By Sarah E.
WORKING FOR AN ORGANIZATION THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE AND FINDING OUT MOST THE ORG DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE PART THAT IS SAVING LIVES is like funhouse mirrors of ideology, confusingly straight forward platitudes. On paper it makes sense. We do the work, we make the engine start, keep the connections well-oiled, plaster pink decals in front of the public, usher them toward the resources, the people, they prayers answered. Here is your support. Here is your education, information, empowerment. Here we give thanks and praise to the nurses and doctors, the receptionists and clinicians who say yes, who validate your fears, hold your hand when you don’t know why you’re crying, where you meet the first doctor you’ve ever seen who looks like you and she literally gives you a juice box. She doesn’t know it washes down a Xanax, she only knows you’re here and you’re scared and you made this appointment one hour ago. And then you clock into your shift, work from home on the couch, gratitude like stars in your eyes. Open your starry eyes to the warped mirror: a union bust, thirty thousand dollars in ad sales, you’re being asked to get out the vote for a man who once told you are not the authority on the issue of what your own body has been through—what it can do. When you tell people who employs you, they thank you, giving thanks and praise for their prayers answered, their purgatory ended by a femme in scrubs in a discreet clinic some 50 miles away. The work you do saved my life they keep saying, your paychecks keep rolling in though you’ve never worn scrubs, never put on a reflective vest, never passed a protest or been called a name, never used the word procedure, never had to wear orthotic shoes or call security to be let in to your workplace. You wonder if the money sent to you would be better served in the cracked hands of a healthcare worker, wonder how much it would take to dismantle those departments portent and comfortable, each six-figure office in one go. Send every copper penny to the people who serve because it is right, shut down the election work, disband the comms team and send the organizers back to their communities. You wanted to give back, you think, each keystroke a betrayal, you wanted to help, you buy a frame for the mirror. At 10 feet away you looked poised and pretty, at five feet you are shrunken and swollen, at one foot you are melted, congealed, no trace of a human, no face to meet your eye.