This has required taking vacations from social media and from socializing in general. My patience has dwindled to nil, so if I am to keep calm and carry on, I must remove from my environment those things that it is not in my nature to overlook or ignore. For being myself--an adult who was abandoned by both parents as a child and who has spent most of her life trying very hard to convince them both to love and protect and cherish her--I have a tendency to internalize all kinds of things that have nothing to do with me. Other people's shit. This includes a lot of things, I've realized. I am not entirely surprised by this, but I do puzzle over it a little.
I just wrote about several of those things in detail and then deleted the passage. I guess, put simply, I'm really fucking over being asked or expected to make myself smaller, to apologize for my successes and achievements, or to hide my happiness because it makes other people uncomfortable or insecure or jealous or what-the-fuck-ever. If those requests or expectations also seem steeped in white privilege and entitlement and therefore don't seem to exist for white people who buy houses or choose to have children or work towards healthy relationships or have spent a decade and a half building a career, then doubly fuck that.
People, go deal with your shit, and deal with it way the fuck over there. Because I have my own shit to deal with, namely telling the little girl in Chicago whose parents fled to the coasts while she was a toddler that she's worth it, that she deserves love and happiness and good things, that trying to fix herself won't make other people less broken.
I guess, also, along with this comes a request of my own--that we all try to move through the world being a bit more compassionate, a bit more empathetic, and a lot more generous in good will towards people we call friends.
