so, I've mostly managed to leave US news in the US, and it has freed up SO much of my brainpower, you have no idea. I can breathe, I can think. But now I'm two degrees removed from a person who was murdered and I feel a little bit hit by a truck, you know? I'm fine, everything's fine here, but it's suddenly a lot more immediate that things are not fine over there, and now I'm like
wait, I don't know how to be useful in this situation anymore. I'm used to being crisis response, and I was damn good at it, but it took a toll and is not something I could do long-term. I can do it for one person, and it matters to them, but it feels so inadequate.
if I'm not crisis response, and I'm not really doing advocacy now that I'm focused on learning and adjusting as an immigrant, I don't know what my role in the trans community is anymore. I'm not particularly useful. I'm flailing my way through living a normal(ish) life and I know that's supposedly enough but it doesn't feel like enough at times like this.
and it's one more way that I feel helpless, being so far away from everyone I knew before. I can't* visit my family or friends and I will possibly imminently be missing the passing of my grandfather. So now I've got this crushing sense of guilt. I don't know how this snowballed all the way here but feelings have always been illogical and inconvenient and this is certainly no exception.
gonna go pet my cat now and do 3D sudoku and then maybe sleep.
*I could return to the US, but long story short, having an updated gender on my passport could cause me a lot of problems returning to Germany, so I am just not re-entering the US for the foreseeable future.
wait, I don't know how to be useful in this situation anymore. I'm used to being crisis response, and I was damn good at it, but it took a toll and is not something I could do long-term. I can do it for one person, and it matters to them, but it feels so inadequate.
if I'm not crisis response, and I'm not really doing advocacy now that I'm focused on learning and adjusting as an immigrant, I don't know what my role in the trans community is anymore. I'm not particularly useful. I'm flailing my way through living a normal(ish) life and I know that's supposedly enough but it doesn't feel like enough at times like this.
and it's one more way that I feel helpless, being so far away from everyone I knew before. I can't* visit my family or friends and I will possibly imminently be missing the passing of my grandfather. So now I've got this crushing sense of guilt. I don't know how this snowballed all the way here but feelings have always been illogical and inconvenient and this is certainly no exception.
gonna go pet my cat now and do 3D sudoku and then maybe sleep.
*I could return to the US, but long story short, having an updated gender on my passport could cause me a lot of problems returning to Germany, so I am just not re-entering the US for the foreseeable future.
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