THRIVING

I wake up, 2am, a panic. The rain is falling too hard outside my window. And the wind. The wind! It's a decision no one ever told me I’d have to make, not really. If I go out there in this storm, is this a storm? This is Southern California after all. But it's fucking freezing. And it's raining too hard. My imagination flashes violently, bursts of worst case scenarios break like waves around me. It is raining so much harder than it has in...I can't remember when. I can't go outside. I can't afford to get sick, not now, not when the ICU’s are still overflowing. When there is another strain of the deadly virus that has been taking my neighbors lives one by one for over a year now. It's mutated? IT'S MUTATED. Okay. I try to count my breaths and then remember that never works. Always leaves me more panicked. Rue from Euphoria was just autistic. That was literally it. Sometimes focusing on one of my special interests helps. I inhale a long sigh of a breath. How long has it been raining now? For hours. Usually I would be elated at rain like this. But things haven’t been like they usually were, and probably never will be again. I am a careless, stupid, fucking cunt. Oh there that goes again, the blaming. It's taken me months but at this point I can finally trace it back to somewhere. Three nights ago I had a dream that a gym teacher who was supposed to be my mother was hurling insult after insult at me, sneering at my pain. When I woke up I understood what my brain was trying to telegraph to me. But women are supposed to be good… the problem is just that we don't empower them. It's POURING now. Thundering on the roof. Seriously? This is a farce, surely. When does it ever rain like this in Southern California?! It's like every drop of the drought we’ve been in for the past….I don't know how long, it started before I got here, is being released from the sky at once. Like someone who withheld their love from you for years suddenly remembers every birthday, notices every single thing you like about yourself and tells you all the things you have been waiting to hear. From an ecological standpoint this can not be good. Dumping 2 years of rain onto barren soil is just a recipe for a mudslide. Sometimes things that look good, aren’t. There is such a thing as too much. The rain and the wind seems to be responding to my consideration of going outside. Of course, I know better. But just in case I was still thinking about it...a little flood channel opens at the bottom of my steps. At least my roof isn’t leaking. Yet. When the painters left this past week I noticed one of the support beams on the roof disintegrated when paint was applied to it. It's hollow but at least it's a nice shade of brown. The popcorn plaster has been bulging on my ceiling since before I moved in but surely that's just a cosmetic thing. I should turn on the heater. It really is freezing.

You know, my parents bought me that car for graduation. It never made any sense to me why they would buy me anything. They didn't even make a big fuss over it like they usually did about everything. But I could tell they were proud. And that it was more of themselves than of me. One is supposed to grow out of being uncharitable to their parents, I know. At least they didn't kill me or send me off to be killed. A quick list of people like me that has happened to that I saw online pops into my head and I shove it away. Just being dramatic. The heater roars to life as I think of all the reasons I REALLY can't go outside right now. A quick list reveals that I have already hurt my foot and eye this year from “accidents” so healthcare is not something I can afford to jeopardize at the moment. Not like I have health insurance anyway. I applied under the State’s program when I lost my job...what was it- almost a year ago? Wow this is taking a long time. But after initially asking for just one form, proof of unemployment, they sent me a packet in the mail requesting 6-9 more. Proof of income, copy of my birth certificate. I checked online, because, it's not like this is the first time I’ve been on their plan, they know who I am. But nope, they needed all of it. The deadline to turn in the forms came and went without me sending them in. They sent me a letter telling me I don't qualify. I looked on the website, everything said it was fine. When I called no one answered. It's the middle of the pandemic, I thought, Millions of people lost their health insurance. They weren’t very responsive years ago when I applied and it wasn’t like this. Sometimes I wish I was the hopeful optimist that teachers and employers often paint me as.

