My job is really hard sometimes and that's ok

Warning: gonna be hella vague this post

          Yesterday was not a good activist day. It was one of those days where I look at what I’m doing and what my goals are for the year I have left here and it just seemed like the gap was so huge and insurmountable that nothing I can do will even make a dent. I was thinking and talking about how I can get through to the people I want to get through to, and all I could do was think that nothing will work. Our presentations are typically about an hour long, and yesterday we were discussing what the main things we want to get across in that hour are, and for me it basically came to it’s just not enough time. There’s just no way to do it. We have our volunteers and they’re awesome and I love them so much, but outside of the people who already care, it’s so difficult to get people to care.

          There are so many people out there who I just look at and think how can you think like that? How can you treat other people like that? And then there are even more people who I look at and when I see them or hear their story I just want to give them a hug and tell them it will be alright but I can’t do that because I don’t know that it will be alright.

          The end of last week was exactly the opposite of this. On Friday, I was so excited and ready for next year – we had just made our final hiring decisions and it was the day after our last volunteer training. That last training was this awesome culmination of everything we’ve been working on with the volunteers this year. I gave them our presentation (which is in jeopardy format) and they all answered to questions in teams. Seeing them get so excited about this stuff that I am so passionate about was amazing for me. I just wish I could get the average person to care a tenth of what our volunteers care.

          I know that this work is hard. I know that I will have days like yesterday and I will have days like Friday. And I know that sometimes it will be awesome and sometimes it will suck, but I think yesterday was my first really bad day where I just felt like nothing I could ever do could ever matter. And that really got to me. I didn’t really know what to say about it or how to put my thoughts into words and it made me shut down in a way that I haven’t for a few years now. We talk a lot about self care when doing activist/social justice work and I’m totally a huge proponent of it, but then when it came to the point where I needed to take care of myself I didn’t really know what to do to get myself out of that funk, which scares me.

          Anyway, this was super ramble-y but it helped I think.