Feelers

I think it's been a bit since I've just sort of told you what's going on with me and my life.  Part of the reason for that is that I feel like this blog should be my super serious, super professional place to Do Stuff, and that's not even what I wanted this to be.

I mean, yes, I do want this blog to be known and respected, but I want it to be known and respected for everything that it is, everything that I am, and I am so much.  Besides anxious and incapable of putting forth a full, dedicated effort for fear of failing and falling and looking foolish, I am a writer, a poet, I am so much and so many things.

Today, I am afraid.

This is really not a surprise, I have anxiety, I don't sleep or eat well, so that exacerbates my anxiety, and my aunt is prone to yelling when stressed, which, naturally, helps nothing.

I have to admit that I'm afraid of putting in effort, like really and truly trying to make things work, because what if I try and try and try some more, and I still can't do it?  What if I do it, but badly, and everyone laughs at me and judges me?

I don't fucking know.

What I do know is that I have a job, a way to be gainfully employed, even though it's over the internet, and that terrifies me beyond all reason.  What if I don't make enough money? What if I get stuck writing terrible articles about things I don't care about or even hate for the rest of my life?

So basically, the usual things I always get bogged down in when I've been awake too long or had too little to eat.

There is candy in the house, I can earn money, my phone bill is paid for at least another month, I know how much it'll cost to repair my laptop, I know how to find out how much I'll have to pay in taxes for what I'll be earning, my commission post has been redone and is queued, I know how the Champion series is going, and there is c h o c o l a t e in the house.

I need to take two deep breaths and go.  The fuck.  To sleep.

On an unrelated note, earlier, I was feeling really crummy, and I remembered something I read in a Christian book, one of the few Christian books I ever read, but it's called the Shack, and there's one scene where the main character is talking to a representation of an aspect of God, and she tells him something to the effect of, "If you knew you had to fail 99 times before you succeeded, wouldn't you be excited to fail the 90th time?"

I don't remember what his answer was, but I remember that he generally agreed with her.  I told you that to tell you that earlier, when I was feeling shitty, I reminded myself that I didn't know how many times I had to fail before I could succeed, so I just had to keep trucking.

Also, my aunt got really upset today when she was cooking for a going-away party for a friend, because the sauce she was making came out catastrophically wrong in ways it usually never does, and she's prone to running around and yelling when she's upset, but I was really proud of myself, because rather than also freaking out, or freezing when she got upset, I was able to stay centered and mostly calm, so I'm really proud of myself for that!

This post sort of ended in a completely different place than it began, but that's probably because I took a bit to finish working through my panic before continuing, so that may contribute.  I don't know if this is going to be one of my best posts, but it's real and it's me, and I said I was going to make a mistake, so I'm going to make it hard.

Alone

Spinning sparkling

Diving, writhing

Life exists and moves and breathes

And you

Little speck

Careless on the breeze

You are fearsome and feared

Passionate and impassioned

The world over

And completely alone

Not the lonely of one who yearns

Not the fearful of the one who burns

Not the safe, sad, pitying alone

But the true alone

Powerful

Fearsome

A unit unto yourself

Cut off from the rest

Dependent as necessary

But with no illusions of being part of a greater whole

For what is the greater whole

But a messy mass of

Sadness

Fear

Desperation

Anxiety

And all the things

That cling to one another

In the desperate darkness

At the end of the universe?

25th Post!

So, I'm writing this post in advance, because it's giving me something to shoot for, but this is my 25th post, which will mean I'll have been at this for something like two months, consistently posting one blog post, one poem, and one story every week for eight weeks.  I probably won't even be a fraction of the way through my 365 days of posting, with eight poems, eight stories, and eight blog posts, and that is ok!  Past Lin is proud of you, future Lin, keep up the good work, even though it's hard and scary sometimes!

*~*~*~*~*

I expected to be somewhere different by this point in time, maybe more successful, I don't know.  I've certainly grown and changed a bit, and I've had a few personal revelations, but I dunno, I guess I feel like I don't deserve the praise my past self heaped on me, even though, logically, I know I do.  My brain's weird.