The rain has slowed and at this point I could probably go out and assess the damage. Ever since I nicked one of those yellow pillars in the Drive Thru last month with my side view mirror for some reason my driver's side window wont go all the way up. It's only an inch and a half, maybe two, between the glass and the frame, something is bent out of shape somewhere. I haven’t had the energy to look at it with the insurgency last week, which somehow still led to a peaceful inauguration. I try to remember what planets are aligning or not right now, but I can't quite place it. Anyhow, on days that seemed like it might rain (most of the rain we get here is in January and February of course), I’ve just draped trash bags over the window so that the water rolls off instead of into the car. You have to put rocks in the bottom of them too though otherwise the wind will just blow them up and it's pointless. It works pretty well, and my neighbors, most of them, aren’t judgey about the way it looks. But the seal on the windshield has been leaking again, I need to reapply the silicone I bought last year, only it was blocked when I picked it up this morning and it took me over an hour and I still haven’t cleared it yet. Anyway, I can't apply it when it's wet, and I didn't realize the windshield was leaking until it was already raining again. In Arizona you can get your windshield replaced for free, it's mandatory that insurance covers it, but not here. So I fix it myself. Because that's what I do. I can fix it. And I’m lucky I can. So it doesn't matter anyway, that I took the trash bags off and put a raincoat over the window instead, one that isn't really the MOST waterproof, but then I didn't exactly expect the monsoon that we had. It doesn't matter anyway, because the windshield leaks so either way I’d be spending the day scooping water out of the floor. Fuck. I should’ve put the seat back at least. The upholstery already stinks. I could probably at least do that now. Assess the damage before it starts pouring again. The raincoat had seemed like a good idea at the time. Why do I only get to take not fun risks? Other people’s foolish life decisions are going home with a stranger from a bar for some drunken pleasure and mine are unsuitable repairs.

The bank teller is nodding absent-mindedly at my monologue as he continues his verification process. “It's standard for payments this big,” he tells me, apologetically, as the line behind me continues to grow. I think about early on in the pandemic in this same bank branch where I saw a woman remove her mask to sneeze. It was such a human thing to do. And yet...insane. But these are insane times. Finally, he lets out a huge breath. “Now, would you like me to deposit the whole $20,000 into your checking account or would you like me to apply it to the balance of the credit card you have with us as well. You have a $1000 payment due today.” I can feel my teeth. “Did my disaster waiver not go through?” “For the credit card you mean?” His customer service voice is flawless. “No, it looks like it's still pending.” “Just deposit it all into the checking account.” I square my shoulders a little but end up sighing instead. “Sounds like you can really use this.” He banters as he does whatever he has to do on his end for the funds to appear in my bank account. I think about my car, with it's dashboard full of warning lights and (slightly) moldy interior. The aforementioned credit card account. Two more I used to survive when I first moved here. The loan I had to take out 3 years ago. My student debt that this President promised to cancel, but that, of course I’ll believe when I see it. The hospital bill for when I injured my eye. It’s started raining again. The rent that I still owe my landlord from late last year. My future, my dreams, tucked away somewhere as scribbled affirmations in a small black notebook, become a tiny pinprick I can barely even see anymore. I’m only 32. The money I owe my parents.

I take a deep breath, slap a smile on my face, and respond back to him:

“Couldn't we all?”

I laugh. He smiles politely and as I walk away I think about all the people who could use this money more than me. The uptick in gofundme’s I’ve seen for people to get out of abusive households, or avoid getting evicted, to buy food, to transition, to do...anything. I promise myself that I’m a good investment. I remind myself that everyone deserves a safe place to live, food, a warm bed. A way to get to where they need to go. That to live is a human right. No matter how difficult it is. My little inner voice pipes up in my head finally tired of all the doom and gloom. “Disneyland is closed, what are you going to do with the first of that money, girl?” I push thoughts of how billionaires suggest regular people spend their money, acting like righteous self-earned saviors instead of people born into privilege out of my head and get in line at the IN-N-OUT across the street instead. It’s finally stopped raining. As the girl hands me my burger and fries, she makes a funny face. “It says your card has been declined. Do you have another?” I look down at the deposit slip in my hand and the fine print that had eluded me before pulls into focus. “Funds will be held for up to 2 business days.” I quickly wrack my brain for any additional resources, however scrawny they may be. “Don't worry about it.” She smiles underneath her mask in a sympathetic response to my panic. “That’s your car over there right?” She points across the parking lot. “I’ve been there.”