Methodist volunteer, Open Door volunteer + Mikell talk

October 13, 2023:

Ok, this project is literally how I decide how I feel about the day. Today was alright. That’s really the best word for it. I still have a little bit of fear that my life will only ever be like this and I’ll never move beyond the stage I’m at in life. Also, nothing happened that really surprised me with how excellent it was. I’ve had some Tuesdays like that before, and I also had high hopes going in to today because I knew I was going to both Methodist in the morning and Open Door at night, since Tuesday is an important day for both of them. The only day Methodist is open, and one of two days Open Door is open at night, and also when a lot of hispanhablantes come in.

First things first, at like 4am I wrote a really positive note for some therapist, about how the TBI might have benefitted me because I had been drowning my cancer trauma in constantly working, and now I literally cannot do that without losing health insurance, which would literally be suicide for me. I also wrote that “friends are still the meaning of life to me, but before I was using that as an excuse to be depressed every moment I wasn’t around them.”

Getting into today, I did my meds at 6:20am with two egg/sausage biscuit roll up. Then, I walked over to Methodist and had a decent time. The most exciting part was that a client literally asked me to translate an email that his kid’s teacher had sent to the families. I basically did it word for word, and it was essentially saying the kids would be divided into groups for research and get group grades. So, I was able to help a man to understand that when he didn’t speak English well enough, and that was kind of a high point in my day. It also made me think about maybe looking for more translation opportunities in the future. I stayed til pretty near the end at Methodist, and then walked home and had a bit of leftover pizza for lunch. Also at home, I organized earrings a bit more, thought about how much I love the new earring hanger, and also chose ones for today, which I literally only chose because I wanted to get comments on them.

Then, I did get a comment on them! I went to Open Door, and first things first I talked to Mikell. She liked my earrings, and she also told me that she'd gotten permission for me to take photos of clients shopping, and they'd ask the clients' permission as well that day. We set up a possible date for the 13th too. I also worked with Italia a bit, and she was the closing staff member tonight. I told her I didn't finish all the Spanish voicemails, but did listen to like six of them, ending on one where I had a very nice conversation with the lady who just recently had heard about the food bank.

After I left Open Door at like 7:15, I drove straight to Papa's house. There was already some stuffI wanted to talk about with him, and I'd actually forgotten it was also Halloween. So I went there and talked a bit about how I was coming down from my "high" of just being elated to not be insanely depressed any more. We decided I'm more "in the middle" now. I also did my night meds at 7:49pm with three shrimp tempura pieces for 11g fat.

Grateful: I'm very grateful to be able to work at places like Open Door and Methodist. It really does help to satisfy my craving to be working, which is a very deep need of mine. It's just that now, my working isn't earning me money, which actually benefits me more than it would to earn the thousands of dollars, since doing that would also remove health insurance and literally kill me once I'm 26.