I keep applying for jobs like everything is normal and it's a problem.

I keep submitting applications, thinking maybe I can pretend this is all going to go away. RIFs. ICE. AI. War. Hate. Killing. Torture. Death. Predictive programming that makes my brain want to rot.

I keep seeing the reality, doomscrolling, crying, walking in a fucking circle for at least 30 minutes, staring at the sky, then doing it all over again.

And I won't stop. I know this situation is deeeeply fucked. And I won't move. Analysis paralysis on crack tbrh.

And I've been this way for almost a year. April 22, 2025. I remember it like it's some fucking anniversary. And it is, in a way. A day I became liberated. The day I was set free.

Set free, from what, you may ask? Well, the matrix. And for me, that matrix involved government contracting at a public health organization in a verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry dystopian era.

Now that I've been unemployed, I've seen and experienced poverty at a level I never have before, and, embarrassingly as a global public health professional, never truly understood what everyday Americans dealt with up until now: late nights; longer days; and DoorDash customers that just dgaf;

SNAP applications that have no customer service for you to call and deny you automatically even when you submit your paperwork on-time (and by on-time I mean excessively early);

Migraines from trying to decide whether to pay the internet or electric (trick question: pay the electric because you need that for wifi 😂);

Living day-to-day because you can't plany anymore. A day feels like a week and a week feels like a month. A month feels like a year and a year is something you dare to fever dream about.

Fuck dreams because the abyss we are all staaring into is real, and it is coming. I can't keep going back to normal routines, running around in circles I was never meant to make, and neither can you.

So what are we gonna do?