#baaahhh

At any rate, I’ve kind of pulled myself together, sorted out my thoughts and feelings, and finally have a lot of good news. Still nothing ideal, but good news is good news.

I went to a meeting at the nonprofit that I interned at and did my thesis research for this year about a month ago now. They were going to hire me part time to do some pretty useless work for very few hours because they like me and knew I just desperately needed some form of income, even if they couldn’t offer me something substantive. Anyway, showed up to the meeting and they were like SURPRISE we want to hire you to work on a new research project! I wanted to cry. So I am no working on a project assessing the child welfare and juvenile justice needs of youth in military families. That work is only 30 hours a week, but they think they are going to get funding for another project this month that they’d like me to work on, and that would put me at full time. In the meantime, they gave me a raise and FULL BENEFITS even though I am part time. It’s amazing. I love my new desk and I love it there and I hope they keep me.

In the meantime, the University of Chicago also decided to keep me on their research project! I am working about 20-30 hours-ish a week with them still and they hired me as a permanent employee with the uni. It’s kind of a lot on top of the hours at the nonprofit, but the project is awesome, I am learning SO MUCH and getting connected to some really important social policy research folks and it looks great on a PhD app resume. And, I need the hours and the paycheck, so I really, really appreciate it. I told them I’d stay involved with the project as long as they need me.

So, I am surviving. Almost feeling like I’m thriving, even. I got my first paycheck from Chicago this week (they owed me my pay all the way back to APRIL and I have had NO other income since the first week of June, but now that I am an official employee they will pay me every two weeks) and paid rent and then cried at the grocery store. Things were pretty hard money-wise for the last few weeks. So, I bought bread and laundry detergent and eggs and stuff to make danishes and I just cried. I feel like I might actually make it, like everything really might just be okay. I can buy some goddamn food. The crying was necessary.