to be pushy. Don't worry if people in charge are looking at you like scum--they are stupid if they do. Make them help you. You deserve it."
And I gave him a little squeezy-armed pink money that grips onto things.
"This can be your cheerleader."

md is not my child. I feel compassion for him, and I am sad at how fucked life can be, but I am walking away, and I can accept that with a grace I did not have six years ago.
Grace is not some pretty thing.

There is more, but that's it for this morning because I'm off to work!
I am clearing out stuff I've stashed away so when I leave, whenever that is, I have done right by it. And by me.

Love ya'll!