Intoxicated

The Tree of Life (2011) dir. Terrence Malick

I didn’t come here to be attacked

There was a sliver of a moon hanging in the sky before sunrise.

she says he won't let her get a dog, which is fine, because they're in an apartment, and that's the kind of thing people say about their partners. he won't let me get a dog. and you're at a dinner party and you tilt your head a little to the side just like that dog he won't let her get, because is this the thing that's going to upset you? you don't know every corner of their relationship, she could be joking, they could have had so many healthy conversations about the dog, right, and maybe she's not letting herself get the dog because of money and time and whatever. but, like, she did say let

and she wants to move away from his hometown and he wants to stay and then he tells you with a wink and a conspiratorial stage whisper don't worry i'll convince her and she laughs about it - so clearly this is something they laugh about. but you do just stand there and stare at him like what the fuck, man. you can't say what you want to say which is why do you get the final say on everything because they're both obviously aware of the other person's stance on this and have obviously had private conversations about it and what are you going to do about it except make a scene and then he'll be mad at you and call you one of those bitches behind your back and she'll cut you off, which is a loss that doesn't feel worth it just because he makes you a little skeeved out every 3rd comment

and they both agree he just isn't the type to get flowers which is fine because everyone shows love differently, and are you really gonna judge someone based on their sense of individual relationship responsibility? maybe he's constantly cleaning her car and writing her poems and making her furniture or something. maybe she doesn't even like flowers and this is perfect, actually. and no you couldn't date him, obviously, ew; but like, she tells you she's happy. you almost send her a tiktok that says don't be 25 and the cool girl that doesn't need anything, you'll hate not getting flowers at 30, but that's like, starting drama & you shouldn't start drama needlessly.

and you're a little older than her but not so much older you can pull the whole trust me on this one babe thing and besides that wouldn't have worked anyway (when does it ever) and besides you have trauma so you and your therapist both agree that you're always looking for a problem even when there isn't one. and you tell yourself that just because you see them for 15 minutes every month does not mean you can identify every single red flag based on a single shitty half-joking(?) comment

and besides, what are you going to do? she says i actually wanted another stand mixer but thankfully he stops me when i'm about to spend too much money and you're standing there like are you okay? is this normal? is this just something people say? and again - what are you going to do?

to your therapist you try to language it - it's not, like, any of my business. but sometimes, doesn't it feel like - you should do something. there's got to be something, right? you've tried dropping little hints but they sail right through and you've tried having a single serious conversation and she got upset because why does it matter to you, yes it's different but we're happy, it doesn't need to make sense to you and you're like. really unwilling to push a boundary about it anymore; because the truth is that you know logically it shouldn't matter to you, as long as both parties are happy.

and besides, you've been wrong before. it's just... like, every time you see them both, something else happens, some kind of shiver down your spine like do you even hear each other when you talk. it's their strange, bickering orbit. just the way he's on his phone through dinner or watching sports instead of helping in the kitchen or, fuck, another one of these little throwaway comments he makes about we'll see about that, babe. she laughs when he calls her passions stupid shit and meanwhile she gets him tickets to see the knicks and he tells you well at least she's smart about something and still! it's none of your business.

you say get the dog anyway and she laughs. like, this is is you being funny. and not you saying - no really. get the dog. get the dog and get out of here. pack up and start running.

it's stupid because you've been on the earth for a while now and every time someone says oh you're a feminist, wait until you need to open a jar or yeah everyone wants equal rights until it's time to pay the bill huh you mostly just grit your teeth and suffer through it because you've been up and down that argument before about a million times.

so you talk to your bathroom mirror about it instead, addressing your image with the snarl that lives in the tiger of your chest: are you aware women only got the right to open a credit card during my mother's life? the ECOA was passed in 1974. if you want, i could ask her to pay.

interesting that their biggest argument against feminism is just "sometimes you'll need help with things, and then you'll be sorry". interesting that they think of women as being damsels in distress and they can swoop in and save you. when you ask someone to take the trash out, you're just asking for support - it's not a gendered thing. interesting that they think of these tiny moments where they can offer any service to their community as "proof" that men are secretly just-better-than-women. that everyone owes men for these small moments, just because they may occasionally take on a tiny request. interesting.

the bathroom mirror isn't useful. murmuring your soliloquies into your shower. delivering the presidential speech that about how there should be no discussion on rights, justice, and equality.

but there's something deeply sad in there, too. because at the core of it, it's that you're always being reminded of your weakest moments. the times you've realized - oh fuck, i really am not strong enough. the times you've had to call your dad because, yeah, you don't know how a car works. the times where you were horrifically, terribly - acting like a girl.

because god forbid one of those men sees you like that. something in their eyes just... lights up. like you're an emblem of everything they've always believed down-deep. you're having a bad day; you fuck up the parallel park. when you get out of your car, a man says women! like he's been waiting to drop that particular bomb. your family is falling apart and you're stressed at your job and you don't have time to grocery shop but when you raise your voice after being interrupted; your coworker's eyebrows shoot up. okay, let's calm down for a moment. later, he's laughing with friends, you hear him joke - and yet they say not enough women get a promotion.

over and over again; that resounding belief: sure but you all actually secretly love the patriarchy. because god forbid you ever need a man to pull you out of a burning building. god forbid you ever stand on your own two feet. you are constantly in the space of either proving them wrong or proving them right - but you always have to be proving something. and it's a tuesday, and you come up on one of these fucking moments where suddenly and fucking terribly - you're weak.

you need someone to just fucking help you. like literally, anyone else. fuck, goddamn it, you can't get this stupid cap open. you're having a flare up of your carpal tunnel. you've already tried using a towel and even your teeth.

it's just... the look of that sly fucking triumph on his face. like see? nobody's really a feminist. not really. you come crawling back whenever you need me. this is why things can't change. because you know you'd be sorry.

t shirt that says “i used to be worse”

I think there’s something so deeply and intimately and morbidly true about The Last of Us’s primary thesis which is that humanity’s fatal flaw, in that very Shakespearian way, is that we are destined to care too much about one another so much so that we discard the collective entirely. like we have such a capacity to love the human race and humanity as a whole, to grow our communities and govern cities how we know best and foster such connection with the masses which we are part of, but it’s overtaken by our capacity to love even just a single other person. like one human can come into your life that creates such an intrinsic and passionate love in you— or maybe two people or a family’s worth or any small number— and you suddenly would burn entire villages down just to keep them safe.

joel doesn’t blink twice murdering to find ellie. he doesn’t look back when he decides to do what he does at the hospital later on. he has no remorse about any of it it, because this one girl has grown to mean more to him than any possible greater good could ever mean. and it’s reciprocal. ellie would— and does— do anything she can to help him, save him, protect him, and, eventually, to avenge him. because that’s what you do when you love someone. not when you love people. when you love someone.

and it’s selfish, in a way??? because we love these people and would do so much for them because they mean more to us than other strangers do. it’s exactly like an iteration of the trolley problem, actually. one track has your daughter on it and one track has fifty people. don’t even try telling me you wouldn’t go onto track B if it meant saving your daughter and her puppy dog eyes from the whimpering and pain and fear. The Last of Us says yes, you would. I would. we all would. and like yeah that is our greatest weakness, that we have such a unique ability to love a handful of people so deeply that our compassion towards community and strangers and the bigger collective starts to slip from view. but goddamn what a fucking great fatal flaw it is to have. we are all going to die and the world will burn because we loved another person too much.

— Jennifer Peepas (via quotemadness)

How liberating it is to pursue wholeness instead of perfection

we really didn't get violent enough about roe v wade being overturned. but and also - you're one person. you donated money. you went to the protest. you did what you could, which felt like doing basically nothing.

recently some big paper published an op ed (why did you even read it? you knew you'd get upset) about how it's gross that men can't find a partner because women don't want to suffer bad dates - they'd rather go to yoga class. you actually laughed - well, yeah! and it was funny until it wasn't, because something about it made your stomach churn. this is the thing, you want to say, but you don't have the words for what the thing is. just that men being bad at dating is your fault.

the thing is also on instagram. you don't know if it's a setting or algorithm thing, but these days, the most hurtful comments always seem to skim the top. simple reaction is don't read the comments but - you're human, so you're curious. you want to respond to every weird, sanctimonious one with replaying something a million times to find evidence they're lying about their gender is literally sexual harassment you shouldn't be proud of this or maybe get a fucking life you absolute dickhead but you've gotten into enough of these battles as a kid. nothing ever resolves. it just makes you upset.

your father was radicalized. the thing is - you go to therapy about it and yet never find the words for exactly the way that one hurts.

the other day your sister predicted that a commercial that aired during the superbowl was going to cause trouble. you wanted her to be wrong about that. this morning, while scrolling, you saw someone post exactly that - he got so angry i had to leave. it was terrifying. it reminds you, however bleakly: there are entire swathes of people who do not worry about domestic violence. who have no idea why you would put keys into your fist. who do not understand "it's better to be rude than dead." who have never googled am i being gaslit.

the other day you found out there's a bill that would make it so if you have a uterus and are braindead, you could fulfil your cattle purpose and carry a fetus to term. you think about the fact that the leading cause of death for pregnant people is murder. you think about ongoing and informed consent. you think about how, out of fear, if your ex boyfriend had pressured you, you absolutely would have said yes to it. in the comments, you write there is no way that these documents wouldn't be immediately forged. this is going to be misused. and then just delete it, sighing. get up and go to work.

the other day they overturned roe v wade. we weren't nearly violent enough about it. somewhere, a clock is ticking. it's been ticking a long time. you want to say it's time, but it's been time for a while, hasn't it.

pray a lot!! pray for everything, even/especially if it seems silly or impossible or ridiculous and you can barely voice it. pray for the little things and the big things and everything in between. keep that connection between you and God open all day, every day. pray and then watch how tiny miracles fill your life. 

Life is like yeah I’ll keep enduring and in between I’ll see the beauty of it and I’ll discover yet again that there is always something or someone to love. It’s a continuous stream of those three commodities