a conversation
i want to process something.
i started a new job at the beginning of the month, at a place that does a lot of things, but primarily, it provides long-term (indefinite, providing minimal circumstances are met) independent housing for recently homeless individuals. the majority of the people we serve are poor, homeless (not the same thing - and can sometimes be mutually exclusive - so i feel like it's important to list them separately) and about 85-90% of our current residents are aboriginal folks. for starters. there are a lot of complex intersections going on at this place, many of them needing immediate attention.
this job has really got me thinking about stuff like poverty and racism and gentrification and human beings in some different ways than i had before. and i mean: it's not like these weren't things i thought of prior to october. i thought about this stuff before all the time, but it turns out your thoughts and ideas and the way you process them are a whole hell of a lot different (and in ways you hadn't quite imagined previously) when, fifteen minutes after you leave to go home for the evening one night, something like this happens to someone you personally know, and you come to work in the morning and his face is completely wrecked, and you hear all about the intimate details of the events that will never make the paper or the minds of most of the people who were not there at the time (the free press doesn't mention, for example, that it was actually six men who attacked him), and while you are typing up questions about what to do if somebody you are trying to help in a professional capacity dies, he is out in the very next room talking to the press about the awful thing that happened to him, that you spend most days assuming will never happen to you.
that's different, when it's actually in your life.
so, as an adult on the cusp of the x and millennial generations, i guess i just wanted to document that This Happened, on The Internet, you know, as one does.
because now when there's some fucked up and Wrong news about The North End, i probably at least kinda sorta know someone involved. it's a really tough ivory tower for me to fall from.
...and already the first thing i talk about is my own feelings about the situation. fantastic; you're off to a great start already, jessica. WHY MUST I CONSTANTLY GIVE MY OWN NAVEL-GAZING SUCH PRIORITY? it's so... gross.
...i am trying to parse this thing that happened at the bus stop when i left work today,
i had my headphones on, and a man approached me and started speaking to me. i took my headphones off, and he asked me if he could have a bus ticket (i'd just taken my strip of bus tickets out of my purse, and ripped one off for the ride home). he knows i work at ____, and he can bring me one tomorrow, but he is going to be late for work. i consider, for a moment: i have been long term unemployed for almost exactly three years, with sparse temporary employment scattered throughout that time, and stretched way too far. i would not have survived this time, i don't think, without the massive amount of assistance i got from my partner and his family (for which i owe them for longer than the rest of my life, i think), generous donations from some really lovely people i happen to be beyond fortunate to know, as well as the coping strategies i have left over from living the early half of my life being Actually Poor. i barely made it out as it is. WHO CARES. what i am trying to say, is: i'm broke, money is still difficult; i have not yet experienced my first payday at New Job(TM). these bus tickets are something of a perceived luxury right now, and i can't really replace them, and walking to work is not really realistic. so i considered all this really hard before handing him the ticket i had in my hand. he accepted it, saying "you're the besssttt!!" and i kinda smiled awkwardly, because i am not great with praise. i paused, before i spoke, and i maybe should have just kept my stupid mouth shut. i should have kept my nervousness that he might not follow through (and i'd have to struggle) to myself. but i didn't. i was a complete dumbass, and i said:
"i do really need that back tomorrow, though. otherwise i won't be able to get to work."
i wasn't expecting him to react the way he did, which i guess was stupid. what i was saying was, in hindsight, me being an asshole and not trusting him, from his perspective. but he'd been gracious and i'd been only thinking about myself, so i had a bit of a shock when he responded:
"yes, i know: you're very important."
at the time i was like, dude, i wasn't saying that. i just pursed my lips.
maybe i should just have left it and let it go. it's probably something i shouldn't even remember by now. but i let it bother me - why? i don't wanna be that person, but i guess in one version of the story tonight i was. and like, what the fuck is my problem, i made over a hundred dollars today, doing very little. i paid a couple bills today, in one day, basically...
the very nature of my job necessitates that i oppress the very same people that i claim to be here to help. and i'm not sure that this work can be done any other way. it is something i am struggling with right now.
