Saving My Soul

It's probably isn't a great big secret that I've been coming unstitched a bit here. Got a great (tipsy) email from this great guy I don't spend nearly enough time with and it made me feel heard in this big old world.

The other morning things were getting tight around my mind and I wrote an SOS email. Just to relieve some of the pressure, you know? And I got the best message from my new friend Michele. She just said, "You'll make it. Somehow."

I'm laughing, because it funny. There was actually a 4-point plan included in the message, but the jist was "You'll make it. Somehow."

And one of my best friends, her mother died when she was in elementary school so of course all of the adults around her promptly commenced to behaving like self-absorbed jackasses, leaving her to raise herself and battle in the neverending war of children who have been left behind. She's making it. Somehow.

Tonight I went to dinner at this very posh place. It happens on occasion. When it does happen my capacity to consume food is immeasurable. I'm a girl who likes to eat. I can starve if my life is on the line, but if I'm not in immediate danger, I'm eating that lobster mac n' cheese, fuck what cha heard. Anyway, the waiter was just too perfect. Maybe instead of gaydar I've developed cripdar? Dunno. So, I ask him about himself and he tells me in short order that he's in grad school and I ask him what he's studying and he tells me and I ask him why and he says, "Well, last year I was standing near my house and I got shot in the stomach and spent nine days in the hospital. And I saw so many people getting medical treatment, but not being treated like people. So, I want to be a hospital administrator. They took 7 feet of my intestine, and my family was there to advocate for me. But most of the people around me had decisions made for them they would not have made for themselves. I want to help change that."

My awesome Irish pixie of an aunt works for the state of Oregon adjudicating public assistance cases. Her belief is that if a person needs help, they should get it. This, of course, flies in the face of what most people believe. But she talks about going back 20 years in a person's case history to find that one flawed decision that led to them losing health benefits and she says, "if we can find that one mistake, that oversight, someone can get the treatment they need." She also said something that challenged my own assumptions (thank god), she said "people consider Medicaid a poor man's healthplan when it's really one of the best programs in the world."

Most of the people I see on Medicaid are good people. They have lived and they do their best, but in an overinflated economy, that doesn't get you too far. There are the few and far between who are professional system-gamers, but those folks are the same regardless of tax bracket. There is always someone trying to get over.

All this to say, there is so much wonder in the world. I'm happy to be here, to listen to more stories, and tell more stories and to keep learning in this life. Scars and all.