One month as of tomorrow.

Four weeks and five days.

Twenty three working days.

If the cube move happens on schedule, which I doubt, ten more in-office days.

And then two weeks of paid vacation.

And then?

The rest of my abbreviated life, I suppose. The real work begins to find the home I’m going to die in, to make it a place I can live in until that happens, and then finally – FINALLY – my immediate life can be all about just dealing with my symptoms as they come. To deal with my abilities as they go. To actually live the rest of my life until I’ve had enough.

Some not-insignificant part of me is grateful to have an Out of the workforce. It’s a forced retirement, but it’s an escape from the 9-5 capitalist bullshit that has eaten the prime years of my life. The prime of yours, too. I’ve always been a damn Liberal, but more than ever, I am seeing the absolute stupidity of the 40 hour workweek. The need to work, to justify your living with a paycheck.

And it IS a justification.

I’ve seen sneers turn into surprised respect when I tell people what I do for a living. Yeah fucker, this weird-haired, pierced and tattooed bitch has a real life respectable job that requires actual smarts. I earn more money than you, asshole, surprise.

And with the surrender of my employment comes a surrender of that piece of me, that legitimacy in the eyes of strangers that should mean fuck all and yet…it does. It really does. I wish it didn’t. I know it doesn’t mean anything, not really, but our fucking capitalist society has keyed so much of our identities into our paychecks – and who provides that paycheck – that it is going to be really hard to let that go. From being respectable to being a goddamned leech on our social security system even though I HAVE PAID INTO IT MY WHOLE WORKING LIFE, YOU ASSHOLES, I DESERVE THIS BECAUSE I PAID FOR IT AND IT IS MINE. I paid to let your grandma afford her groceries, would have paid more, gladly, as I earned more, to share what I have. That’s what social security is FOR. That’s why we have it. And yet now that it’s time to cash in, even though it will be a very limited time, I feel less than deserving. Am made by much rhetoric and many conservative motherfuckers to feel like I deserve nothing.

Believe me, fuckers, I’d rather be working instead of dying.

One more month of being valid.

Four weeks plus five days plus two weeks vacation.

One more month of being a job instead of a person.

Six weeks of being justified in my existence.

This is such unbelievable bullshit.