![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I wrote a screed after blocking a lot of TERFS today.
https://sometimesrosy.tumblr.com/post/666783831197728768
https://sometimesrosy.tumblr.com/post/666783831197728768
I should have written this the first time I thought of it but here goes:
What would my life be if I never thought, never worried about how I looked? What would my life be, if I only had to work hard to take care of me and mine, to do and to make, to art and create?
I was lucky, born "pretty" without knowing what that meant. Could they not have taught me how to be social? How to talk to people? But I guess for most people, most children, that's a thing you just DO till you know how. Not me!
The anxiety of "what do they think of me?" Has dogged my life. I didn't know that I was loved, didn't know that my life had any value. Didn't understand unconditional love, or intrinsic value, for me. I loved like that, and learned not to expect it. I valued others like that... And learned not to expect it.
Only now, 10+ years after drawing far away from popular culture, have I come to understand what Safe And Loved And Valued feels like. It's been a slow and gradual healing.
To answer my own question: I could do so much more. I could love more richly, fight more intelligently, build stronger community, teach more kindly, rescue more of those who need help.
And I can.
And I will.
What would my life be if I never thought, never worried about how I looked? What would my life be, if I only had to work hard to take care of me and mine, to do and to make, to art and create?
I was lucky, born "pretty" without knowing what that meant. Could they not have taught me how to be social? How to talk to people? But I guess for most people, most children, that's a thing you just DO till you know how. Not me!
The anxiety of "what do they think of me?" Has dogged my life. I didn't know that I was loved, didn't know that my life had any value. Didn't understand unconditional love, or intrinsic value, for me. I loved like that, and learned not to expect it. I valued others like that... And learned not to expect it.
Only now, 10+ years after drawing far away from popular culture, have I come to understand what Safe And Loved And Valued feels like. It's been a slow and gradual healing.
To answer my own question: I could do so much more. I could love more richly, fight more intelligently, build stronger community, teach more kindly, rescue more of those who need help.
And I can.
And I will.
Tags:
(already posted this on Facebook)
I'm not sure how much of myself I have crafted, and how much of myself was already present from the beginning. I'm thinking this morning that I'm really proud of what I am and the way I have built myself and the life that I have crafted within my community and with my loves.
I'm not sure how much of myself I have crafted, and how much of myself was already present from the beginning. I'm thinking this morning that I'm really proud of what I am and the way I have built myself and the life that I have crafted within my community and with my loves.
i know you
not your body
far away and stranger
but your soul of kindness
injuries never mistaken
for weakness
bend, my lady,
but you will never break
By Marci B
... She said she writes "crappy love poems" for Valentine's day for whoever asks for them.
This is... The opposite of crap.
This is the kind of thing I want to do up in calligraphy and hang on my wall to see every morning when I wake up.
not your body
far away and stranger
but your soul of kindness
injuries never mistaken
for weakness
bend, my lady,
but you will never break
By Marci B
... She said she writes "crappy love poems" for Valentine's day for whoever asks for them.
This is... The opposite of crap.
This is the kind of thing I want to do up in calligraphy and hang on my wall to see every morning when I wake up.
Tags:
I'm consuming too much media.
It interferes with my capacity for independent thought, interrupts ideas-in-progress.
YMMV, of course, but it's notable in my case.
Was thinking earlier today about what does it really mean to be grown up?
Adult?
A "Woman"?
A "Man"?
To put a different spin on it, when exactly do us Walking Wounded finally come to own our own souls?
Our bodies, our health, our own opinions and reality?
I had no concept of myself as lovable for the first 18 years of my life. I had no idea of myself as attractive, gorgeous, loved, until I was 20 (thanks, gorgeous and loved Irishman...) I had no idea of myself as a dancer till I joined Travellers' Union at age 22 and started to learn English Country Dance and Ballroom (Thanks, all you former Travellers!) I had no idea I could be athletic until I started taking TaeKwonDo (thanks, Master Rankins!) at age 26.
Of course, I didn't realize I could be broken, either. I challenged myself to try new things, always proceeding with caution, hesitantly. But I could feel my self stretching, growing, filling out, and dimly sensing that the possibility of *flowering* was there, even if I wasn't robust and juicy enough yet.
