I have been showered with gifts and support, and I am so grateful to all of you. Your kindness has been incredible, and I’ve received so many kind notes of encouragement. I would not be housed and fed if not for the help of so many people who care. Thank you so much.

I want to reach a point where I can stop asking for help and say I’m settled and stable, but that time is still not here yet. It can happen if I keep working at my writing and building my Patreon support. Right now I make just enough to cover rent and my phone, and I have to wing it with the rest of bills. Thankfully, gifts have been making up the difference, as long as I have the courage to ask whenever I have another expense come up.

My last post explored that broadcasting each need, and recognizing that every need is a financial emergency, is exhausting. As if it wasn’t difficult to justify my budgeting to myself when I was working at a grocery store, now I have to justify my expenses to those around me. Nobody wants other people in on their finances, but that is the position that I find myself in, alongside many others. We are forced to either make our personal needs known or go without those needs being met.

The lessons I’m learning each day are difficult ones. I’m realizing constantly how inadequate my education was, and how little I know about the world. More than that, I was wrong for a long time about my conceptualization of the size of the world itself. I used to think my family was rather famous, and I know now that we never were. It was just my dad’s ego that invented this lie, which we all had to affirm as accurate when under his control.

My confidence in my writing has dropped significantly. I used to be so sure of myself, and would write far more often about each little thing that seemed so pressing. Now the issues are even more pressing, but my own role in the alleviation of pain in the world is less clear. Who am I convincing with these essays about injustice and inequality? I think people form their opinions prior to reading mine.

If you read here, can you leave a comment about why?