Loudoun County, Virginia
When I tutored after-school at INMED, I noticed that the mission statement on the organization’s website mentioned that you’d think many of the residents in Loudoun county and in Sterling are among the rich, the blessed, the fortunate, while looking at the outside reality, or the semi-reality. Tidy driveways, stone or brick rock setting the structure of the houses. Cars parked in the garage; lawns, backyards, etc. The About page continued on to say that there might well be 12 people living in one of those nice homes, though; families packed together, incomes shared across extended families; immigrants trying to eventually branch off and live the American dream—independence, self-sufficiency, happiness, a normal life. I guess I always saw the nice houses with a certain naivety, a cruel naivety. I never imagined what might be going on inside. I didn’t think the people inside might be regular middle class, sharing resources and space. I imagined it was always a man, a woman, and their one or two kids; a four-family home, one of the wealthier ones around. | I recently secured an ABA therapy//behavior tech job at a center, a school; my first substantial job. I mentioned to the interviewer (the manager, the principal. Nice lady; honestly one of the nicest people I’ve ever met) that my second cousin has autism, and that his family was sometimes a little too harsh with him regarding challenging behavior, or what people normally consider inappropriate. We’re Sudanese, and we’re strict about behavior and well-manneredness. We’re (north)east African immigrants, afro-arab people trying our best to succeed and do well. I think we’re a good mixture of conservative and leftist, somehow–my family, and the wider Sudanese diaspora. I would say I’m personally an Independent, if I had to choose just one label. Or maybe just unaffiliated. | This will be my first steady job post graduation, the aba therapy job. I think I recently realized that there’s no “perfect” career, and that it’s a give and take. You have to find the joy in it, and make the best of what it is. Sometimes the periods when you’re parsing together the logic and meaning behind the day you just put forth, is the most meaningful part of the day. It happens after you’re already finished, sometimes. Tea, fresh fruit, reading a spiritual text, long walks outside, journaling, and etc. “Finding your balance,” I guess you could call it. It’s difficult to do, but it’s better than being frazzle-brained, stressed, or depressed. I gain most of my strength from god, actually; we came from Him, and to Him we shall return, as it says in the holy scriptures of various faiths.
*Loudoun county is the richest county in the United States of America, per median household income.
a portfolio 