Starting to Chew

Do you ever have an aha! moment where suddenly your eyes are opened to some area of dysfunction in your world and you want to talk about it, but it's complicated and messy and so big that you're not sure where to begin?

And no, I'm not talking about taking a look at your cluttered home and deciding to take a plunge into the KonMari method. That's a big undertaking.

But what I AM talking about...

Wokeness

Unsplash: Sanah Suvarna

I don’t know when it all started to emerge.

But I know it’s been a long awakening. 

Too damn long.

Because my mind, like everyone's, is prone to lazy shortcuts.

Generalizations, micro-aggressions, and just plain ignorance

Stifled the stirring of my awareness, delayed three decades.

Opening our eyes to addiction

Unsplash: Dmitry Ratushny

I've said it myself, many times.

"Addicts will lie, cheat, manipulate, and abuse, whatever, to get their fix."

It's frustrating when it comes to the public costs addicts incur in our health care, criminal justice, and/or child welfare systems, and we have to pay for them.

Moreso, it's heartbreaking when the addict is a loved one of your family and they're robbing you blind to fund their highs, or feeding you the lines of the most ridiculous bullsh*t to explain their behaviors.

Because you get so damned angry. Rightfully so.

And the hurts feel so personally aimed.

But they're not.

this job

I just happen to be blessed enough that this ^^ is the job of my dreams

Yes, it's another post about how much I love my new job. It truly never gets old.

The people. Both with whom we serve and for whom we serve.

The energy. In the community, in the opportunities waiting at the state and federal levels.

But mostly?

Because this work has been my heart's desire as long as I can remember.

Social work is a hard field.

Resources are limited. Despair is plentiful. Crises rule. Political ideology divides the community.

But still, hope rises, beauty emerging from the ashes of a broken spirit.

And that is the hook for me. 

That triumphant ascension of a restored spirit is so damned beautiful. I am drawn like a moth to the flame - it might hurt a bit or even a lot, but I just can't resist being part of the process.

Today, I facilitated a meeting with my employee (still in training) and a participant whose case is complicated (but aren't they all?). At the end, my staff member thanked me for my help and guidance, saying, "To see and hear how others word things and how they encourage our participants is so helpful to me. You taught me a lot today."

It made me think of a few of the most vivid memories of my career....

The first time I put my blood, sweat and tears into my work...(read the entire post here , but the most important part follows):

.... There he was sitting on a bench on the sidewalk.

“How's it going this evening, sir?”
“Purty good, girl, now whatcha up to?" he slurred.
He's pretty well lit you know.
“You're pretty quick," I said with a wink. "Well, my friends and I are doing surveys for the statewide homeless count that's going on tonight, and I wondered if we could take a few minutes of your time and go over the survey. Everything is completely private and cannot be traced back to you. Whaddya say, huh?" ...
… At the last question, asking what services had he attempted to access but couldn't obtain, he verbally offered up "respect," as the number one thing he wanted but couldn't get.
I showed him the paper, and said, "Look, I want you to see me write that down. I think it's very important that the state know this is important to you. What about the rest of these, housing, job assistance, clothing....?"
… We crossed over the intersection to head up north on the west side of the street we'd just been on. Shortly after, Seth directed us to look across the street. Our guy had already put on the t-shirt in his goodie bag”
We just made his night didn't we?" Seth asked incredulously.
I nodded, misty-eyed. "He may not remember it tomorrow, but for a few minutes tonight he was reminded that he matters."

The time I was going to grad school and Christ showed up as a homeless man.

… It was then that I saw Him.

I thanked the Lord for showing Himself to me, as I walked past the homeless man who’d just scored the remnants of a to-go box out of the trash. I hurried past him returning to my plastic bag of goodies, saw it was still there, grabbed it and started back toward the man.

When I stopped at the bench on the sidewalk where he sat, he looked puzzled, his face begging the question, “Didn’t you just walk past me?”

“How’s it going?” I asked him with a smile.

He looked up skeptical, but overall in good spirits. “Good, how ‘bout yourself?”

“Good. Hey, you’ll probably think I’m crazy, but I just last night bought a bunch of snacky-type food that I really only need a little of – and when I walked by you the first time, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps I could share my extras with you. Could you use some bagels and whatnot?”

His face lit up – sure, he said, he could use all the help he could get. However, he told me, he only had room for some, not all of what I was planning on giving him.

It is always so poignant to me when those in need reveal that they haven’t lost all of their need for human dignity, despite primal survival instincts.
We sat and talked, with no strings attached to case management or service plans, for a good 45 minutes on that bench.

Passersby stared at us, this unlikely pairing of a grubby old chronic and a young professional woman, neatly done up for the day.>/p>

His name was Rick. He was a vet who had fallen in love with the rich culture of the “old world,” while stationed overseas, and felt that we Americans had no culture in the arena of art or history, and what we did have was being replaced with TV, technology and rampant materialism. Somewhere along the conversation, he asked me why I was “bothering” with him. I told him I used to work with the homeless in Fort Collins, but that I was out of the “business” nowadays. I told him I missed the contact.

....In short, our conversation was highly enjoyable, intelligent discourse covering a vast array of topics.

Rick asked my name, and I told him, saying, “I don’t know that we’ll ever meet again, but it does feel good to know a person’s name, huh?”

He agreed, saying perhaps we would meet again, that we “never know.”