AND GOD, I HATE HOW THE WAY I KEEP TALKING ABOUT THIS IS SO OTHERING. help? how can i do that part better? there has got to be a way.
i've noticed that i've been doing this thing. i speak nearly exclusively about negative things with this job, because i think i am terrified as fuck to think about the good. because it's all kindof an enormous fucking deal for me.
i have so so much to learn from this place and these people. the folks i work with are pretty much all far more exemplary human beings than i ever have any hope of being.
i need to stop thinking i am so special.
and you know, i wonder: maybe he gets to be like that, based solely on the fact that he is an adult aboriginal man from The North End, and i am a white lady from the south end who had the ability to buy these bus tickets in the first place. based on our supremely fucked power imbalance alone - maybe that entitles him to a snarky comeback. at the very fucking least.
for those lacking context: the south end is one of the "safest" parts of the city. please read "safe" r-i-c-h. i live in a self-contained 1br apartment in a building with a gym and an outdoor pool, and i have a cell phone bill that is (finally!) paid up to date. The North End is widely regarded as the "Worst" (read: poorest, along with all those nasty things and instability that usually come with poverty) part of Winnipeg.
so maybe i should have just let it pass like he'd said nothing. maybe this is yet another function of my busted-ass privilege making me be a careless asshole, and me letting it. like a petulant child, i let it bother me, and none of my not meaning it like that changes the fact that i'm the one that had bus tickets, and he did not. and if that's where it went for him, then who gives a fuck, right? my good intentions don't
shield him from feeling me being an asshole to him.
because you know what i am probably going to do when i finish this post? eat a meal comprised of food that i have 100% control over, and then play some videogames on my ps3. what the fuck am i even whining about? maybe this is all just a really long waste-of-time whiny bunch of self-flagellation. that i don't even deserve. fuck.
i talk talk talk all this shit, but i still feel crappy about it. :(
i started a new job at the beginning of the month, at a place that does a lot of things, but primarily, it provides long-term (indefinite, providing minimal circumstances are met) independent housing for recently homeless individuals. the majority of the people we serve are poor, homeless (not the same thing - and can sometimes be mutually exclusive - so i feel like it's important to list them separately) and about 85-90% of our current residents are aboriginal folks. for starters. there are a lot of complex intersections going on at this place, many of them needing immediate attention.
this job has really got me thinking about stuff like poverty and racism and gentrification and human beings in some different ways than i had before. and i mean: it's not like these weren't things i thought of prior to october. i thought about this stuff before all the time, but it turns out your thoughts and ideas and the way you process them are a whole hell of a lot different (and in ways you hadn't quite imagined previously) when, fifteen minutes after you leave to go home for the evening one night, something like this happens to someone you personally know, and you come to work in the morning and his face is completely wrecked, and you hear all about the intimate details of the events that will never make the paper or the minds of most of the people who were not there at the time (the free press doesn't mention, for example, that it was actually six men who attacked him), and while you are typing up questions about what to do if somebody you are trying to help in a professional capacity dies, he is out in the very next room talking to the press about the awful thing that happened to him, that you spend most days assuming will never happen to you.
that's different, when it's actually in your life.
so, as an adult on the cusp of the x and millennial generations, i guess i just wanted to document that This Happened, on The Internet, you know, as one does.
because now when there's some fucked up and Wrong news about The North End, i probably at least kinda sorta know someone involved. it's a really tough ivory tower for me to fall from.
...and already the first thing i talk about is my own feelings about the situation. fantastic; you're off to a great start already, jessica. WHY MUST I CONSTANTLY GIVE MY OWN NAVEL-GAZING SUCH PRIORITY? it's so... gross.
