shelter life pt. 2
Apr. 19th, 2017 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
december_solsticeEvery time I talk to my Mom about what's going on in my life, she always says. ALWAYS. SAYS. to write about it. Not necessarily to publish, or for another person's eyes, but just to document life. I know for a fact that I want to start journaling more often, and I know that I want to start writing memoirs. I started a project 3 months ago that I really want to finish, but, well, writing is hard.
Even *this* is hard - just reflecting on life, gathering my thoughts, and doing it well enough to create coherent sentences.
So, we've been living in this shelter for a full 6 days, as of today. Each day, yes, it does get a little bit better. Staff become familiar, and they're overall very nice folk. We're slowly learning how to live like this, and adjust to shelter life.
Today, we submitted all the remaining documents requested for our case. We finally met with a social worker on Monday, went to the doctor yesterday (medical clearances), now we simply wait for a response from DHS. If what we submitted was enough, we stay where we are until eventually being transferred out. There are people who have been living here for a year. Our on-site case worker said things are slow here. There are a lot of factors including DHS being shitty, and there simply not being any vacancies elsewhere.
Right now, our current goals consist of getting our hands on a rental voucher. Once we have one, it will not be easy to use. From what I've learned 80% of vouchers aren't being used because landlords don't like to accept any kind of voucher (Section 8, ect.). No real surprise there. Landlords are greedy scumbags, I think we've established that fact. I've heard so many horror stories, but even with everything we've already been through, I still have hope for us. Of course, some days are hard. There is a lot of failure and shame.
I've noticed that I still wrestle with this idea that we shouldn't have let this happen as if we didn't know the outcome or that it was inevitable. We had to leave that apartment, there was no other choice, and a big part of it was completely out of our control. Nothing we could have done would change the results.
At the end of the day, life goes on, you know? This is what we;ve got and we've got to make the most of it. Not getting caught up in all of this woe-is-me is really essential to surviving it, I think.
I think finding and maintaining a sense of normality is half of it. I don't want to press pause just because of x, y, and z, you know? Because, it really is true, life goes on and in reality, the only thing that has changed is our we live in a family shelter. Nothing else stops. The world doesn't pause. We just adjust and keep on living. Beyond that, there isn't too much more to say at this point - we're doing what we need to do, we're getting on with life, and we're figuring this shit out.
I've noticed a lot of people here buddy up, but I;m not interested in all that. I'm just going to be nice, but keep to myself. Does that sound terrible? I feel like that'll only cause problems. LOL
Even *this* is hard - just reflecting on life, gathering my thoughts, and doing it well enough to create coherent sentences.
So, we've been living in this shelter for a full 6 days, as of today. Each day, yes, it does get a little bit better. Staff become familiar, and they're overall very nice folk. We're slowly learning how to live like this, and adjust to shelter life.
Today, we submitted all the remaining documents requested for our case. We finally met with a social worker on Monday, went to the doctor yesterday (medical clearances), now we simply wait for a response from DHS. If what we submitted was enough, we stay where we are until eventually being transferred out. There are people who have been living here for a year. Our on-site case worker said things are slow here. There are a lot of factors including DHS being shitty, and there simply not being any vacancies elsewhere.
Right now, our current goals consist of getting our hands on a rental voucher. Once we have one, it will not be easy to use. From what I've learned 80% of vouchers aren't being used because landlords don't like to accept any kind of voucher (Section 8, ect.). No real surprise there. Landlords are greedy scumbags, I think we've established that fact. I've heard so many horror stories, but even with everything we've already been through, I still have hope for us. Of course, some days are hard. There is a lot of failure and shame.
I've noticed that I still wrestle with this idea that we shouldn't have let this happen as if we didn't know the outcome or that it was inevitable. We had to leave that apartment, there was no other choice, and a big part of it was completely out of our control. Nothing we could have done would change the results.
At the end of the day, life goes on, you know? This is what we;ve got and we've got to make the most of it. Not getting caught up in all of this woe-is-me is really essential to surviving it, I think.
I think finding and maintaining a sense of normality is half of it. I don't want to press pause just because of x, y, and z, you know? Because, it really is true, life goes on and in reality, the only thing that has changed is our we live in a family shelter. Nothing else stops. The world doesn't pause. We just adjust and keep on living. Beyond that, there isn't too much more to say at this point - we're doing what we need to do, we're getting on with life, and we're figuring this shit out.
I've noticed a lot of people here buddy up, but I;m not interested in all that. I'm just going to be nice, but keep to myself. Does that sound terrible? I feel like that'll only cause problems. LOL
no subject
Date: 2017-04-23 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-24 06:11 am (UTC)one big problem with this stuff is that if you look at english-speaking cultures, none of them do any of this anymore. they DON'T ferment foods. the only real fermented foods we "all" eat that i can think of is sauerkraut, pickles or soy sauce and then we probably buy it at the store where it's not much good anyway.
so when you search online in english you can hardly find any info on how to do it (unless it's from people from other countries) and 99% of them are saying "wow i thought this was so gross and impossible so i didn't do it for a long time!" as well as "it can be SO DANGEROUS, sterilize EVERYTHING SUPER WELL, wear gloves" etc (protip: no one in the world sterilizes anywhere near as much as americans do, it's completely unnecessary) or you find a lot of wrong/bad info. oh and they all say to do stuff like "you need to put in this and that and tons of sugar", no you don't need that either...
like, i search for fermenting meat and all i can find is how to make sausage, apparently no one's fermenting fish despite that fermented fish is probably the most-fermented meat in the world... or just now i was searching for how to tell if fermented fish for fish sauce is bad, and if tomato sauce is supposed to separate when fermenting (couldn't find an answer to either!) and found a site full of absolutely wrong info (one of those "raw food" sites claiming fermented foods are LESS healthy than "raw" foods - most fermented foods actually haven't been cooked btw... luckily the comments are full of shocked people giving the correct info, but i bet a lot of people don't even read comments)
meanwhile if i search in swedish i find a ton of people talking about/showing pictures of how they're fermenting stuff in their garages and whatnot but usually no real instructions, and if i search in japanese i find instructions super fast (buuut i can't exactly understand them perfectly). this kind of stuff makes me mad because people are always going "i want to learn english, it must have the best / most info" uhh definitely not. maybe, possibly for science and technology but certainly not for any subject that requires "making" stuff such as sewing, cooking, woodworking.... and nothing that requires cultural accuracy in any way (english doesn't even have correct info on vikings. or on modern-day countries).
no subject
Date: 2017-04-24 09:25 pm (UTC)