Dear Darling Ones,

One of the benefits of being poor is the insurance, or at least it is right now. Who knows what the future holds for poor people insurance? Probably nothing. The only thing America hates more than black people, anyone not generally white passing, LGBTQIA+, and women, is poor people.

This country hates poor people because, like the good capitalist robots we are trained to be, we equate wealth with intelligence, hard work, and moral superiority. Only stupid and lazy people are poor and they deserve to suffer for their stupid laziness. Naturally.

When I was younger people were often surprised to learn I grew up in poverty, a thing I mostly kept a shameful secret, because I was so smart. As if I couldn’t be poor and smart.

Well, here I am again – poor and smart.

Believe it or not, bellyaching about poverty is my point today. My point right now, in this moment, is about how I am content and happy and it’s due to my poor people’s insurance.

My insurance has a bunch of incentive programs to make their clients “healthier.” Through this Healthy Benefits program they’ll “pay” you for doing things like getting a mammogram, getting your A1C checked, and other things I can’t remember because I don’t think they pertain to me.

The more cynical corners of my mind think they offer this program because they think poor people are too dumb to do this. Really, it’s probably a good investment. The healthier their clients are the less they have to pay. It always comes down to the dollars.

As a poor & frugal person I got my mind on the dolla dolla bills too, y’all.

My idea when I first discovered the Healthy Benefits program was to use the money for co-pays and prescriptions. Seemed like a good idea to me. Only thing is that was not allowed. The Benefits had to be used to by “healthy” food at specific stores. Because, of course.

Since I can’t drive anymore this made using my Benefits tricky. In fact, a bunch of my money expired before I could use them. I didn’t have the mental or emotional capacity to deal with it, Not so this year. This year I made it a mission to use that $80 (I got $50 for a mammogram and $30 for my A1C).

After much digging through the shitty Healthy Benefits website and even shittier app I learned I could use Uber Eats and their ridiculously inflated pricing to get groceries delivered. I have been in battle with Uber Eats for weeks because every time I tried to place an order the app said it could not use my S3 Healthy Benefits card right now.

Why? I don’t know. I even called the Healthy Benefits support line to see what I was doing wrong and they were literally like, “we’re here to help people add the card to their Uber Eats wallet.” Not so helpful to those of us who know how to work phone apps.

For someone with zero patience, I am also incredibly stubborn. I have been trying to place that order and get it to charge that stupid card every day for like two weeks. Today it worked. My frugal persistence paid off!

I was able to get all the Thanksgiving food for our tiny Thanksgiving. It’s just me, Sister #4, and our mom. The West Coast fam stays over there for Thanksgiving.

The amount of pride I have right now is incalculable. I’m so happy I get to pay for and prepare dinner for my fam. My mom and Sister #4 do so much for me and never complain about it in front of me. So many appointments (four in December) and checking the mail and taking out the garbage. They’ve never once asked me for gas money or anything like that. And while I cook and bake for them all the time (last week was chicken soup with homemade biscuits and scotcheroos), this is special because it feels like I got all the food for free.

The only thing I love better than paying less for stuff is not having to pay for it at all.

Yay!

Poor but happy,
Jodi

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Hello Darling Ones,

Without a doubt 2023 is and continues to be the most difficult year of my life. It puts eighth grade, freshman year of college, COVID lockdown, and all the death of 2022 to shame.

And at the same time it is the most gratifying, proudest, and loving year of my life.

When I think about the way people have stepped up to support me through my stroke recovery and the diabetes and retinopathy and the arthritic knees, all I can do is cry. There is no way thank people for loving me and showing up in ways I would have never predicted.

I’m amazed every damn day about the kindness and the generosity of the people I’ve chosen to share my life with. I’m so lucky. I am SO lucky. I am.

In March 2023 I had a stroke with repercussions I’m still working to overcome. But I get to do the work.

A woman I graduated high school with had a stroke in July 2023 and died from it in September. She had a stroke and died. I had a stroke and livd to be annoyed by it (and, ask my family, annoying about it).

I’m so thankful I get to be annoyed because Becky didn’t get the opportunity.

Some people, singer Dessa wrote in her memoir, are born a little blue. That’s me, always feeling a little lonely. I think of myself as an outsider. It’s part of my self-mythology.

However, what I think and what you have actually shown me is quite different. I was wrong.

Nearly everybody in my life from all aspects of my life ha stepped up to support me. Not just financially, but emotionally too. And the thinb is, it’s not just people I know.

Friends of my sisters, brother-in-law, and my niblings have donated money to help me stay afloat and repay my debt. I’m very literally (and literarily) depending on the kindness of strangers right now.

When things are so terrible, when everywhere you turn you see how awful people can be to each other, it’s humbling to be the beneficiary of so much kindness and generosity.

I know I can never pay it back. I wish I could.mI cannot thank you enough.

As a crocheter, I love to make blankets, scarfs, sweaters, you name it. Whenever I crochet something for someone I think about how much I love that person. I try to infuse the yarn with that love, because I want them to be warm, safe, and feel loved always. I hope they can feel that coming from me.

