Fractional

Fragmented thoughts on a fragmented world

There’s a genocide in Palestine, and I’m doing Zumba.

I had just left Zumba when I went to go do my weekly grocery run last night.
There was a man bathing himself in the bathroom sink of my local grocer.
The same grocery store with an armed security guard checking receipts upon exit.
The same grocery store where I witnessed someone stealing an armful of groceries out the emergency exit in the back of the store a few weeks prior.
The same grocery store that asks if I want to donate a dollar to solve hunger, while this same chain made $1.48 billion in profits in the first half of 2025 alone.

Alone.

“No one is coming to save us.”
“We’re all we’ve got.”
“We fund us.”
These are all phrases I’ve heard over and over in the last 8 months.
I’ve also heard more regular cries.
Cries about limited resources.
Cries about a pullback of federal funds.
Cries about doing more with less.
Less of what though in a world with unlimited tears?

Passion?
Time?
Skillsets?
Or just money?
We can always make more money.
We can always learn new skills.

Tonight I attended my first meeting of the Denver Regional Council of Governments Civic Academy. One of the panelists said that “it takes time, money, patience, and love [to get things done].” Another panelist said that “[things get done] person-to-person, face-to-face, and by building relationships.”

Relationships are how I’ve managed to create my own small scale economy through my small business.
Like I always say “I’m a corporation.”
I charge people and organizations through my small business on a sliding scale.
Some people pay half of my regular rate.
Some people pay almost double.
Value is whatever you can convince someone you’re worth.
And my worth is different to different people.
As it should be.

The government just shut down.
What’s that mean for me?
No clue.
But I know it’s bad.
My phone just keeps buzzing with the news alerts and notifications.
It’s overstimulating.
I think that’s on purpose.
By design.

I feel like I’m operating in the extremes sometimes.
My mind has felt overwhelmed by despair.
My mind is also filled with incredible amounts of hope.

Hope like the Republicans at their dinner I attended a couple weeks ago were feeling. Hope like Melat Kiros who is challenging a 30-year congressional incumbent has.
Hope like the attendees of Afterglow (an LGBTQ fashion show) had by being in an intentionally designed queer space and feeling represented and visible without fear.

All of these things I’m sure are somehow related.
I’m just too tired to try to make the connections.
“Gay and tired” I responded when someone asked me how I was doing today.
I couldn’t even muster up a simple good.
But I’m not exhausted.

Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky.
Why me?
My therapist would say “why not me?”
That’s still kind of hard for me to accept.
Why not all of us?

Where do I belong?
I belong right where I am.
And so do you.
We are the right people, at the right place, at the right time.
All of us.
Our whole selves.
No fractions.

-David Kugler