Then I backslid. I married the wrong guy (or, the right guy, because I did need the "another opportunity for growth" because I was STUCK and needed to be jarred loose). I fucked up my knee from trusting that my teachers knew my body and abilities better than I did (dumb, dumb, blind, thoughtless and dumb), and I coped with the first disease/problem that was the brush with death. That's when I discovered that doctors are not omniscient, they are human, and make mistakes. I worked on healing myself and in the time I thought I was face-to-face with my own ceasing-to-be, I looked at my blind spots and my dead spots and my not-broken-but-grew-crooked spots. And I started trying to remove the dead spots and enlivening the dead spots and retraining the grew-crooked spots.
Then I made progress. I worked with the Thiasos, a group of Hellenic Pagans based in Sacramento and the Bay area, and I started to learn what mattered. That *I* mattered. That *I* was a child of god, same as the trees and the stars (thanks, Desiderata!) That I was worthy. That I could be strong, but that I would have to work on it, since I had a habit of thinking of myself as weak. I learned that I was *beautiful* (Thanks, Adelphai! *wipes tears from eyes*) though it had to come to me as a surprise and after a lot of time working on my headspace. After that, I joined a learning coven, a Wicca 101 group, and started to work on becoming strong and principled.
Still I referred to myself as a "girl". A "girl" of thirty-something, because "woman" was ... fraught. Being "a woman" felt like more than I could claim for myself. I mostly referred to myself as a "person". "Woman" still is complicated (political, and with lots of connotations), but at 41 with the life experience I have? I'm finally referring to myself as a woman, because somewhere between 30 and 40 I actually DID "grow up:"
I did start taking responsibility for my own health and my own happiness.
I did start taking responsibility for my own life and my part in building or destroying my own relationships.
I did start making the conscious decision to strive to be kind and compassionate and truthful. To live my sense of what is right and true and ethical.
Whenever I start to feel like I'm treading water instead of making forward progress, I look at what I'm saying, and what I'm doing, and what I'm thinking. I look at where my relationships are, and if there is any place I have enough resources to help someone else - time, attention, energy, and sometimes money or goods.
One of the Christian philosophical systems has a saying: Lord, let me be an instrument of your peace. I add:
Lord, let me be an instrument of joy.
Lord, let me be an instrument of healing,
Lord, let me be an instrument of hope and compassion.
I am a grown up now. In my way of thinking, that entails a number of responsibilities.
If you have strengths, you use them in the service of weakness, and helping others become stronger.
If you have learning, you use it in the service of educating ignorance into knowledge.
If you have passion, you work to fan the flames of passion in the world: passion for justice, for truth, for beauty, for fairness.
If you have health, you use it to help others heal themselves.
If you have traveled from brokenness to wholeness? You work on helping others see and fix the broken wherever it is to be found.
And you know what? None of this is *easy*.
None of this Living on Planet Earth is easy. We get sick, we suffer. We hurt each other, intentionally and un.
We lose possessions we value. Maybe we learn something.
People we love die. We suffer. Maybe we learn something.
People around us suffer. Maybe today we have enough to share, a hand to stretch out in comfort. Maybe we are the ones suffering, and hoping to have the comfort of another's hand. And maybe we learn something.
and maybe? maybe what we learn? is that's what Love is.
maybe once we stop being afraid, we can put Love to work in our lives.
For real.
And maybe that is all the Change we need.
If Love drives out Fear, how do we make sure everyone has enough Love? How do we help people Not be Afraid?
It starts with me. It starts with one word, one hug, one (dumb) little post on the internet.
And the courage to make it public.
It's easy to write for people I've chosen, people I know I can trust. I'm going to stretch my trusting muscle farther today.
Remember. Love. Learn. Hope.
It interferes with my capacity for independent thought, interrupts ideas-in-progress.
YMMV, of course, but it's notable in my case.
Was thinking earlier today about what does it really mean to be grown up?
Adult?
A "Woman"?
A "Man"?
To put a different spin on it, when exactly do us Walking Wounded finally come to own our own souls?
Our bodies, our health, our own opinions and reality?
I had no concept of myself as lovable for the first 18 years of my life. I had no idea of myself as attractive, gorgeous, loved, until I was 20 (thanks, gorgeous and loved Irishman...) I had no idea of myself as a dancer till I joined Travellers' Union at age 22 and started to learn English Country Dance and Ballroom (Thanks, all you former Travellers!) I had no idea I could be athletic until I started taking TaeKwonDo (thanks, Master Rankins!) at age 26.
Of course, I didn't realize I could be broken, either. I challenged myself to try new things, always proceeding with caution, hesitantly. But I could feel my self stretching, growing, filling out, and dimly sensing that the possibility of *flowering* was there, even if I wasn't robust and juicy enough yet.