Deserving

You know how sometimes you see everything you want, just right there, in front of your face, and find yourself too terrified to reach out and grab it, too scared to go for the brass ring, because what if it wasn't what you expected, what if it wasn't what you wanted after all, or, more terrifyingly, what if you aren't good enough?

That happened to me, like, five seconds before I began writing this post.

One of my favorite blogs on tumblr posted a link to a new blog by the same creators, Mob Material, and it said they were looking for poc writers, artists, punks, trans poc, and more.  I'm a writer, so I saw that, and I said to myself, "I want to do that.  I want to submit to that, I want to be a part of that."

I took a look at the blog, and it was full of pictures of gorgeous and fierce people.  I have to admit that I got a bit intimidated. I definitely consider myself to be a writer, but I just started this blog.  It doesn't even have twenty posts, and it won't for a bit, because I am intentionally pacing myself, trying to avoid burnout by changing up what I do, and trying to make sure I have enough content that things don't get boring or stale, enough content so that people have something of interest to read.

But I don't know if I'm good enough, if I deserve exposure.  In my mind, the people who are good enough and who deserve exposure are the ones with more posts, more work, a bigger audience.  But how am I supposed to get a bigger audience if I don't advertise myself?  There is some small voice inside me that says that work that is good enough will advertise itself, but I've seen, over and over again, that such a thing just isn't true.  Work that is big enough will certainly advertise itself, but I have to do a little, I have to work a little harder to make my dreams come true, that's how this goes.

But that's the thing that always happens, isn't it?  We doubt ourselves.  Am I good enough, do I deserve this?  Women, black people, fat folks, poor ones.  We're so trained, have the lesson so instilled that we have to DESERVE it, have to wait for someone else to come along and help us up, rather than reaching out and saying, "Hey!  You can help me!  Please do."

Who cares if I deserve it?  Even saying that, like I didn't work damned hard to write everything on this blog, like it didn't take all my courage and strength to check and see if I could contribute, is a misnomer.  I do deserve it.  I  have been writing for years, dedicating myself to my craft, to my love, and at the very least, I deserve to try and let THEM tell me no, no more, it's not working.

Because it's not gonna mean anything if I'm not good enough for them right now, you know why?  If I'm not good enough right now, it means there is room for improvement, more work to be done, work that I can do.  I have control over this, over myself, and I can find more people to help me make my work better, stronger, sleeker, more what I want it to be.  And I will try and try, and try again, because eventually, I will find my place.  That's what you do.

Now, I can't deny that this is basically a pep talk for myself.  Since I've gone back to work, such as it is, I haven't been dedicating much energy to my writing, to this writing.  Additionally, I was going to work with a feminist online zine, and it really seems to have just petered out, but I think I'm ok with that.  I got what I needed from it, which was a reflection on my work from outside myself, to make my writing stronger, to help me improve.  Would more time have yielded more gains?  Perhaps.  But that's something we're never really going to know, are we.

More than the fact that I haven't been giving this the necessary energy is the fact that I haven't been giving this the necessary quality.  You may not have even noticed, I scheduled some things to post, which I think was a wise decision on my part, because they were prepared, and I didn't have to worry about it while I worked.  I did a lot of work, and I hurt myself, so I won't do that to myself again, but I think the fact that I can make this, do this now, is really my proof to myself that I'm still dedicated to this, I still want this.

I just have to make time for it, give up some things to do it.  I can still do those things, I just need a few hours to dedicate to this every week.

So, on that note, I apologize to you for slacking off, and I promise to throw myself back in with all the passion I had at the start, because you deserve that, and more importantly, my dreams deserve that.

Performance

Sorry this is so late, I forgot I hadn't done it until 11:56 last night, and I knew I wouldn't be able to write anything until I slept, so I did that.

Fair warning, this is less a story and more a ritual to touch base with my patron deities, Hermes and Hestia, to receive reassurance and advice from them.  If you read this, you will be taking the role of an audience member, beyond the lights.  It's a role, like being in a real audience, that demands only your attention, but if you are not okay with being in this role, please do not read further.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I stand on the stage, the bright lights shining hot into my face, a vast hush over the theater.  There could be a hundred people out there, or only one, I have no way of knowing, no way of asking, but I turn away from the lights, because this isn't about the crowd.

