#December more like I'mAMessember

[rezcowgirl]

Trying to keep up. Up feels very far away. This is why I was saying I need stilts. See? SEE?

cw: suicide, drug use, death

I get through an increasing amount my working day-to-day by disassociating and it’s probably Not Great. It isn’t that I don’t want to be present for it - I obviously care about our stated Mission & Values, our projects, our outcomes. I care deeply about my coworkers, too. And look, I know how fortunate I am to have a position working on something that is close to my heart and pays a living wage.

But I think it’s the close-to-the-heart thing that is eating me alive. And it doesn't even have the mercy to do it quickly. It's a slow bleed out, spread out over nearly a decade.

Today, tomorrow, next week, I scan in and talk shit with my coworker for 20 minutes (they’re getting a kitten). I play my voicemails. I read the latest coroner’s report (180 deaths/month). I read more (Indigenous community has 13 fatal overdoses and 6 suicides). I signal boost another GoFundMe (for another devastated family, for more kids left behind). Occasionally, I get to do a walkabout with a street nurse (uneventful so far). I say nice things to our partners in government (or else they will be mad). I dig success stories out from this massive pile of shit and my endlessly broken and increasingly boarded up heart.

I coordinate these monthly meetings with politicians & co. across the province. You can believe me or not, it doesn’t matter, but I think they’re good people. Or they’re at least actively trying to be if they aren’t already. They show up to these voluntary Friday afternoon things because they care about the overdose/drug poisoning crisis, even though we’re inching up on a decade of “crisis”, and the vast majority of people have stopped caring outside of any opportunity to moralize (And can you tell me: when does a “crisis” stop being a “crisis”? When do you admit it’s just business as usual?). They’re people I genuinely think are trying to do the right thing. (Let me have this. Please.)

I’ve seen a few of them cry and be horribly embarrassed and apologetic about it. And I always think: stop apologizing. Let me meet you as a human here. We’re both here feeling hopeless and hopeful, that’s why we show up. I can meet their eyes as someone who has cried at my desk more times than I can count. 

You don’t have to tell me that’s not healthy. I know it isn’t.

Here’s the other biting/drowning bit. All these extra hits in the teeth, just for me, when I read “13 fatal overdoses/6 suicides”.

I’m out in the middle of the ocean. Floating through land acknowledgements and “decolonizing” workshops and lofty “Indigenizing” ideas. Now that I’m mostly working on the (settler) political side, I’m the only Indigenous person in the vast majority of rooms I am in, other than the few times I get to attend a meeting at the Friendship Centre. I am well aware that I sit in these rooms because I am “likeable”, relatively “well spoken” (let’s not talk about speech therapy, a childhood getting yelled at for talking in a rez accent, always hearing “you don’t sound native” and thinking that was compliment until I understood it wasn’t).

This month’s topic was involuntary treatment and there was actually a presenter that was both brown and had lived experience with involuntary treatment

I clung to him like a life raft.

Our HR person referred to me as a “ray of sunshine” after one of our tandem interviews earlier this month. She said “I feel like I just knew you from the moment we first met”. I snorted, but I was happy about that. The Christmas card from my boss reads “You bring lightness and care to all of us,” and I’m happy about that, too. 

I am going on eight years in January, and here are some things I know about myself from swimming/sinking through it: I know I am really weird in a funny, friendly way that puts people at ease. I know people get excited when they get to work with me on a project because I am kind and I will pull my weight. I know that I’m good at reading when someone is overwhelmed and I can walk people off their ledges. I know that I am respected. I know that I spent more than half a year with nearly every idle moment lying on my back thinking “I should probably kill myself”, mumbling through compulsory psych check-ins (show up or the cops will show up), and somehow not missing more than three days of work.

Some years have been better than others. This year was not the worst, but definitely not the best.

Years ago, I was offered another job at a related org, but one that was less focused on overdose and more on the mental health side of the sector. I am always wondering and second guessing my decision.

This past Friday - the politician meeting day, wasn’t even a particularly awful day. When I’m not feeling crushing existential dread, I am feeling okay. This morning I was informed that the person I REALLY WANT to be my new supervisor accepted the position, so I’ll have a new supervisor in the new year. This will also put distance between me and the one person I do have an issue with. So if anything, my job will be better soon. 

Except, you know, that whole thing about of thousands of people dying from something 100% preventable and it overwhelmingly feeling like nobody cares anymore.

RAAAAAAAUUUGH -grabs your face- Ok ok ok, listen, I KNOW it won’t always be like this. I am premensing and grieving, stressed as hell and I haven’t seen my best friends in a month. This is making it very difficult for me to focus on anything other than work because work is everything right now.

But I’ll stop now. I'll have two weeks off soon. I’m having a party this weekend, then I’m Depeche Mode/The Cure-ing and Saturnalia debauching the next, then it’s my birthday and I’m getting an earl grey lemon cake and then it’s a New Year. 

I’m going to focus on something that WILL go into my gratitude journal because it makes me laugh:

We were settling in, about to begin our union meeting, and my coworker said “wait, there are fewer of us today - why don’t we go get coffee?” and I, having just finished steeping my Tourist-Trap-Hell holy grail tea cried “NO!!!” while everybody said “YES!!!” and I basically looked exactly like this fucker: 🥺

They were like “Jesus calm down, just bring it” (I immediately thought of the “No Outside Food Or Drink” sign lmao). We went to raid the kitchen for a rogue to-go cup. We found none. So I was walking around downtown with my open mug of tea, which I then smuggled into the coffee shop. I say “smuggled”, but the reality is the workers aren’t paid enough to give a shit. So I drank cold tea (because it obviously got cold on the walk over) while everyone enjoyed their fresh coffee and made fun of me. 

I complained, but I was secretly happy.

I am also going to be our new union steward in 2025. Yay. (I am actually very interested - labour stuff is one of my major knowledge gaps)

Also, this lyrics page made me laugh a lot. The "annotations" are the best.

Also, @ahasiw-okitowin re: Nu Trendz. ❤ You made me laugh out loud. That's some ndn deep cuts there. The fucking light blue one in particular. Pretty sure I melted a hole in my mom's Nu Trendz around a camp fire once.