Ping.

Ping.

“Just checking in.” In other words, are you stilll here. If you heard the ping, then that means you made it through. Jumped through the hoop without slamming your face on the ground. For now, it was your 2 feet that absorbed the fall.

Ping.

We only got 1 email today.

No one was prepared, but no one was shocked. How could you be? We were hurt instead. Because no ever thinks “it could happen to us” even though we know that’s a lie.

So many questions:

“How could they do this?”

“Why like this?”

“Does it make sense?”

“What about the ones that are left?”

There are so many emotions knocking into the backs of our brains and hitying the cores of our beings. Some of us relieved that we are still here. Guilty because we don’t really know why them and not us. Gutted because our friends are gone. Anxious because the future is uncertain. Empty because what is there left to feel after a pandemic, global starvation, racism, homophobia, poverty, inequity, etc etc etc? Isn’t this just another notch on the belt of life? Isn’t it an easier pull to swallow because we’re the cream of the crop?

But for some of us it’s a different kind of hurt. Scarier because we’re the ones who’ve been treading water since the day we started. We were already guilty, gutted, anxious, empty, and relieved when we made it through another work week.

We said goodbye to our mentors. Our community. To people who looked like us and kept us here. Our support systems. Our family. But not our work family. It’s a different kind of bond when you’re in a place that was never made for people like you. And is anything in capitalism ever made for us?

But this time, it’s not just us. Because at the end of the day, we all got the same email. We all read the same words — “A difficult decision.” So how do we move forward? Can we move forward? Should we move forward?

Or should we move differently and finally accept some facts.

1. We’re privileged.

2. But we are also human.

Can we ever reconcile the two?

We know that many of us will be okay. We hope that many of us will okay. No matter what, this still feels like shit.

Is it ungrateful to feel sad even though we are somewhere a step further than everyone else who doesn’t have the big G, big A, big S, big M stamped into the blood of their resume? I don’t think there’s a good answer, but it’s not up to me to figure it out.

They say privilege leaves you blind. You never see it coming even if you had your eyes wide open. But you also never see the other people who experienced this yesterday and the day before. But also is it blindness? I guess we all just didn’t look. Why? Because privilege is cozy. It feels warm and soft to imagine we are always safe in its arms.

The truth though: we know nothing and are only as safe as the most marginalized person in the room. Is this the great equaliser? The thing that finally hammers home that we should have always used our power for ourselves and those without it? Inside these four walls and out? Will this mean people finally understand how inequity plays out? Will they understand that no matter how much power you think you have, someone else is controlling the game? Will they get that even though this was for the most privileged industry that the same thing plays out regularly in a harsher color for those outside these gates?

And now that we know that we don’t see everything? What will we do with what little we have? The confirmation. The proof that we’re dispensable… just like everyone else. I guess we’ll see.