Hestia sits at the table, putting whole ears of corn, husk and all, into the big pot, the water sloshing soothingly as she moves, her dress, an old style worn by black grandmothers from a time gone by, is spattered with water, but her expression is gentle.

Across the table, Hermes lounges, looking slick in his flashy suit, the heavy lights glinting off the smooth brown baldness of his head as his body broadcasts amusement with every motion.  As always, I feel inadequate next to him, mostly because I am, but also because I'll never get on his level with my skirts and blouses that are alternatively too big and just right.

"You doubted us," begins Hestia, still putting corn into the water, one ear at a time, slowly and methodically, mesmerizingly.  I should be doing something, should be helping, but I am transfixed by the simple act, and I am so tired, my legs feel like heavy weights, every motion like moving through deep water.

"I did.  I'm sorry.  I know I have to act sometimes, but I don't always know when to act, and when to have faith."  It has the virtue of being true.  I don't know when to have faith, because I'm always afraid things aren't going to work, and then come the spiraling thoughts of just how bad things could get if I don't act, so I do.

"We're trying to help you," drawls Hermes, almost sounding like he's yawning at me, his fingers nervously tapping on the table, lightly enough to not make sound, because he's not stupid enough to be a disturbance to Hestia, but I can see his fingers, moving fast, frantically, arhythmically, and that hold me as effectively as the soothing motion of Hestia putting corn in the pot.  He's usually on his cellphone, throwing me a smile, laughing into his phone, or growling into it, but now he's actually talking to me, not phoning in a quick response, and he can't be on his phone.  At least I warrant full attention right now.  I'm never certain if I warrant that much attention, but apparently, I do.  "But we can't if you don't let us, if you don't talk to us.  Ask for what you want."

"But sometimes the answer is just no."  I'm not stupid.  I know that if they gave me every stupid thing I wanted...well, I wouldn't be so tired, that's for certain, because I'd have money and the ability to transport myself places, and no need for the foot-destroying, dehumanizing work I do.  And I feel bad for wanting this for myself and not for others, but only a small peripheral amount of bad, because it will never happen, and because I am unashamedly more interested in my own well-being than anyone else's.  "And I'm never sure what no looks like, as opposed to wait."

"That's where faith comes in."  Hestia again, slowly standing, her chair creaking as she removes her weight from it, scraping as she moves it aside with her hip to grab the pot, lug it over to the stove on the far left of the stage.  A stove is always necessary, because cooking is how I communicate with her, but I watch the shift of her clothes as she puts the pot onto the eye with a clank, listen to the clicking of the pilot light and the woosh of the flames coming on.

A hand grabs mine, my right one, and I look at Hermes, standing at my side.  I didn't hear him get up, and his hand is warm holding mine, his smile surprisingly gentle as he adds, "Faith and hope."  I feel something in me die a small, stuttered, painful death.  Hope?  Hope is that terrible thing with bladed wings that lingers in my soul, destroying it, piece by painful piece.

I snatch my hand away, frustrated, miserable and unhappy.  Usually, I would let that thing inside me be dead when an authority figure kills it with their words.  I would nod, a fixed expression on my face, blank and hopefully emotionless, but I can't let him kill this piece of me.  Not again.  Not with his hope, his painful hope that does nothing for me and only prolongs my pain.

"I DON'T WANT YOUR HOPE!!"  I shrill into his slightly shocked, faintly amused face, my voice grating out of my throat, and it will hurt if I keep screaming like this, but there are tears welling up in my eyes and threatening to bubble over, I can't hear Hestia moving, and I'm not looking at her, "I'm so tired of hope," I sob at Hermes, torn between burying my face in his chest, letting him comfort me, and pounding against his chest, forcing him to either endure, or make me stop.

