Moon Memo: I have enough ghosts.
Good morning from my office in Century Tower, on the edges of downtown Portland. My personal items are in a cardboard box. I used to joke that it was funny that in movies all the personal items a person had in their office could fit into one small banker's box. And dammit, now that I'm here, at the end of the office, that is what I have. One small banker's box, tardis large on the inside, containing my whole time here at Outside In.
This job is dying slowly. Yesterday I provided a checklist to my friend Tana on the background things I do to prepare people for orientation. I went in and deleted a year's worth of orientations, because they would disappear without replacement once my technology stack is cut. Today I write an email about trainings that are due in January, and pass those along as well. Then orientation on Tuesday of next week. And then two weeks of waiting out my contract. And that's it.
It was weird, to pull the wrestler pictures off my wall. To send my beanbag to a new home. To take the picture Graye drew for pride month off my door, and put it into a file folder. To wipe all the things off my white board. To turn my little office into something plain and boring again. How ridiculous to treat it like home.
One of my directors keeps asking me if she can do anything for me. What I finally said was "help me pay my rent in February." She laughed when I said that. These people have no concept of being hungry.
Today I get lunch with some friends. It's all I have on my schedule. Tomorrow is nothing. Friday is nothing.
I could and should be looking for a job right now. I've turned in a bunch of applications in the last two weeks. But I'm struggling to keep my faith in finding work going. Friends of mine have been out of work for multiple years, because they are trans. Because trans women live mostly in poverty. Because we think a middle class job is trans rich.
I don't know. I'm having a hard time of it right now.
Graye's memorial is on February 22nd. Gotta figure out how to get to Nebraska in a short enough time that I don't fuck over my unemployment.
Every time I see someone when I'm here, they get a look on their face. It's a mourning. It's a sadness. It's as if I've died. I don't want to be treated like the dead. I have enough experience working with the dead to know what that leads to. It leads to more dead.
Like, I'm grateful that people are going to miss me. But this mourning face. It's very painful.
White boards are purged of every trace of me. Meetings are being planned without me being part of them. I'm a ghost in this agency now. It's a heart breaking turn of events.
I have enough ghosts in my life now. I don't need to become one of them.
