December 24, 2024

Although I created this site a few weeks or months ago, today is the first day that I really want to try to edit it to fit the vision that I have. Of course, it won't be perfect, and I'm only a novice coder who took two courses in university that utilized basic python.

Today is Christmas eve. Our governor gave state employees today off as a surprise Christmas gift. It'll be my first Christmas alone. I enjoy seeing my mother and sister in our hometown, and now my sister's new family, but the price of plane tickets is not going to be in my budget for a long time. I do enjoy being by myself, but I know that the people around me all have Christmas plans with their families and that's the aspect that makes it feel more lonely to me. Am I jealous? I don't think so. I think it's more that I feel I have no option to see friends even if I reached out.

Packing my apartment has been stressful. My car got totaled by someone who hit it in the parking lot and my insurance is thinking about calling it a total loss. I don't have the money to buy another used car - the cheapest ones people list online are at least $5000, and are probably worth less than half that price given repair costs. I stuck with my current car and replaced the transmission because it's been good to me, and I hear the model is a very long lasting one. I'm thinking that my insurance will give me the market price for the car, which is probably only like a thousand bucks, and I'll use that to help repair it along with my own funds. I'll take out another loan and hope that I can pay it quick. If the extra price out of pocket isn't much more than $1000 however, I may be able to borrow that from my family.

If I believed in God I would say that he's testing me this Christmas. But because I don't, I believe that the world is full of struggling people who have to depend on their friends and families to live. That's community healing. What do we do when we don't have that? Many of us, especially in the queer community, are broke and alone. I'm fortunate. But my family is across the country, and they're also in poverty. My financial life would have been easier if I stayed in my hometown, but I wouldn't have survived. Some poor farmer would have found my bloody mangled body on the railroad tracks, or bloated in the river. Those people make my heart feel cold and alone. They never liked me. And I couldn't be who I am.