I’ve been dropping the ball on this blog lately. I am 100% aware that this fact matters to no one but me. But as I am stuck with me, I have to do what matters to me. And as this blog is at least partially about my own self-awareness and infinite process of trying to be a better human, I am going to write about what’s going on with me today. Me me me!
I consistently feel like I don’t fit or belong anywhere. Sometimes I can recognize the beauty in that and be at peace with it, but more often it is an unpleasant and empty feeling. It makes me hyperaware of the void. I think I feel this way because of the many ways I feel like a walking contradiction, the ways I’m always in conflict with myself. I don’t fit in boxes. I don’t subscribe to the idea that a person has to choose to be either a dog person or a cat person. KnowwhatImean? That seems stupid and small-minded to me. I am more complex than that. But these are the ways we define ourselves and the boxes that make sense to us, so if you are a person who doesn’t fit, you are going to have a lonely path. Square pegs and whatnot.
I am an extroverted introvert. For more on what that means:
12 Signs You’re an Extroverted Introvert
I am radical as fuck at heart but my daily life is anything but radical. This creates conflict in me. I wanna burn shit down but I just take my kids to school and go to my barely-a-job job and sometimes take my dog for a walk and sometimes not and drive my bourgeois Toyota Prius around and watch TV. I am appalled by how “normal” my life is.
I long for connection with people and most of the time feel the pain of disconnectedness, but I also would like to not interact with humans ever again and lie down with a blanket and a book and some good tv shows and never leave my couch.
I am married to a man but don’t really identify as straight. This might be my coming out because I’m not sure I’ve ever said that in those terms. Yup, you can be in a committed, long-term, monogamous, heterosexual relationship and not be straight. I enjoy all the benefits of straight privilege of course, because the world around us defines us by the boxes they think we fit in.
I love my children but I often fantasize about life without them. They are my favorite people and I can’t fucking stand them. They are my greatest source of pride and parenting fills me with love, but also makes me miserable.
I am full of emotions and thoughts and ideas and humor and life, but I’m also boring. I don’t want to spend too much time with people because they will find out how uninteresting I am. Which, by the way, isn’t true. I am not boring and I am interesting, I just run out of energy to spend on other people because being with other people demands all of my energy. I run out and sometimes I run out quickly.
I am turning 39 years old tomorrow and I am still in a perpetual state of uncertainty about what the fuck to do with myself. In some ways I like that about myself. But it makes life difficult. I don’t know what path to take. I have to figure out what my career future looks like but I can barely get myself up and out the door in the mornings. It takes everything in me to do the most basic daily tasks.
I want to be healthy and I also want to yell FUCK OFF! at everyone’s judgmental definitions of what that means, and how tied up they are with misogyny and fat-shaming and unobtainable beauty and body standards and judgmental bullshit about food. I feel better when I exercise and eat well, but my life matters even when I’m not doing those things, and so does yours. Part of me wants to just be unhealthy because it feels more honest, like a fuck you to the facade we’re supposed to work to keep up. As if any of it matters. I wonder if this makes sense to anyone else. Aaand, tomorrow I will still feel shitty for being “out of shape.”
In my heart I’m screaming FUCK YOUR FASCIST BEAUTY STANDARDS! and I am so tired of the constant story I’ve been told about how your life only matters if you’re pretty… but I’m still so hard on myself about my appearance.
I want to sleep. That’s one constant. What I most want to do is sleep. Except at night. At night I want to be awake.
I am an activist at heart but I don’t feel like I am doing anything. I write words and I occasionally attend meetings and I read stuff and I go to protests when I can but this doesn’t feel like enough. Which makes me feel full of shit.
I am so brave, and such a fucking coward.
I want to love myself but so often hate myself. Which reminds me, you know how people say you can’t love someone else until you love yourself? Well that’s a bunch of bullshit. I bought into that idea for a looooong time, which meant that when I was struggling with self-hatred I ALSO believed I was incapable of loving others. Don’t say that shit to people who are depressed or struggling with loving themselves. It’s not helpful, and it’s not true.
If you’re wondering what the point of this post is, I couldn’t tell you. I haven’t said anything important or new or revolutionary. Just true things. I’m just writing. I’m writing because it’s something I need to do. If you’re reading, thank you.