If I could I would make each and everycone of you blanket so you can feel that, That’s how you have made me feel and I thank you thank you thank you.

THANK YOU!

Love,
Jodi

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Dear Darling Ones,

A long time ago I had an idea to write about all the different ways you can cry in a day. I was gonna keep track of my tears and then tell you about them. I don’t think I ever got around to it. If I did, keep that fact to yourself. I just had a stroke! I’m allowed to forget some things.

If I did that post today, one of ways you can cry is “6 p.m. on Friday listening to “Danny’s Song” because you’re reading Kenny Loggins’ memoir AND two of the women you work with sent you a $50 Door Dash gift card to make things easier.”

If I wrote yesterday as I intended until I ran out of steam, one of the ways you can cry is “You made chili and it was good.”

For real, I cried in my chili because I was so proud of myself. Making it was so hard. I didn’t expect perfect knife cuts, but chopping vegetables with my shaky arm was weird and took forever.

My brain cannot stop the inner-monologue that comes with a limb that doesn’t follow directions. There’s a lot of “fuck,” “what the fuck,” and “are you fucking kidding me?”

Opening cans with a manual can opener was also surprisingly difficult.

Eighteen days in and I’m still learning all the ways I wildly underestimated how this would impact my life. And I don’t even know the financial ramifications yet.

I also wildly underestimated the guilt. I feel wretched for making people worry. I feel as though I betrayed everyone by not taking better care of myself.

I feel bad that I haven’t properly thanked people who sent something or offered to help. I feel bad for not telling people how they can help (there is a Support section in the sidebar that’s the best I can do).

Mostly, I wildly underestimated how many people care about me. It’s a bit overwhelming and unexpected. I don’t often feel particularly worthy, especially now that I betrayed everyone.

I’m so fucking grateful and thankful. I’m glad y’all think I deserve it.

Jodi

The post Stroke Me Day 18: Wildly Underestimated appeared first on I Will Dare.

While we should spend every day thanking our lucky stars for all that we have, we don’t. It’s easy to forget, and to take our good fortune and privilege for granted. It often takes a loss, the reminder of how it could all be gone in an instant to put it in perspective.

It would be really easy to tip over into the Hallmark philosophy and Garfield blessings that run rampant on Facebook and Twitter, but I won’t. It’s tough, but I am thankful for the strength to resist spouting empty platitudes.

Instead, I will tell you how I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I tossed and turned and did the whole, “I should just get up. I should just get up. I’ll get up. I’ll get up,” sort of thing in the voice of Cameron from Ferris Bueller.

While I tried to fall asleep I thought about the things I should be thankful for and in my tired, grumpiness I came up with chocolate Pop Tarts and insomnia, soft quilts and fat cats, and sisters who never put their dirty dishes in the dishwasher even though you told them the dishwasher was empty.

This year I am thankful for all of it, every second of it. I hope you are too.

The post This year I am thankful for everything appeared first on I Will Dare.

Today as I was preparing lunch to go with my daily “Roseanne” reruns I got excited because I had new peppercorns to put in the grinder. This is only mildly more embarrassing than Sunday when I got excited about SuperT stocking big jars of Skippy Creamy Natural Peanut Butter.

When you spend most of the day alone with cats and the radio and the internet it doesn’t take much to excite you. Also, when you work as a freelance writer cheap lunches you make at home are a key to survival.

Saturday will mark the first anniversary of my unemploymentiversary. I should call it my self-employmentiversary, but there’s something about the term self-employment that sounds masturbatory. It just rubs me the wrong way*.

After buying Supergenius HQ and keeping I Will Dare going for ten years, this past year might be one of my proudest achievements. It hasn’t been easy.

Being the sole breadwinner makes going without a steady paycheck terrifying. It took months to stop worrying about my inevitable destitution and probable basement dwelling. I still have to refrain from applying for every interesting job that pops up. It hasn’t been easy either, because there’ve been a lot of interesting jobs popping.

I’ve learned a lot in the past twelve months not the least of which is don’t carry your water bottle in the same bag as your computer. The other things all involve super lame cliches:
Do what you love and the money will come. I’m sorry, it’s true. I get paid to write words in my pajamas. The pajamas part is a total side benefit. My clients pay me the same amount if I wear jeans.

Working for yourself is the best job ever. Bleh, I know. But it’s true too. I’m thisclose to turning into one of those people who go on and on about how awesome working for yourself is and how I wished I’d done it sooner and that everyone should quit their jobs immediately are totally right. The only thing that keeps me from being that person is the fact that I hate people who talk about work all the time. Work is boring, I’d rather talk about “Roseanne” reruns.

So yay! One whole year of cube-freedom. I just want to give thanks and be grateful tonight while I was in the mood, because tomorrow when I get up at 6 a.m. to Tibblesit I’m not going to be too happy about working until 11 p.m.

*I slay me. I tried really really hard to not point out that joke because laughing at your own jokes is lame, but here I am pointing out to you how funny I think I am.

The post Cube free is the way to be: 12 months without a real job appeared first on I Will Dare.