I do neither, simply stand there, swaying on my feet, my hands coming up to my face to wipe away the tears before they fall, "I can't take anymore hope.  I just can't.  I'm so tired.  I know I have a purpose, in the good moments between all of this, after I've had meat and enough sleep to nourish my body the way it should be, the way it can't be, because my aunt and uncle have such vastly different eating habits, and I have to rely on them for food."

"Is that what you want?  Meat and sleep?"  Hestia is salting the water the corn is in, and if I strain my ears, I can hear the shh-shh of the salt escaping its confines.  "I want to be nourished according to what my body needs.  I don't want to work this hard for so little return.  Yes, I want meat and sleep.  And vegetables and dairy and choices that are not terrible and miserable to make."

"What would be good choices?"  Hermes' shoes clunk against the floor, ever so slightly, nice shiny shoes, as he turns and makes his way back to the table.  I follow, taking Hestia's seat across the table from him, slumping on the table, "Choices that don't put me between being yelled at by my aunt and being homeless, because if I quit this, they really will kick me out, I just need my driver's license.  I want to go to Lansing, so badly,just because I'll get to eat there."

Hestia opens the oven, and the smell of cooking meat wafts out around her, tantalizing my nose, "Are you sure you'll get to eat there?"

"I won't be anxious about it there, at least.  And they eat meat."

"Why don't you ask your aunt and uncle to provide more meat?"

"They don't eat it like I do, and they can't afford the way I eat meat--"

"But the folks in Lansing can?"

"There's more of them.  And I don't care if I inconvenience them."

I feel a warm hand on my shoulder, and don't have to look to know that the long, thin fingers belong to Hermes, "So why do you care if you inconvenience your aunt and uncle?  They aren't blood, and they took you in knowing there'd be expense."

"Because I feel like I owe them a debt from before college, and if I don't care about their stuff, they'll be upset and yell at me."

"Your aunt yells at you anyway, because of her bipolar," Hestia points out.  She's right, of course.  My aunt uses me as a confidante, and she's made of loud noises, with a tendency to yell, especially when she's upset.  Because of the debt I feel I owe her, and the fact I need her, I don't feel like I can contest her, and because of my anxiety, even when my aunt's not yelling AT me, I feel like she is.

"Are you saying I should detach from them emotionally?"

"Yes."

"Yes!"

It comes in chorus from both Hestia and Hermes, and I can feel the rightness of their words, the truth, feel myself coming to terms with it.  I have to allow my aunt's feelings to skate over me, rather than burrowing into me.  I have to let her shit be hers, even if I contribute to it, because I'm doing the best I can with what I've got.  I just haven't got much.

"I want to be a trucker," I tell Hestia and Hermes, having worked through my feelings to come out at what I want, what I need to say.

"You also wanted to be a tech support agent," Hermes points out.

I growl at him, sitting up, "No, ok, I want to be a writer!  I want to write for a living!  Fiction, nonfiction, motivational speaking, these are the things I want to do!  But there's no money in the writing I enjoy doing, and I need money, or rather, I need food, shelter, internet, phone service, social interaction beyond just being on my computer all the time, like physical people with physical contact!  I NEED these things, and I need at least marginal reassurance they won't be taken away from me, which money and the folks in Lansing offer."

"Your aunt and uncle don't?"

"I'm constantly afraid they're going to kick me out.  My aunt keeps joking about it.  It hurts and it's frightening, because I'm afraid they'll just suddenly say that I have two weeks to find a new place.  I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and they offer no reassurance ever."

"What would you do if they did say that?"

"Call the folks in Lansing."

"And if they said no?"

"I have a friend in Ohio who might take me in, and friends in Massachusetts."

"So you have options."

"That I'm afraid will turn me down."

"You know that in desperate times, you'd find SOMEONE who could help you, right?"

"Yeah, I guess I do, I just..."

"Wish you didn't have to wait until things got dire to find out?"

"Exactly."

Hermes taps my head, causing me to look up into his big smile, "Aren't you glad things are not so dire you have to find out?  Aren't you glad they've never been that dire?"

I can't help but laugh, "Yeah, I guess I am."  I look out into the lights, try to see if I can see the audience through them.  I cannot, but I suppose it is alright.  It will be painful and difficult, breaking old habits and creating new ones, but I must if I wish to be happy.

