I have a question.
I don’t have an answer.
I suspect that you won’t either.

When is it acceptable to call attention to an injustice you observe?
When is it acceptable to teach others a new perspective?
When is it acceptable to hold up a sign calling attention to a problem?
When is it acceptable to act vs. observe?

I gather that, despite all the contradictory praise our society wishes to give to those who fight for their beliefs in retrospect, when actually presented with a set of human beings doing so, we shun them. We question their belief structure, humanity, faith, intelligence, pride.

When isn’t it acceptable to call attention to an injustice you observe?
When isn’t it acceptable to teach others a new perspective?
When isn’t it acceptable to hold up a sign calling attention to a problem?
When isn’t it acceptable to act vs. observe?

When?

Last day of ‘vacation’. Well feels like half over already last day of ‘vacation’. This is always the day I dread when I take more than one day off. The day I spend flogging myself mentally for all the things I didn’t do or get done in that time frame.

Didn’t even finish one book? Bought 6 more instead? Great, you’re only up to 15 physical books in your backlog and oh don’t even look at your kindle with all the $1.99 books you’ve bought over the past six months. Don’t even touch Comixology and all the graphic novels you’ve bought or borrowed on there. Not to mention the 10+ issues of your series you’ve fallen behind on.

Knitting projects? HA! Started a gift for Jordan you’ll probably finish when her kid starts college. Good job, ace.

A good chunk of this time I’ve contemplated reaching out last time and for once actually be straight forward with the fact that it’s my last time. Didn’t do it. Can’t bring myself to be the one to end anything. That could be my Indian name. Reality though is that I’m tired. Mentally, emotionally, physically. I think about things M has said to me over the years, how much appreciation there is in that friendship and in that there are moments I have the gall to believe that I deserve better than this. Nostalgia only goes so far. I’m fine with friends that I don’t talk to every day or see very often. A great deal of my most prized connections are with those I’m lucky to see physically only once or twice a year if that. Some not at all. Physical space has never been a requirement to be my friend.

I can’t help but feel in my gut that actions taken outside my scope of knowledge are enough to break the chain. And yet. And yet.

I know I can’t always be the buoy or life jacket, hell I can’t even do that for myself…but I keep trying. All I picture when I think about some of my most toxic connections is faces on a shore watching me drown, waving and smiling.

When will that be enough for me to cut the line and safe myself?

I think I’ve gotten too good at pretending
Too skilled at playing normal

I don’t reach out when I should, afraid to become a burden. Afraid that he’s been right all along. That reaching makes me selfish. That no one cares. That I’m not worth their time. Every day without a ding of a text proving again and again how little I cross anyone’s mind. Proving again and again that in the end all friendship I have ever had was in my head. Don’t you know they don’t care about you really? They’re just being nice you stupid twat. You think you really matter? Idiot.

This is how my brain works. This is how it speaks. Doesn’t matter if I spend every moment for a week with people I love or have spent a month by myself. All the moments amount to nothing. All the fear of missing out still ultimately leaves me home alone in fear that I’ll waste someone’s time. That my words don’t help. That my actions don’t matter. That all the hours I spend thinking about them aren’t returned even an ounce.

If no one knows you spent three hours trying to craft the perfect message or gif to send them you just seem callous and weird when you finally hit send. Maybe that’s true either way. If they don’t know how often you hear a song or see something and think of them, did it even happen? Do you even feel, bro? If you start bringing these things up now, will they deem you a stalker? Think you’ve gone crackers?

All the dark moments in my life. All the memories I wish I could rid myself of. I can’t. Speak of them in jest. As though they are not crushing your lungs.

You’re doing it again. Making it all about you. Fucking cunt. No wonder they don’t bother with you. Haven’t you got anything new to talk about? Don’t you know they’re tired of your same old shit?

People you used to talk to every day. Share meals with. Share moments. What do you do now? Cower and hide because you know there’s judgement in their eyes. You aren’t worthy. You made poor choices. They don’t trust your decision. Who you love reflects on you. What’s that mean? Know it, accept it. Cry. Who cares if you do? None. Exactly.

