Life As Performance Art 33

I am speaking out more at work these days. Yesterday at a monthly meeting in one of the mental health teams where I contract my services I had to make something perfectly clear to the team after one of the case managers seemed to assume that I didn't know how to do my job. This is an insult that peer support workers have to live with constantly, as part of workplace stigma, and I for one am not taking it any more. I let the comment go for a while, but towards the end of the meeting I mentioned, for all to hear, that peer support workers are fully trained and knowledgeable about our work, including goal setting with clients and it is part of the process of our job description. Said case manager did not like being embarrassed like this, and later in the file room, he quite screamed at me for being aggressive, which is an absolute laugh because at that moment, if someone was being aggressive, it certainly wasn't me. I just laughed, because it is rather funny, and I really don't know whether to say anything or not to my supervisor about it. I probably won't, as I like to think that I know how to fight my own battles. As I near retirement, for me, the gloves have truly come off. I have almost nothing left to lose and I am certainly not about to lose my dignity. So, I am going to fight, and I am going to continue fighting. I still don't know how retirement is going to look for me. Speaking of my supervisor, I mentioned to him yesterday that an advocate had turned me down some seventeen years ago for filing for disability because she thought I was too well, and I decided to take her up on it. My supervisor commented that I must have found that very empowering. I just smiled and said that it's helped make me every bit the arrogant shit that I am today. He laughed and said, and sometimes you are! or something like that. I could not disagree. And of course I'm going to graciously accept a compliment! I have never been on disability. Yesterday on the bus I was chatting with a tenant from my building. We are both original tenants here at Candela Place, having been here since the place first opened seventeen years ago (count 'em!). He mentioned that, being some four or five years my senior, has already been retired for the last two or three years. It doesn't look good on him, being retired. He has quite aged, and has some major health concerns, partly brought on by his heavy cigarette addiction, which for him remains his only consolation, given that he is, like me, totally alone in the world. It is also for him a very expensive addiction, leaving him with barely enough from his scant pension to live on. I would estimate that if you are smoking one pack a day, you are likely going to be spending up to four thousand dollars or more every year. That is the approximate cost for me of a month in Costa Rica, a good and very enjoyable month! Or, sic weeks in Mexico or in Colombia. I am glad to say that I have never had a problem with smoking, and even though I was a light smoker for three years during my dumb twenties, it was easy to quit, and to remain completely free of that toxic addiction. But my little visit with my neighbour on the bus yesterday is making me think a bit. What kind of retirement can I expect? Should I, perhaps, still walk with a bit of caution in the workplace, given that I will likely still want to stay available for picking up a couple of contracts post-retirement. This is also conditional upon whether or not my occupation will still exist in two years (yes, they are that nasty, and worse!). I do plan to keep on writing, and making art. I plan to keep on praying and celebrating God's love, and, if they'll still have me, to stay with my church. I also plan to go on taking care of my health, to keep walking everywhere, to spend as much time outside as possible, to eat and sleep well, to go on reading and learning. I plan to further polish my Spanish fluency, and to continue communicating with and visiting my friends in Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico. I also have every intention of going on being a pain in the ass to people in positions of power who love to abuse their authority, as well as living in compassion and empathy towards those who suffer. I suppose that all means I will go on being a badass. Well, could do worse, I suppose!