Then I backslid. I married the wrong guy (or, the right guy, because I did need the "another opportunity for growth" because I was STUCK and needed to be jarred loose). I fucked up my knee from trusting that my teachers knew my body and abilities better than I did (dumb, dumb, blind, thoughtless and dumb), and I coped with the first disease/problem that was the brush with death. That's when I discovered that doctors are not omniscient, they are human, and make mistakes. I worked on healing myself and in the time I thought I was face-to-face with my own ceasing-to-be, I looked at my blind spots and my dead spots and my not-broken-but-grew-crooked spots. And I started trying to remove the dead spots and enlivening the dead spots and retraining the grew-crooked spots.
Then I made progress. I worked with the Thiasos, a group of Hellenic Pagans based in Sacramento and the Bay area, and I started to learn what mattered. That *I* mattered. That *I* was a child of god, same as the trees and the stars (thanks, Desiderata!) That I was worthy. That I could be strong, but that I would have to work on it, since I had a habit of thinking of myself as weak. I learned that I was *beautiful* (Thanks, Adelphai! *wipes tears from eyes*) though it had to come to me as a surprise and after a lot of time working on my headspace. After that, I joined a learning coven, a Wicca 101 group, and started to work on becoming strong and principled.
Still I referred to myself as a "girl". A "girl" of thirty-something, because "woman" was ... fraught. Being "a woman" felt like more than I could claim for myself. I mostly referred to myself as a "person". "Woman" still is complicated (political, and with lots of connotations), but at 41 with the life experience I have? I'm finally referring to myself as a woman, because somewhere between 30 and 40 I actually DID "grow up:"
I did start taking responsibility for my own health and my own happiness.
I did start taking responsibility for my own life and my part in building or destroying my own relationships.
I did start making the conscious decision to strive to be kind and compassionate and truthful. To live my sense of what is right and true and ethical.
Whenever I start to feel like I'm treading water instead of making forward progress, I look at what I'm saying, and what I'm doing, and what I'm thinking. I look at where my relationships are, and if there is any place I have enough resources to help someone else - time, attention, energy, and sometimes money or goods.
One of the Christian philosophical systems has a saying: Lord, let me be an instrument of your peace. I add:
Lord, let me be an instrument of joy.
Lord, let me be an instrument of healing,
Lord, let me be an instrument of hope and compassion.
I am a grown up now. In my way of thinking, that entails a number of responsibilities.
If you have strengths, you use them in the service of weakness, and helping others become stronger.
If you have learning, you use it in the service of educating ignorance into knowledge.
If you have passion, you work to fan the flames of passion in the world: passion for justice, for truth, for beauty, for fairness.
If you have health, you use it to help others heal themselves.
If you have traveled from brokenness to wholeness? You work on helping others see and fix the broken wherever it is to be found.
And you know what? None of this is *easy*.
None of this Living on Planet Earth is easy. We get sick, we suffer. We hurt each other, intentionally and un.
We lose possessions we value. Maybe we learn something.
People we love die. We suffer. Maybe we learn something.
People around us suffer. Maybe today we have enough to share, a hand to stretch out in comfort. Maybe we are the ones suffering, and hoping to have the comfort of another's hand. And maybe we learn something.
and maybe? maybe what we learn? is that's what Love is.
maybe once we stop being afraid, we can put Love to work in our lives.
For real.
And maybe that is all the Change we need.
If Love drives out Fear, how do we make sure everyone has enough Love? How do we help people Not be Afraid?
It starts with me. It starts with one word, one hug, one (dumb) little post on the internet.
And the courage to make it public.
It's easy to write for people I've chosen, people I know I can trust. I'm going to stretch my trusting muscle farther today.
Remember. Love. Learn. Hope.
Tags:
I have this not-fully-fleshed thought this morning/afternoon/whatever... want to explore it.
we call those who are demonstrably self-centered, who speak and act primarily for and about themselves, who demonstrate a belief that their actions and thoughts impact the world: ARROGANT.
is there a term for people who seem to believe that only OTHER people matter? Edit: in a wildly unrealistic or drastically misplaced humility, only other people's thoughts, actions, beliefs matter? Or is that also ARROGANT and SELF-CENTERED, only in a backwards, skewed, or mirror-universe kind of way?
Recently reflecting on my thoughts around the end of the Drama/Reading teaching job... and I recall at some point believing that I didn't need to tell the (drama) students that I wasn't coming back next year... because they'd have a better Drama teacher next year? I know I was rationalizing. I knew it then.
