{"id":762,"date":"2013-06-16T17:40:11","date_gmt":"2013-06-16T22:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quinnnorton.com\/said\/?p=762"},"modified":"2013-06-16T17:40:11","modified_gmt":"2013-06-16T22:40:11","slug":"on-dignity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quinnnorton.com\/said\/?p=762","title":{"rendered":"On Dignity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"me-bones\"<\/a>I have so many things to say they jam up my brain sometimes. I have even more I want to learn, and then pass on. I have so many things to care about. In July my health insurance is getting cut off. I have looked through my options and concluded that for now, I have none. I make very little money, as a result, I haven’t had a place to live since 2009. It is too little to afford insurance (& I suspect next year I will have to start paying penalties for that fact). But at about 20-25k a year and no address, there is no assistance for me.<\/p>\n

I could give up my career and look for a job, but there’s no jobs, and I don’t handle offices well. And frankly, I like my career. It doesn’t pay much, but I believe what I do is important and not many people can or will do it. We spend a lot of time equating financial success with meaningful work, and both with deserving healthcare, but I think all of that is bullshit, and I won’t live my life that way.<\/p>\n

No; giving up being me is not an option. I am not a shiftless and lost person. I am busy, and involved and I live with tremendous purpose and hope. But I live in a society that does not value me. That doesn’t mean I don’t, though.<\/p>\n

I’m 40 now. In many ways it feels like the beginning. I have tons of energy, I know my life’s work. It’s not easy, and I don’t know if I can get all the things I need to done, but it’s coming together. It was a hard fucking road here. Strange and hard beyond what most people imagine a life can be. For getting here, I’m grateful. This is also a time when the body changes, when medical considerations change. I’ll do the health things that make sense to do without insurance, I still love and value my life and want all of it I can get. But I’m not bothering with a mammogram. What could I do about it anyway? I’d rather put my time and energy into my work, what time my society will leave me. Because I live in a society that has decided people like me should die if they get ill.<\/p>\n

But I still have choice in how that happens. If I get a lump in my breast or a hole in my heart or gut, I’m not going to spend my precious remaining time begging for help from the public or indifferent bureaucracies, while I get weaker and drown in pain. I watched people beg for scraps from an America that doesn’t care about them. You may have chosen that I will die, America, but I don’t have to be polite about it.<\/p>\n

When the time comes that I am out of options and facing illness, I intend to dictate and write the final notes on I can on my work, and then take my own life before disease and indifference do. I would go out of this world the same way I came in — screaming and strong.<\/p>\n

Fuck dying quietly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have so many things to say they jam up my brain sometimes. I have even more I want to learn, and then pass on. I have so many things to care about. In July my health insurance is getting cut off. I have looked through my options and concluded that for now, I have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,108],"tags":[43,174,185],"class_list":["post-762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medical","category-society","tag-bodies","tag-insurance","tag-politics-in-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quinnnorton.com\/said\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quinnnorton.com\/said\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quinnnorton.com\/said\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quinnnorton.com\/said\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quinnnorton.com\/said\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=762"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.quinnnorton.com\/said\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":765,"href":"https:\/\/www.quinnnorton.com\/said\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions\/765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quinnnorton.com\/said\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quinnnorton.com\/said\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quinnnorton.com\/said\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}