I bid Rick adieu, shook his hand unabashedly, and headed down to the university.

And the time after I'd put my career on hold.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from my former boss telling me that a woman, let's just call her Ladybug, had stopped by the office looking for me. She thought that Ladybug had been a former housing client of mine.

I looked at Ladybug's name and indeed, she was a former housing client of mine....

Today I called her, and we talked a bit before she revealed the reason for her wanting to get in touch with me. Being pregnant, I teared up with emotion when she told me that the 4 (or more? she couldn't remember anymore) people who'd been put in my housing coordinator position over the past 5 years have "never even come close to how good you were, Heather. Never. And I think about you a lot.”

We talked some more and at the end, Ladybug asked me shyly, "Is it ok if I keep your number and call if anything else comes up?"

I'm not a social worker anymore, and now I can put myself forward as just a person who loves others as Christ has shown me to do.

As a social worker, this would have been a taboo move to make, but there was something freeing about the answer I put forth: "Sure, Ladybug. Maybe we can even get lunch together sometime."

Whether I'm on a payroll or not, my heart longs to be helping others, in big, transformational ways down to the reaffirming display that I recognize someone's worth, even if society does not.

And I am so filled with joy to not only be doing it again, but this time, training others as they join me.

Someone once told me:

the middle class SQUEEEEEZE

So today I went to Larimer Health Connect to do a little comparison shopping. My new gig has put us in a waiting period in which we need to secure healthcare for the months of August and September; while I got the full low-down on COBRA at my exit interview, which would offer the comfort and familiarity of the plan we've had for over a year and a half, the new premium is MORE than our monthly mortgage payment. Yes. Paying into a pool of money that health insurance sharks invest to cover the risks of those in the pool, swimming in funds we've contributed but could potentially never even draw upon, will cost more than our shelter.

Oy. Hello Monday, there you are, you fickle frenemy.

So, yeah, I thought, "Perhaps there is something on the Exchange that could be [more] affordable in the interim."

And perhaps there are icemakers in hell. About the same probability, is all I'm saying.

See, Seth's employer does have insurance they offer to their employees. But it basically boils down to REALLY expensive catastrophic coverage (super high deductible and 60/40 co-insurance after deductible is met). Thus, when I started working at the Health District last year, it was cheaper for us to all have really good coverage on my plan than it would have been for us to do a split with me and the kids on my plan and him on his plan.

But...here's where the ACA went wrong and was totally perverted from its original intent thank you politicians more concerned with fillibuster and lobbying than taking care of ALL their constituents, but I digress....those of us who work and earn between 251%-400% FPL, and thus would be eligible for some health premium tax credit, typically are going to have employer provided insurance available to us in some form. Whether it is actually affordable or not doesn't matter, just whether we have the option in theory, because who cares if the numbers actually WORK is enough to take those tax credits away. 

As it turns out, without tax credit subsidization, the premiums on the Marketplace Exchange are laughable as to affordability, and downright absurd as to the narrow scope of "coverage" they offer, not unlike what some employers are offering their employees. Families in this "luxurious" class known as the upper middle are then forced to go with a policy that is MORE than their monthly housing expenses, plus whatever out of pocket expenses actually are incurred should you actually need to use the care.

So let's stop and look at the math, folks. 

It's INSANITY.

A mortgage that is considered affordable and living within one's means is generally touted at about 30% of one's gross income. Add in a  healthcare premium that is MORE than that, and you have a family that is paying over 60% of their income to housing and health PREMIUM again, that's not even counting out of pocket expenses. Then take off all the payroll deductions/taxes, and you are looking at upper middle class families struggling to survive on roughly 1/4 of the money they work for. Twenty-five percent of our wages is supposed to cover food, transportation and again because we live within our means, our vehicles are paid for, but we still have to pay for the pump, maintenance, and insurance, educational debt for a degree I had to have in order to secure employment of a certain means, clothing, inevitable home repairs, {insert other responsible adult expense here}, and the elusive white rabbit of recreation/leisure oh, wait, there's a reason we haven't had a vacation in 7 years. 

Do our lawmakers know how soul crushing it is to work hard day in and day out but not have anything to show for it? Or to feel like you can breathe for a moment? Obviously, some do, or else those in poverty would not have gained from the ACA like they have. I don't begrudge that. I do struggle with the corporate welfare and failed trickle down economics that we allow to persist, creating a growing burden that squeezes any kind of prosperity out of the middle class reality.

I am not saying the ACA is bad. I believe the intent was great and I wholeheartedly supported it, given my work experience with people in need, and then our own personal near-bankruptcy caused by an unforeseen medical crisis.

I AM saying the logic got broken when partisanship caused the de-volution from what it was to what it is. 

And something has to give.

I have to do COBRA because of our family's needs until my trial period at the new job is done, and suffice to say, again as it bears repeating it is well OVER what we pay for our mortgage. But it is cheaper than buying a bronze pkg on the marketplace right now and paying for follow-up care with specialists out of pocket. 

In the meantime I have ridiculous amounts of student loans to pay and back to school season is upon us. Not to mention that I have a child who is merely 4 years out from needing her own help with higher education costs.

But...cue the scripture verse I put at the beginning of this post. Scroll back up and dwell on those words.

I may not have a fat wallet, but I do have a LORD who has blessed me in endless other ways.