...i am trying to parse this thing that happened at the bus stop when i left work today,
i had my headphones on, and a man approached me and started speaking to me. i took my headphones off, and he asked me if he could have a bus ticket (i'd just taken my strip of bus tickets out of my purse, and ripped one off for the ride home). he knows i work at ____, and he can bring me one tomorrow, but he is going to be late for work. i consider, for a moment: i have been long term unemployed for almost exactly three years, with sparse temporary employment scattered throughout that time, and stretched way too far. i would not have survived this time, i don't think, without the massive amount of assistance i got from my partner and his family (for which i owe them for longer than the rest of my life, i think), generous donations from some really lovely people i happen to be beyond fortunate to know, as well as the coping strategies i have left over from living the early half of my life being Actually Poor. i barely made it out as it is. WHO CARES. what i am trying to say, is: i'm broke, money is still difficult; i have not yet experienced my first payday at New Job(TM). these bus tickets are something of a perceived luxury right now, and i can't really replace them, and walking to work is not really realistic. so i considered all this really hard before handing him the ticket i had in my hand. he accepted it, saying "you're the besssttt!!" and i kinda smiled awkwardly, because i am not great with praise. i paused, before i spoke, and i maybe should have just kept my stupid mouth shut. i should have kept my nervousness that he might not follow through (and i'd have to struggle) to myself. but i didn't. i was a complete dumbass, and i said:
"i do really need that back tomorrow, though. otherwise i won't be able to get to work."
i wasn't expecting him to react the way he did, which i guess was stupid. what i was saying was, in hindsight, me being an asshole and not trusting him, from his perspective. but he'd been gracious and i'd been only thinking about myself, so i had a bit of a shock when he responded:
"yes, i know: you're very important."
at the time i was like, dude, i wasn't saying that. i just pursed my lips.
maybe i should just have left it and let it go. it's probably something i shouldn't even remember by now. but i let it bother me - why? i don't wanna be that person, but i guess in one version of the story tonight i was. and like, what the fuck is my problem, i made over a hundred dollars today, doing very little. i paid a couple bills today, in one day, basically...
the very nature of my job necessitates that i oppress the very same people that i claim to be here to help. and i'm not sure that this work can be done any other way. it is something i am struggling with right now.
AND GOD, I HATE HOW THE WAY I KEEP TALKING ABOUT THIS IS SO OTHERING. help? how can i do that part better? there has got to be a way.
i've noticed that i've been doing this thing. i speak nearly exclusively about negative things with this job, because i think i am terrified as fuck to think about the good. because it's all kindof an enormous fucking deal for me.
i have so so much to learn from this place and these people. the folks i work with are pretty much all far more exemplary human beings than i ever have any hope of being.
i need to stop thinking i am so special.
and you know, i wonder: maybe he gets to be like that, based solely on the fact that he is an adult aboriginal man from The North End, and i am a white lady from the south end who had the ability to buy these bus tickets in the first place. based on our supremely fucked power imbalance alone - maybe that entitles him to a snarky comeback. at the very fucking least.
for those lacking context: the south end is one of the "safest" parts of the city. please read "safe" r-i-c-h. i live in a self-contained 1br apartment in a building with a gym and an outdoor pool, and i have a cell phone bill that is (finally!) paid up to date. The North End is widely regarded as the "Worst" (read: poorest, along with all those nasty things and instability that usually come with poverty) part of Winnipeg.
so maybe i should have just let it pass like he'd said nothing. maybe this is yet another function of my busted-ass privilege making me be a careless asshole, and me letting it. like a petulant child, i let it bother me, and none of my not meaning it like that changes the fact that i'm the one that had bus tickets, and he did not. and if that's where it went for him, then who gives a fuck, right? my good intentions don't
shield him from feeling me being an asshole to him.
because you know what i am probably going to do when i finish this post? eat a meal comprised of food that i have 100% control over, and then play some videogames on my ps3. what the fuck am i even whining about? maybe this is all just a really long waste-of-time whiny bunch of self-flagellation. that i don't even deserve. fuck.
i talk talk talk all this shit, but i still feel crappy about it. :(