refined, as through fire;

After putting in a staggeringly hard day at work Saturday, I came home and tried to rest. I found little rest at home, mostly because my room mate has taken it upon herself to “coach” me in the ways of being a woman– cooking and cleaning. This is despite the fact that I am an excellent cook, and the fact that she never applies the “lessons” in cleaning that she takes it upon herself to “teach” me. She spent two hours expressing her chagrin at the fact that I look at her efforts to “help” me with annoyance.

“I’m just trying to help and you’re busy sighing and rolling your eyes at me.”

I’d be more inclined to listen to you if you weren’t being a hypocrite. I thought vehemently. Uninterested in arguing, I kept this thought to myself, excused myself from listening to anymore of that and stalked upstairs to bed.

The next day was spent out and about with people despite feeling lonely and tired. I spent the night crying out my excess rage. I spent the morning listless, forcing myself to put my mind on worship. It was incredibly difficult. En route to preaching, I ran into a fellow I used to serve with. He is a tall white man with grey eyes, broad shoulders, sandy-brown hair and a calm, low voice. He expressed pleasant (but chaste) surprise to see me, and then went on his merry way. He’s one of those men that I dream about, but never entertain hope towards. I rode in the back of a van and we knocked on doors for a couple of hours in the country. Few people were home and even fewer were interested. I came home and slept. I’ve been sleeping a lot lately. My dreams are always about being or feeling lost or out of control, which is distressing. The deep sleep in-between dreams, however, is pleasant, so those two or three hours are what keeps me in bed until noon.

Monday afternoon, I came into work to find my supervisor waiting for me. She is a tall, brown-haired, fresh-faced young woman– looks far too young to be a manager, and thus, they pay her very little also.

“I need to talk to you about some allegations over the weekend.”

“What allegations?”

“That you were yelling at the consumers Friday and Saturday.”

Wonderful.I thought to myself. Not only am I about to get written up, I can’t even say it’s unjustified.

“I remember raising my voice at one of them who was having a serious behavior and was putting me and others at risk.” This is pretty true, as far as I can appraise truth. “Any other incidents, I don’t recall.”

The woman we were speaking of had a violent tantrum because I asked her to wash her hands. She spent a good ten minutes screaming abuse at me, kicking and flailing her arms before I got fed up and roared at her to go to her room. She looked at me stupidly, sniffled, shuffled into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

Fresh Face wrote me a little “written training” and told me to just work as usual. The carbon copy she handed me was pink, and that filled me with even more foreboding than normal. It doesn’t help that she is the more understanding supervisor, and she stepped down from her role the same day.

The NEW supervisor– also fresh-faced, only blonde- called into the home and said I couldn’t work there until they had taken my statement the next day and finished with their “investigation”.

“I want you to go to the other home for tonight and the rest of the week.”

It turns out the other home is several miles away. “Okay, but I don’t have a car. It’s about 6 miles from here. You’ll have to give me time to walk.”

“Take the handicapped van over and then bring it back tonight. We’ll figure out more after your hearing.”

I ended up driving to this tiny little group home occupied by three men. One is nonverbal and hisses like a cat. The other is old and swears compulsively as he shuffles around the house and steals things.  The youngest guy has cerebral palsy and barely has use of his body, but cognitively, he seems mostly there. The youngest guy is also black like me. I bring this up because one of my co-workers (incidentally, the same one who called the manager on me) did.

“Not to be racist or prejudiced, but there’s this coloured guy at the home I usually work at and he only likes other coloured people. I told him about you.” Inwardly, I bristled at the use of the old-school term. I found it both horrifying and hilarious that at this late date I can still expect to be called “coloured” unironically by a white coworker. I didn’t say anything, however; I just let her continue with her story.

“Oh really? What did you say?”

“That’s there’s this new hot young coloured girl at the other home named Di.”

I laughed (and screamed inwardly). “Why’d you go and tell him that for?”

When I came in that night, they were eating dinner. Unsurprisingly,  as I cleared the  table, the young black guy asked me if I had a boyfriend right after asking me my name.

Despite the initial discomfort, I actually rather like that group home better. The level of insanity is much lower, and after they go to bed, the house stays quiet. I spent the last four hours of my shift listening to music and doing yoga with my co-worker.

I’m supposed to come in tomorrow at 2 pm. I have to prepare myself for the long walk.

Meanwhile, despite them putting me through so many hoops and issues over the weekend, it’s been over three weeks and I’ve yet to see a dime. After I finally get my check, I’m  fixing my car and going on interviews for better places. It’s simply too much hassle for not enough pay. I’m also working on internet income.

In the meanwhile, the weather has broken and it’s nice again outside, so I’m taking advantage of it. It’s the only thing to do around here when I’m not watching PBS or reading books. The country is all fine an dandy when you have a car to get out of it. If not, you end up like me– feeling exiled from civilisation. I kind of just want to give up and move back home and be done with this whole wretched experiment in independence. But the problems of being at home– more subtle, but just as spirit-crushing– are so big that it’d be hardly a trade-off. I just have to grit my teeth and bear whatever circumstances come my way.