Should have been you. That’s what still kills you, isn’t it? Should have been you. You could be lost. You are inconsequential. Try to offer a trade. Dean for Sam. Sam for Dean. Take me instead. Give them back someone useful. Someone worthy.

Be ok. Gotta be ok. Be ok today. Joke. Don’t choke. Put on the mask. Keep walking. Shh, we’ll meet again soon.

I don’t hate you. Hate’s not my jam. Hard to hate someone for doing something they’ve always done, for following the rule book they always have. Some actions no longer surprise when they’ve become someone’s repertoire. That said, it’s a far shittier thing to don your familiar mask against someone who least deserves it. We’re all dark and twisty here, this was the sacred circle after all. If we can’t be 100% who we are with each other, what the fuck are we even doing this for anymore?

We’ve all done shitty things. We’ve all been shitty people. Own and atone, isn’t that what we’ve all been hoping to be strong enough to do all along? Be brave. Live. Flaws and all. Make our own happy, but not at the expense of ourselves or the rest of our flock. That’s the fucked up part. What data am I missing where that part makes any damn sense?

My instinct is to extend empathy and seek to understand, not condemn. Until your actions, or inaction as it were, give me reason do so.

I can’t hate you, but I can question your motives. I can’t hate you, but I wonder what sign I missed? Did I screw up? Did I let you down by not seeing the smoke rings you put out ? Was I too caught up in my own bindings to notice you were drowning too? Has the flawlessly flawed veneer I put on everyone fooled me once again?

I want to give you space to seek me when you are ready, knowing that pursuit often makes you flee. However, just as much of me wants to show up in your life so you can’t avoid me anymore. Wonders why am I being avoided in the first place. What traits have been pinned on me that make me a path of least desire?

I don’t want to yell at you, I don’t even want to judge you. I just want to make sure you’re not bleeding to death in front of our eyes. Whether you stay in this circle or not is on you just as much as it’s on us to let you. Either way, we tried.

I can forgive anything, but I never forget
The tattered tapestries my tribe wove have
Given me the empathy to accept the twisted
Darkness in anyone and keep moving
What will you do now?
It’s what you do afterwards that counts
That’s when I find out who you really are
Did I romanticize you into a being you can never be?
Do my hopes for the people I love give them impossible standards to reach?
Do you care enough to reach back or
Have I been reaching out into darkness all along?
That’s the thing about humans
They’ll disappoint you

when you grow up
Would you be the savior of the broken
The beaten and the damned?”

I’m compelled to share this entry from Wil for a myriad of reasons. Primarily because I have lived this day. More times than I would wish on anyone. I’ve never been quite able to put into words what it is like. How much I have fought, yelled at doctors on behalf of someone I love dearly. I have questioned, to their faces in some cases, if these medical professionals even cared to save and give a quality of life back to my mother. I have pleaded with them, what if this was your mother, treat her as though she was your mother, please. Years spent waking up in the wee hours to her screaming. Walking up the staircase from my room to ‘hers’ to watch TV, bring her warm rice bags, anything to help ease her pain for a few hours and calm her back to sleep. Moments I don’t talk about, things I don’t share because I don’t want to bring shame to her. Feeling and wondering if anyone would ever love me enough to do those things for me. I am more empathetic to what Wil and Anne have gone through than I will even get into now. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to verbalize in any concise manner how those days have felt. How much armor I feel I have built, preparations in my castle for what will inevitably come, how many times I have thought it was already knocking at our door. For her. For him. I may never really be ready, no matter what my gallows humor would say to the contrary.

eighteen hours

I’ve been fighting a cold, infection, flu, I have no idea for over a week now. I have no idea how this plague has befallen me but I both rue and lament it. Sorry, I fell asleep to Futurama and that was a part of a Fry quote I awoke to this morning.