I know to some degree, I decided not to share because it make it be awkward, difficult to do the job... but there was also a touch of "because I didn't matter"...
On one level, I know I did matter. I had students hug and confide in me; I stayed late and sometimes came early to facilitate the things the students were passionate about, I was learning to be an advocate for them.
and yet, I was convinced that me leaving wouldn't matter to them, to the office, to my department...
was it an intellectual conceit to protect my own feelings or to make the perceived emotional impact of my leaving less?
was it a derelict remainder from my years of low self-esteem?
Five summers ago, I expressed shock and amazement when Jeff (we had just started dating) downloaded both Evanescence albums because I was enthusiastic about them; I had just heard one album in its entirety for the first time.
He held my hand and caught my eyes and said, "You know, you have an IMPACT. What you know, what you like, it makes an impression on people."
That blew me away.
Sat there, flummoxed, (and probably crying), trying to assimilate the concept.
I still am made of fail with regards to incorporating this into my life.
Of course, if what I do (or don't do) doesn't matter, there are all sorts of corollaries.
Like, I don't have to work too hard. No one will care.
a whole other bunch of don't have to's follow, of course, (fill in the blanks yourself, you're imaginative people (see, there I go again))
but those don't have to's get blown away if I have made a commitment to live an ethical lifestyle. For me.
Regardless of the impact I believe I have on the world (which =! my actual impact on the world, I know), if I'm living an ethical life, there's the one undeniable reason to follow up on my promises, to work hard and well, to try hard, to work toward personal growth,
For me.
Because it's the right thing to do.
I joke about being a solipsist. I think I need to examine what parts of that notion are valid and workable and which I need to discard.
and maybe in this regard I'm coming at the question ass backwards, I matter because I'm ethical, but until I finish up a bunch of other healing work I think that is the best, clearest path for me to walk, to arrive at the conclusion that I matter.
we call those who are demonstrably self-centered, who speak and act primarily for and about themselves, who demonstrate a belief that their actions and thoughts impact the world: ARROGANT.
is there a term for people who seem to believe that only OTHER people matter? Edit: in a wildly unrealistic or drastically misplaced humility, only other people's thoughts, actions, beliefs matter? Or is that also ARROGANT and SELF-CENTERED, only in a backwards, skewed, or mirror-universe kind of way?
Recently reflecting on my thoughts around the end of the Drama/Reading teaching job... and I recall at some point believing that I didn't need to tell the (drama) students that I wasn't coming back next year... because they'd have a better Drama teacher next year? I know I was rationalizing. I knew it then.
I know to some degree, I decided not to share because it make it be awkward, difficult to do the job... but there was also a touch of "because I didn't matter"...
On one level, I know I did matter. I had students hug and confide in me; I stayed late and sometimes came early to facilitate the things the students were passionate about, I was learning to be an advocate for them.
and yet, I was convinced that me leaving wouldn't matter to them, to the office, to my department...
was it an intellectual conceit to protect my own feelings or to make the perceived emotional impact of my leaving less?
was it a derelict remainder from my years of low self-esteem?
Five summers ago, I expressed shock and amazement when Jeff (we had just started dating) downloaded both Evanescence albums because I was enthusiastic about them; I had just heard one album in its entirety for the first time.
He held my hand and caught my eyes and said, "You know, you have an IMPACT. What you know, what you like, it makes an impression on people."
That blew me away.
Sat there, flummoxed, (and probably crying), trying to assimilate the concept.
I still am made of fail with regards to incorporating this into my life.
Of course, if what I do (or don't do) doesn't matter, there are all sorts of corollaries.
Like, I don't have to work too hard. No one will care.
a whole other bunch of don't have to's follow, of course, (fill in the blanks yourself, you're imaginative people (see, there I go again))
but those don't have to's get blown away if I have made a commitment to live an ethical lifestyle. For me.
Regardless of the impact I believe I have on the world (which =! my actual impact on the world, I know), if I'm living an ethical life, there's the one undeniable reason to follow up on my promises, to work hard and well, to try hard, to work toward personal growth,
For me.
Because it's the right thing to do.
I joke about being a solipsist. I think I need to examine what parts of that notion are valid and workable and which I need to discard.
and maybe in this regard I'm coming at the question ass backwards, I matter because I'm ethical, but until I finish up a bunch of other healing work I think that is the best, clearest path for me to walk, to arrive at the conclusion that I matter.
Tags: