I can’t really even remember the last time I posted or what it was about but, a lot has changed in the past couple of months. A lot of good changes. A lot of changes that have been needing to happen for a long time.

On the last day of June I moved out of my mom’s house (finally!) and into my boyfriend’s apartment. So I’ve been living here with him and his brother for a few months now. It’s been pretty great for the most part, other than being really overdue on electric and internet bills and other than all of us being broke and not being able to buy much food. Outside of those things it’s still oodles better than living with my mother and being utterly miserable, feeling like I’d never move out of Granby and like I’d never progress from where I was at. I now have a good job, which I’ve been working at for about two weeks now. It is SO different from all of the other jobs I’ve had, and though it is a lot more demanding in ways that are different than my other jobs, it is demanding in exactly the kinds of ways that I want to be challenged. It is mentally demanding and a bit physically demanding too. I’m the best at mental/emotional work anyways, and I could certainly use some improvements in the physical realm of my body/life, so it’s all good.

I also have a car now, too. I owe my mom a lot of money, as she bought the car outright for me and so I owe her half of what she paid. So I owe her about a grand and a half, and I owe her 50 something monthly for insurance. That is all ok because I’m making good money now. I got my first paycheck last Friday and it was like $330. Of course I ended up going on a shopping spree right after and didn’t realize I’d end up spending $145 in the first couple of hours after I cashed my check, but oh well. I REALLY needed a lot of the clothes I was finally able to buy, after being utterly broke for so damn long. I also contributed a big chunk of cash towards an overdue electric bill that we had. At this new job I make $11.40/hr. It’s pretty awesome, especially considering the fact that I was unemployed for the past two years before that, and even the last time that I was employed I only made $8/hr to do a really shitty food service job. We get paid bi-weekly at my new job, which is one downside if you don’t budget your paychecks very well (which I obviously didn’t this first time around, but I’ll learn). The next time I’ll get paid is this coming Friday. It’ll be a pretty nice check though.

Another good thing about this job is that it’s a set schedule of hours. Every week I work Sundays from 7 am-11 pm (yikes, 16 hours), Mondays 3-11 pm, Tuesdays 4-10 pm, Wednesdays I’m off except we have a 2 hour meeting each Wednesday, Thursdays 3-11 pm, then I’m off every Friday and Saturday. The 16 hour shift is a bit nuts but luckily the job is pretty balanced in terms of what is required throughout the shift. I’d say about half of the time there isn’t much to do and you can somewhat chill. The other half of the time you have to balance helping four different women who have brain injuries and spend most of their time in wheelchairs. All of them need help going to the bathroom (basically being transferred from their wheelchair to the special toilet chair things they use, and then back to their wheelchairs afterwards). Many of them need help to actually pull their pants down and we even have to wipe them sometimes too. This kind of help is the worst part of the job though, and it’s actually not so bad. All of them are pretty interesting people and they all have their own little quirky traits.

I’m developing friendships with all except one of them, the one who is the most disabled mentally and physically. The other women can hold their own weight if they have a bar or walker to hold on to at times, and they can communicate ok, even if it is hard to understand at times. The woman that is the worst off is extremely underweight and cannot hold herself up at all. She needs assistance to do everything. She needs a lot of help to get out of bed and into her chair, and it’s extremely hard to get her seated in it right because she also is very tense muscularly because of her condition. Often she is not seated right because it’s so hard to get her back right up against the back of the chair, and every time we have to help her do this she gets very upset too, so we don’t do extra adjusting because it would make her even more upset. I feel very badly for her, but at the same time she is a very finicky person and she essentially will not let us learn how to help her in the ways she wants/needs to be helped. We have to feed her, and she has trouble swallowing so if she is not fed in a very particular/careful way, she starts to cough for a long time and it’s scary. She is vegetarian and VERY particular about the foods/drinks she will ingest, and so for every meal a special meal has to be made for her. Luckily one of of my coworkers is just as particular/healthy food obsessed as she is, so she knows best how to placate her.

I have made friends with all of the other women easily because they are easy going and not super hard to please. Sometimes they are demanding but they are generally ok to be around. The other woman really makes it clear that she is not willing to be flexible in terms of how we can help her. She makes it really clear that it is unacceptable for us to have trouble understanding what she is saying, that it is unacceptable for us to ask her to clarify often, it is unacceptable for us to switch up who helps her, it is unacceptable for us to explain things to her that she has actually previously asked for us to explain. She is the only one that truly depresses me to be around. It’s not because she is the most disabled, it’s because she is a difficult person to please or get along with. I know what happened to her is a part of why she has become this way, but her behavior seems to be a deeply rooted thing that I am pretty sure was already there before she got sick. It’s just upsetting to be around her because it seems like she is actually trying to make it more difficult for us, in that no matter what we do it’s still not good enough or even mildly ok for her. She constantly does this verbal grunt thing when she gets upset, and she crosses her arms and closes her eyes and starts to cry or almost cry. It takes not much at all to make her get this way, and once she gets this way it’s even harder to help her. She is already being selective in who she wants help from too. She expressed the other night that she wanted to be fed by the same person and that she didn’t want it to keep switching. We explained to her that we had to switch up which coworkers help her because we have to make sure it’s  balanced and we all have to learn how to help her and how to help each individual in the house. This explanation was just disregarded by her and she just said it was not working for her. I totally understand that she is extremely unhappy and her quality of life is very poor. What I can’t be super understanding about is how she persistently lets it be known that she is only thinking of herself and she wants everything to perfectly appease her and her wants/needs. She refuses to bend at all and she refuses to take part in anything that isn’t within her fixed opinions/beliefs. Disabled or not, no one has the right to be that selfish or to expect that someone change everything to be just how they want it to be without considering the fact that there are several other people around that have individual wants/needs as well that are not the same as theirs. 