An only funny to me probably side effect of this is how thin my mental wires are stretched when I’m physically ill. I’m paranoid about everything, I’m even more inclined to believe that everyone would be happier if I were dead and that no one really likes me anyway so who the fuck cares. She’s on fire when the rest of me is too tired to fight her off. She’s ready to pounce and bitch at anyone even if they’re just being kind and trying to help. Takes an odd level of effort to not be that raging cunt. To not let her win, not let her sever all the ties to my sanity and safety.

RENT was fantastic as always, but to be entirely honest I’m not up for writing tonight. Not doing so great with this WRITING thing, but at least I’m trying. Gonna go watch some Dooger and call it a night.

I’m laying in bed, the wrap on my arm from giving blood today itching and remembered I haven’t written today.

Shit.

I gave blood for the second time today. Win!!!

thats all you’re getting, I wanna read some Dune.

As much as I like to think we can prepare for the inevitable loss of all breathing things we love, we don’t. We can say we do, we can pretend it’s not a gutting experience, but that’s not true.

Loss is loss no matter what, and what is so frustrating in the process that is simply that you can’t stop it. I couldn’t stop my Grandmother from taking her last breath, I couldn’t stop Aaron from his, and I can’t stop Duke’s last moments from happening. That’s not the power I actually want, it’s the ripple effects, the pain, that comes with those last exhales. The shifts that take place, the moments when you go to say a name and stop yourself because you wonder if it’s ok to utter those words yet. The moments you stop yourself because you remember and your heart breaks into a million little pieces all over again. The seconds when I hear a song and my eyes begin to well and my chest gets tighter. That’s what I’d rather be the consumer of than have to have anyone I care for feel. I’d rather shield and hide the pain in the deep crevices of my black little heart than make anyone else live them. That’s a far reaching statement if ever there was one.

I always think that I’m going to share all my darkest moments at some point, but I don’t. Those little home movies are too much sometimes, burned into my neurons in ways I can’t shake. I’m sorry that you have them too, that you’ll have them in yours. I’ll share them with you whenever you ask, no matter how dark they are. I’ve seen plenty, and there’s only more to be consumed. So it goes.

I’ve got nothing today, but here’s something anyway

I’m still a little too full of snark and sass about the past couple of days to do the deeper thoughts rolling around my head justice. So, until I’m ready, let’s share some silly stupid shit/randos instead?

Yup

So the 20th Buffy Anniversary happened…so here’s something about that.

https://bitchmedia.org/article/20-years-buffy-letters-vampire-slayer/joy-female-power

Might need to do a re-watch of that sometime soon.

I’ll have a much longer tirade to go on with all the goings on surrounding my Grandmother’s burial I’m sure. Whether that ends up here or on the podcast remains to be seen.

Today I’ll be heading ‘home’ again, to our old church, right across the street from my first childhood home that was across the street from my school/church. I’ll be at my Grandfather’s gravemarker for the first time in I think at least 3 or 4 years. This time, not to have a conversation with the wind, but to add my Grams to this place we visit the decaying corpses of our loved ones though the energy they held is no longer there.

All of this brings to mind the same thoughts I had, in part, with Aaron’s passing. How weird some of our traditions and socially accepted grieving patterns can be. I’m also finding, though I have a feeling some in my family find me strange, peculiar, or uncaring for this; it is far easier to let someone go when you knew in every fiber of your being that they were ready. Grams hadn’t been HER in years. The hardest pill to swallow was these last few years of her not being at her house in her chair. Her not being there with a quick quip at someone’s expense, memory sharper than most of ours. That was gutting. Her passing not in her own bed, in her own home as she wanted. That hurts. The rest of this, for me at least, is the other part of what she wanted. Her family, talking, laughing, and being US without apology. She didn’t want tears, she hated wishy washy mushy crap (gee, wonder if that’s genetic? 🙂 ). I’m just trying to give her the send off she deserves, as much as what is going on in some pockets goes against that.

I’m trying, Gram, I’m trying.

Full disclosure, I’ve backdated this entry. Although, I did share this with M yesterday, so I think it still counts for that day.

https://www.facebook.com/sonyreneetaylor/posts/10210757942197566