I Was Asked to Tell My Story. I’m Still Not Sure It Matters.

What is the point of telling your story to people who already agree with you, but probably cannot change what is happening anyway?

That is the question I keep coming back to.

I was recently asked to speak at a union event with members of Congress about my experience with the dismantling of USAID.

The invitation came after the local union president saw something I wrote about SNAP. They told me my story made the impact feel real, not abstract, not political, real.

I said yes.

But I did not feel certain about it.

Because part of me keeps thinking, what does this actually change?

The people I am going to be speaking to are already sympathetic. They already understand the language of harm and policy and systems. They already care.

And still, nothing really moves.

So I find myself stuck in this weird space where I am being asked to speak more while also not fully believing speaking changes anything.

It starts to feel like talking into a room that echoes back your own voice.

A shift I did not expect

There is something else I have been sitting with.

I have always tried not to be political in a partisan way, especially as someone who worked in public service. I really believed in staying focused on the work, not the politics around it.

But I do not feel that same distance anymore.

Now I am in these spaces where I am sharing my story, but also quietly hoping that someone in a certain political space does something with it.

That feels strange to admit.

I did not think I would ever feel that kind of pull toward any party or group. Not because I did not care, but because I always thought of myself as someone who could stay just outside of that.

That is not really where I am anymore.

And I do not totally know what to do with that.

The part people do not see

Losing my job did not just disrupt my career.

It unraveled things faster than I expected.

There is this idea that if you have worked long enough, built enough stability, you will have space when something goes wrong.

That has not really been true for me.

I remember sitting down and looking at the numbers and realizing how quickly things were going to change. Not in theory. In weeks.

Income gone.
Health coverage uncertain.
Savings shrinking in real time.
Plans I thought were solid suddenly not so solid.

It does not feel gradual when you are inside it. It feels fast.

In my case, it has meant making decisions I never thought I would have to make just to stay steady. Renting out my home, leaning on family, and trying to figure out what stability even looks like while also preparing to bring a child into the world.

And what is hard is how normal everything still looks from the outside.

That gap is the hardest part.

Speaking anyway

So I keep asking myself why I said yes.

Why I keep saying yes.

I think part of it is just that refusing to talk does not make things less real. It just makes them quieter.

And I do not think this should be quiet.

Even if the room does not change everything tomorrow, there is still something about being in it. About saying it plainly. About making it harder for the story to get flattened into policy language that forgets people are inside it.

Maybe that is all this is.

Not impact in the immediate sense.

Just presence.

Memory.

The tension I cannot resolve

I keep holding two things at once:

That talking can feel like it does not change anything.
And that not talking guarantees even less will.

I do not have a clean answer for that.

What I do know is this:

This kind of change, the financial kind, the personal kind, does not announce itself slowly. It just happens. And suddenly your life looks different and you are expected to carry on like it did not.

So I am still going to talk about it.

Even when I am not sure it matters.
Even when it feels repetitive.
Even when I do not fully know who is listening in a way that leads to action.

Because this is what it looks like when policy stops being abstract.

It becomes your life.

If I am being honest

I do not know if this is persuasive.

I do not know if it changes anything.

But I also do not think silence is neutral.

So I am writing it down anyway.