I slowly stand, walk over to the edge of the stage, then execute a low bow with a flourish, the heavy cloth of the richly blue dress I am suddenly wearing making a thick, heavy sound as it fwooshes into existence.

I straighten to grasp my skirt and offer another, better bow, "Thank you, audience, for bearing witness."

The curtains close, plunging me into darkness.

The performance is over.

On Strength

 I volunteered at an event some time ago. It was a tactic I learned from an overachiever friend of mine, so that I could get into an event for free, and also avoid the vast bulk of socialization, just volunteer to work on staff to get all of the advantages, and very few of the detriments. Staff sometimes even get perks general attendees don't, so that was a plus.

The event in question doesn't particularly matter, it was an amateur event by a local group, in a place I'd been to many times before, with people I largely knew, so really, none of that factored in, none of it really mattered. The event was interesting enough for me, especially as a staff member, and as someone who picked up some interesting things, but the duration of the event isn't what stands out most strongly.

What stands out most strongly are the beginning and end of the event. Because I was helping a friend, one who was something of an overachiever, we ended up having to bring forty metal folding chairs up from his basement, pack them in his car, then move them from his car to the event location. And there were only the two of us to move them. If you've ever moved folding chairs, you know how frustrating it is, the chairs are unexpectedly heavy, if they're different styles, you can't grasp them easily, so on and so forth.

Now, I'm fat. Not Bridget Jones pleasingly plump, but the kind of fat that gets pointed and laughed at on every sitcom, in every movie, the kind that gets shown in photos and video with face and head cut out of the shot to warn people of the dangers of obesity and to remind everyone how much they need to get on a diet, exercise, and lose weight. I'm black, on top of it, so I don't even get to be comedically funny, not that I haven't tried my hand at it, like everyone. I think I'm hilarious, and I still crack myself up, but I'm definitely not getting sitcom laughs.

But me, I get dragooned into every Medea-type character ever played by a black man in a fat suit: Mother, nurturer, sassy and bold. I would never say there's anything wrong with being that type of person, it's just not me. I have never wanted children or anyone else who might be dependent on me, because I can barely take care of myself, an introverted anime geek with anxiety and bad money management skills, I'd rather sit in a blanket-filled closet and read manga online than host any kind of gathering ever.

I have always known, always been shown, that as a fat person perceived as a woman, the best I can hope for is being disregarded, because otherwise, I would be subject to mockery, not just what I heard from my classmates, but the kinds of things said to and about fat women on television. But the plus side to being ignored was no danger of stalkers, rapists, and murderers coming after me. I was safe from all of that.

With that kind of background, I had to find my own way to be ok with myself, because I'm not exercising, not giving up the type or quantity of food I eat to lose weight. I've never had that kind of determination, and I don't want to learn. When I was a teen, an older woman, who was also black and fat, encouraged me by talking about how she couldn't be kidnapped, how her weight, and mine, was a strength we could use to protect us from the dangers people perceived as women face: assault, kidnapping, murder, rape.

I took that to heart. Fast forward to years later, when I was moving heavy chairs up and down stairs. As most fat people know, stairs are not friends on the best of days, and there were a lot that I had to be up and down all day, going down to retrieve chairs and carrying them back up. It was exhausting, but I was the only one to help my friend, who I've failed to mention, up to this point, was a man.

What really upset me was the fact that he could somehow carry two chairs under each arm. I tried. Even when the chairs were the same style, the weight and awkwardness of the chairs frustrated me, causing me to nearly drop multiple chairs, and making it difficult to get up the stairs or move anywhere. I just couldn't get my fingers under that many chairs at once. I tried moving three chairs at a time, and that was still frustrating and exhausting for me.

My friend, however, rather easily moved four chairs each trip. I know it was exhausting for him, because he was as fat as I, and stairs are draining when you have to travel them more than twice, but exhausting or not, he was able to do it, and I was not.

At the time, I was too busy being tired and rearranging chairs for easy access to the back door and the car to have an existential crisis, and I would have been fine, had another man had not helped my friend move the chairs back to the car after the event my friend and I were volunteering for.