The newest woman to move in is definitely the sweetest, most appreciative resident in the house. She doesn’t ask for much, and whenever she does ask for help and we help her, she thanks us a lot and says she appreciates it very much. She is so polite and I could tell that from the minute I met her. I first noticed it just through her eyes. She has eyes that are not only pretty but they also emanate how good of a heart she has and how sweet she is. I’m so thankful for her presence in the house. I wasn’t sure how the four and final resident would be but now that I have met her I am so relieved to know that she will actually be the easiest resident to help. It’s really great that she has such a good attitude and she treats people very well, and that she is aware of the fact that the employees are here only to help her and that we care about people very much. The fact that she acknowledges this awareness and expresses it to us makes me feel good. She is essentially bed-ridden but she is still such a sweetheart. She talks like she is from a really rural area and I can relate to that. Her and I have talked about a mutual appreciation for nature and serenity. She has said many nice things about people she has known before and she has expressed her understanding and empathy for others.

I realize that talking about this woman in this way right after talking about the woman on the other end of the spectrum is an example of cognitive “splitting”, but I don’t mean to do that. I have just really noticed how different these two women are in terms of how they treat people and interact with them. Their life perspective seems to be very different as well, and I can’t help but notice and think of how one is the most difficult/hardest resident to help and the other is the easiest/most enjoyable resident to help. I’ve been working a lot, and this job/the residents are certainly taking over my mind a lot. I think about the residents a lot. I suppose I may be obsessing them a bit but I don’t see how I couldn’t when this is the first time I am working a job that heavily involves what I believe to be my best strengths/strongest interests. The core of my being and what it consists of is actually being used in a practical manner, and for the first time that is happening in a more appropriate place/with more appropriate people. For the first time I am helping people in need who I am not related to, friends with, or dating. The job is very interesting and I feel like I am finally succeeding in a job and it is the right fit for me. It certainly could be more psychologically based to be even more suitable to my strengths and would then fit me even more, but regardless this job is still the closest I have ever been to using my skills. It is very rewarding and challenging, and it is also varies between being enjoyable and being difficult.

Anyways I did not intend to write a gigantic post that is almost entirely about my new job, but apparently that is what my mind has been focused on and most affected by in terms of the new changes in my life. On a few different occasions in the past week or so I had a few realizations. One time I was driving and all of the sudden I thought, “Wow I have all of the things I thought I’d never have before. I have a good job, a car, and am living independently from my family”. Another time as I was coming back home from work I thought “You know I have it pretty good”.

This job and the changes in my life have put A LOT of things into perspective for me, and it has hardly been overwhelming to me in the way that I thought it would be. I was afraid of all of these changes before and how they might go, I didn’t believe I could handle them, I didn’t believe I was able to maintain these things never mind actually achieve them at all. Everything has transitioned pretty damn smoothly. I’m not saying it hasn’t been hard at times, or that I haven’t been really tired from it all. I’m just saying that things have finally changed for the better and that all in all I really like change. It has proved to be positive to me in the grand scheme of things.

 

    There are a few lines/thoughts I had over the past week or so that came to me at times when I wasn’t by a computer or a notepad. I told myself I’d write them down when I got back. In fact I think I was on a long walk by myself both of these times I’m thinking of. I was just reading about introverts yesterday (again, I do frequently), and I think I remember the article saying that introverts have their best and most creative ideas or thoughts when they’re alone. That is very true about me. I still feel like I fall somewhere between the two extremes but I do have a lot of needs that are the same as the ones most introverts have. Now I’ll get into those two different thoughts I had. They came on as somewhat of a writing inspiration in that they were relatively poetic, but mostly they came on because I had some time to have some clarity and space to gather my thoughts. I’ll just write them both down now without writing anything other than the thoughts.

1.) Sometimes I just want to lay down and curl up with the earth, pull the grass up out of its roots in the soil, and lay under it. A blanket of earth. A place of serenity and a place to connect deeply with the element that is undoubtedly real in the most fundamental sense. 

2.) Relationships enrich our lives. They bring comfort and understanding. A real sense of belonging in the times that we spend with those we relate to and share a deep bond with. Relationships lighten the weight of life, yet they deepen our lives as well. We find what truly matters, what is essential in life. We find that place where we are genuinely loved and accepted. These connections remind us that even though we often feel we don’t belong, we really do belong with others that we have a mutual understanding with. We find that we are free to share our thoughts and feelings and they will be listened to, they will not be judged. Often not much will be said back, but simple expressions and gestures let us know that they understand. And that is enough.