perhaps one of my hotter takes as a queer person but i’m never coming out again. you can figure it out or live in pure ignorance but either way it’s not my problem. the worst thing society ever tried to teach us was that coming out is an obligation. it’s not. it’s a privilege for you to know the depths of who i am, my sexuality included.
trying to discern how to very gently explain to people that hypermorality is not a positive character trait and is in fact related to obsessive-compulsive behavior / trauma and anger and the reason you’re always exhausted and on edge and have so many chips on your shoulder is because you don’t know how to let even the smallest infraction go. and you internalize that moral perfectionism and it debilitates your executive functioning because you’re obsessed with making the perfect decision every single time. and you take out that frustration on others for their minor mistakes or ignorance because you want to hold them to the same impossible standard and you think the only way to solve problems is to scream at someone until the problem goes away, one way or the other.
signed: it happened to me and i learned the hard way that using the moral high ground as an excuse to be violently angry was not helping my anger issues
someone asked “how do i fix it” and the biggest help for me so far is making an active effort to go online less. post less. like, way less. i’m still on here more than i should be. being on the internet all day used to be a little more harmless but now sites only care about if the engagement numbers are high so they can keep advertisers and investors, so “ragefarming” is a thing.
sites intentionally show you shit that will upset you or get you to react in some way. tumblr has a less aggressive algorithm but this site is, lovingly, filled with autistic and traumatized people with chips on their shoulder that are sometimes about shit that only matters within the bubble of an online social media argument.
when you get mad you need to funnel that into something healthy. see an online post where someone has an incorrect or even problematic opinion? would your anger be better spent sitting at your keyboard shaking with anger for 2 hours, or doing the dishes that have piled up? do you need to make the 10 paragraph post or will you forget about it entirely in 5 minutes? if the only outcome to an argument is you win or you lose, and it doesn’t actually solve an immediate real life problem, why have it? why dwell on it?
anger is an emotion that indicates you want better treatment. so what’s something tangible you can do to take care of yourself (cook, eat, get fresh air) or make your environment better (pick up stuff from floor, clean off desk, switch from a social media site to a video game or a book or some music. replace the activities that keep your blood boiling for hours at a time with ones that are over in 10 minutes and actively help Future You
You cannot make everyone think and feel as deeply as you do. This is your tragedy … because you understand them, and they do not understand you.
Daniel Saint
being in your early 20s is crazy bc there’s people who are literally married and people who’ve never even dated and people who are trapped in their childhood bedrooms waiting to get out and people who are trying to live out romanticized dream lives and people who are completely on their own and people with multi tiered support systems and we’re all supposedly peers and none of us think we’re doing it right at all
Shout out to everyone who is just so tired So so exhausted So very very tired so very fatigued so sleepy and tired So
i’m working on a play about 65-year-old lesbians, and my dramaturg is an older gay man who has been helping me with historical context and research, and also just in general giving me advice based on his own personal experiences.
fav thing he told me so far, said with a lot of love: “dyke drama was specific. it was always so specific. it was precise and narrowed and pointed. and also so dumb.”
also spoke to an older lesbian professor. i was asking her all these questions about marches and protests and summits and infighting and rallies and “what was it like what did this mean to you what was it like to experience that?”
and she kinda stared at me for a bit and said, “you know, it was a lot. and it was big and it did feel revolutionary. but also at that time i was mainly focused on getting my heart broken in a bar.”
and like. yeah.
another thing my dramaturg told me, from the perspective of a gay man who lived through the 80’s, was that whenever a young gay person asks him what the dating and play scene used to be like, he answers:
“we went to rallies and funerals.”
our persistence in our continued existence is big and scary and revolutionary, and the grief stretches on and the losses hit hard.
and because of that, i think it’s important to remember the dumb drama, and the first loves, and the first heartbreaks over beer. i think it’s important to go to rallies and vigils, and also dive bars and game nights.
it’s all so big and so small.
1. A Primer for the Small Weird Loves - Richard Siken / 2. The Crane Wife - CJ Hauser / 3. Automat - Edward Hopper / 4. Red Doc> - Anne Carson / 5. Melancholy - Edvard Munch / 6. The Village (2004) / 7. So We Must Meet Apart - Gabrielle Bates and Jennifer S. Cheng
despite all my saddened rage i am still just a girl in her room watching her silly little films, reading her silly little books, listening to her silly little playlists
don’t be scared to live lovingly. compliment your friends on the little things and cheer for live bands in small cafes and leave tips when you can. tell the person you saw that you really like their shirt and write cards and letters to the people you love. make playlists for people and don’t be afraid to express your appreciation for others. life is so much better when you live it with love.
Sometimes as a woman it’s important for you to wake up late and be alone in the house on a cloudy cold day with your feelings.
musings on november
― Donald Miller, Holly Warburton, L. M. Montgomery, E. M. Forster, Anne Sexton, Kaye Donachie, Anne Sexton, Emilio Hernandez Martin, Maggie Stiefvater, Nina MacLaughlin (The Paris Review)
˗ˏˋin case you’d like to buy me a☕ˎˊ˗
at least once a day you should read a poem that slices you clean in half. and then you go to the post office or something