See, my friend worked with moving office equipment, so in many ways, I mentally brushed off his ability to carry so many chairs as practice I didn't have, strength in action, familiarity with traversing stairs, really an enormous, ridiculous number of excuses for why him being stronger than me was a fluke.

Then another man helped my friend move chairs. He was tall and skinny, the kind of guy I would certainly never consider a threat to my safety, because I could very literally sit on him. I could break him and call it a day, or so I thought, until I realized he had four chairs, two in each hand.

I experienced a moment of very visceral terror. Not of this stranger at a public place full of people, but in general, my sense of safety was shattered, because I suddenly realized that this man, who I never would have judged as a threat, was physically stronger than I am. He could hurt me. I know this isn't a novel thought for most people raised as women, that a man could hurt them, overpower them, but it was one I'd never had before, safe behind my shield of invisible fatness and aggressively defensive blackness.

For a moment, I was stunned, unable to breathe, because how many men had I judged as not being a threat, who could have hid such deceptive strength? I am strong enough to move couches and dressers and armoires, heavy furniture that I've seen many men tap out of moving with help, I can move alone. And this man was stronger than me.

I was only stunned for a moment, because chairs needed to be moved, and I had to help carry and organize them, moving two chairs at a time, one in each hand, all that I could handle in my post-event exhaustion, or at all, and with the help of the other man, added to the fact that there were no stairs to accommodate for, the task was done in a quarter of the time, and I was happy to bury my thoughts in television and dinner, to sleep and let the thoughts go.

But it haunted me, and it still does. I've always “known” that I was the strongest person in any room, that I could protect myself. It was my consolation prize for not being beautiful, for not being able to find clothes that fit me, except in specialty stores for exorbitant prices, for only seeing people like me being portrayed by men in fat suits as a joke.

If I'm not physically strong, then what else do I have? Logically, I know that I have a lot going for me, but emotionally, I'm afraid that I will incorrectly guess a man's strength, and that mistake will end painfully for me. I'm afraid that without physical strength, I don't have anything else to make me worthwhile.

This article can also be found on Feminspire.

For Once

So, I was talking to a friend of mine last week.  Without going into too much detail, he's in a living situation that is very much not ideal for him or his personality type, in addition to the fact that he's been dealing with some emotional issues for the last few years that have contributed to everything being truly untenable for him.

Over the last few months, he and I have been talking a lot about him, his life, his goals, and he's gotten started doing a lot of things he's really happy about, kind of moving forward, into a new stage of himself and his life, and overall, I'm really really proud of him, how much he's progressed towards his own goals, and how much he's grown.

Unfortunately for him, when he began living with the people he's staying with, he was very damaged, mentally and emotionally, and he needed a safe haven.  He's grown past that point, but because they first met him when he was that way, they're stuck in old patterns of dealing with him, and he doesn't really know how to break free from those old patterns, especially because there was a change in the living situation that made him think the relations would change in a certain way, and it really didn't, so it's upset him, and he's a bit bitter about it, which I understand.

He's been staying with these people for something like ten years, which is shocking to me, because the only people I've lived with for ten years were my parents and my brother, and my parents are seven years dead, while my brother and I haven't seen each other in three or four years, because I was a jackass at him and now he doesn't want to talk to me.  His perogative.

Either way, my friend has known and been around these people for years, and he needs a change.

The reason I'm talking about my friend, is because he's planning on moving out, moving on, and I would really like to move in with these people when he does.  I stayed with them for maybe two weeks, earlier this summer, he reports that I have gotten rave reviews, and to be completely honest, I really enjoyed being there, and I was shocked at how different the household was from what my friend had been reporting to me.

That'll teach me to forget people have personal biases.

But either way, I really enjoyed being there.  I may have gotten special treatment, being a guest and all, but what I experienced may have been roughly the norm for how they handled things.  I don't know, really.  It didn't hurt at all that I had my own money at the time, which my friend doesn't, and which I won't, if I go back to them.

There were two things I didn't like about being there, one of which is fixable, the other ignorable.  But it really brought home to me how different my friend and I are, because everything he hates about being there, I really loved.

