Getting By

We stuff our credit cards deeper into the drawer. We lose our jobs and call it "going freelance." We lie to our parents and tell them we still have health insurance. We see protesters mingle with people who have been without a home or a job for a long time - a really long time - and we wonder if they're on the same spectrum. We don't ask that question out loud. We respect that everyone has a side hustle. A side hustle to the side hustle. Survival, we come to realize, is its own form of activism. We buy less crap. We make dinner at home. We hold out hope that our projects will become paychecks. We share. We rely on each other. We get through it together.