I really needed a win today.

I’m still in employment limbo, to the extent that some of my clients are being reassigned. Which means that even when I *can* go back to work, my hours will be cut, and I won’t get to see some of my kiddos. Which sucks for them and for my colleagues as I screw around with their schedules. And there’s the whole not-earning-money thing, which is a problem when you live in Seattle. Without a defined end in sight, I just feel stuck.

The nation I live in and the nation I come from still feel fractured beyond repair.

Here in the US, two more black men have been gunned down by police – demonstrating that even two years after Ferguson, the US police still have not understood that Black Lives Matter. Philando Castile and Alton Sterling have had their futures taken away, and as their families mourn we are all left once again reminded how dangerous it can be for people of colour to merely exist in America.

Over in the UK, the next prime minister looks likely to be a woman – which, don’t get me wrong, the feminist in me is happy about. But these are women who support repealing worker’s rights (Leadsom), oppose gay marriage and other LGBT+ rights (Leadsom & May), and advocated for increased surveillance and reduced privacy (May) – which the liberal in me *hates*. Which means that the angry, working-class Brexit voters who have lost so much are going to lose even more, and Alan Moore’s totalitarian, xenophobic England looks even more prophetic.

So I needed a win. I needed something, somewhere, to go right.

Thankfully, I got one. My final result for the BSc Psychology that I’ve spent the last 5 years studying for came in, and… well, I got a first. Yay for me. 🙂

So I have no idea if I’m going to work within the next few months, and everything here and in the UK seems to be spiraling out of control. But tonight, I can celebrate my win. Tonight, there will be steak and wine and ice-cream. And, of course, my fabulous husband, who has lost me to textbooks and revision plans for more evenings and weekends than I care to count.

Tomorrow, there will still be confusion and discord and everything. But I have a pile of good books to read, and zombies to escape from, and things to write and create and plan. So I will keep chugging forward, and hold onto my win and my loved ones.