I love being coddled and invited to things and doted on, and that kind of thing drives him bonkers.  I also have different ways of dealing and interacting with people that he doesn't have.  They're a bit more difficult for him to deal with than for me, but also, he's been living with them for years.  There's history there that I don't have.

Currently, I'm staying with my aunt and uncle.  I love them, they are chosen family who have chosen me back, and I wouldn't be who I am today without them.  Even so, they are not coddlers.  They are not doting.  They aren't particularly attentive, and I'm the only one in their house who needs them like I do.

They're a bit harder-edged, and I certainly needed that when I was younger and stupider, but I have been working and struggling and toiling so hard for so long, I feel like it'd be really nice to be with someone who would dote on me and take care of me, not pressure me about work or making money, just let me do my own thing, but still engage me socially, invite me to do things, all that kind of thing.

God, even talking about it makes me feel spoiled rotten and selfish.

But when I was there, I did feel spoiled and cared for.  I didn't feel like I was being selfish or taking advantage of them, because every time I tried to be frugal, the lady of the house would keep asking me, "Are you sure you don't want more?"  Like, fuck yes, of course I want more, but this is on your dime, so I'm not going to accept more, because I'm perfectly ok with what I've got, and more would be gluttony and selfishness.

I always feel like I'm taking advantage of my aunt and uncle when I ask them for things or need things.  It might be because I'm emotionally attached to them, or because when I first knew them, they were direly poor, and it was an issue, I don't know, I just know that I do feel like I'm taking advantage, and I feel anxious and afraid, because I need things, and you said I'm allowed to want things, so why are you yelling at me or making cruel jokes that I know you don't mean to be cruel, but still feel cruel, and it's just.  A lot.

I do love my aunt and uncle, and I would never abandon them, because they've helped me so much, and I do love them dearly, but much like my friend needs to get out of his house, I need to get out of this one, and I would like to go somewhere where I'd feel like I was being doted on and cared for.

Everyone grows up and moves on, and things are so difficult, and I think it's not so wrong to want it to be easy.  For once.

Make A Mistake

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." - Tony Robbins

For a long time, I've procrastinated about doing what I wanted, asking for what I needed and so much more. I'm not sure why I did that to myself.  Anxiety was a large part of it, certainly, but also thinking I just needed to do more, be better, do it "right."

But I've decided that I don't care anymore.  More than that, I've decided that doing things the "right" way hasn't helped me, isn't working for me, and I am miserable, lonely, and more anxious than ever.  So if this is a mistake, this post, this blog, I'm going to lean into that, do it wrong, and do it wrong a new way every time.  Eventually, I will do it wrong for long enough that I will run out of ways to do it wrong, and the only way left will be to do it right.

Maybe I will never run out of mistakes to make.  Maybe I won't be able to do it wrong a different way, and I'll just keep making the mistakes I have always made.  I have anxiety, so those are terrifying thoughts, and it will probably never not be terrifying, but at least I feel like I have control, like I'm in control of myself and the route my life is going to take.

That's important to me.  To everyone, really, though most people don't realize it, because our society is set up to take your control, sap your will, make you obey at every twist and turn, until you can't recognize your will, can't separate it from anyone else's.  And to me, that wouldn't be so bad if people would stop telling me I did actually have control, if they'd stop telling me that me not having control is not only my fault, but also Not True.

We rely on people, whether we want to our not.  Someone has to maintain internet servers, grow and ship the food, butcher the animals, help provide heat and electricity and entertainment.  We are not alone, islands unto ourselves, no matter how nice, and terrifying, that idea would be.  Because on the one hand, I'd like to think I could exist in a vacuum, but on the other, I kill plants and couldn't feed myself without a grocery store.

And I may regret something I've said in the future, some way I've said it, may regret quoting Tony Robbins, or including his name because of whatever horror I don't know he may have wrought, or the context I don't know from whatever that quote comes from, but for now, I am doing the best I can, and anyone who has a problem with it can take their globe-fondling, idiocy-hoarding selves elsewhere.