I'm kind of afraid to write these days. It's all well and good to write about stuff when you know hardly anybody is watching. There was a time when folks read my writing and those people meant a lot to me but I felt like my writing did nothing to impact them in any substantive way. Potential embarrassment, guaranteed rage and disgust, the occasional laugh, but nothing that could do irreparable damage. I mean, irreparable damage to the ego is usually good for you even if it hurts, causes a lot of inconvenience and, if relied upon too heavily, destroys relationships. I consider relationships based so heavily on ego sort of superfluous. I'm more interested in folks who can roll when someone tells the truth about themselves and the lives they lead with others.
Now though. I'm not just writing about myself and my friends and lovers, all immature material, not so worthy of much or diligent discretion. Certainly entertaining, certainly meaningless when it all boils down, especially now that I haven't been properly fucked up in the past half-year.
Now I've got this beautiful spouse who truly truly matters to me, who truly truly supports me, who can roll with a little embarrassment, can experience the required rage and disgust without viewing me as a gangrene needing amputation. Her ego has a range of motion beyond reasonable expectation. We can disagree about things that are fairly important to us, like artistic expression, movies to watch, meals to eat, lifestyles to experiment with. We agree on the fundamentals and if we don't, we can make it work.
Now though. We are running a family. It's not just the two of us living together in a kind of dynamic harmony. We are like Ulali. We function that way. I can see folks in my life tipping their heads, cocking their ears, waiting for it to happen, pulling their chins in and watching for the song to fall apart in front of them, but it doesn't. The way we are living has a quality that seems unstable and discordant, but before that discord becomes established, we start filling in the gaps. This leads us to a full and complex level of vibration that evokes an emotional response from a surprising amount of people.
That emotional response is what troubles me. I wonder how it is that two people, who in my view are doing very well at living quietly and peacefully, can stir up so much shit. I've got good vibes and bad vibes and vibes of all types coming at me from all sorts of angles. I'm not a person known to compromise herself in order to be liked and accepted, and it's certainly showing these days. Those folks who feel kindly towards us are invariably holding themselves at quite a distance, notwithstanding the amount of goodwill they harbour for us. You know, drop it like it's hot.
There's nothing wrong with my family's situation and smart folks know it, but at the same time, smart folks certainly don't want to get too close to it.
Then there are the real big negative nellies. Doom and gloom and a whole lot of reliance on what they've been taught and then what they've accordingly thought all their lives so how can it be that we're not ascribing to that pattern? How can it be that we do not respond in the usual ways to violent behaviour, unwelcome pressure to conform, threats, manipulation, withdrawal of love and affection? We just stick to our principles without apology and this seems to be so outrageous. Just minding our own business, thinking hard, communicating effectively and following our hearts has become a radical action. There can be no regret when we have done the hard work of having somewhat original thoughts about our relationship, our roles as parents, our place in the world together and as separate human beings.
The whole thing does cause grief, however. Certain choices have cost us relationships that help us to be more comfortable. It's not our choices that have driven folks away, contrary to popular belief. It's the choices certain folks have made.
The choices people have made are things like:
"I refuse to change my mind even though I have not had an independent thought about the issue."
"I will not allow even love to bend my opinions about gender."
"I do not believe folks have the right to decide how to love."
The choices I've been making since my creation have really led me into an arduous journey. Correction: the way I am, the way I was made, the way I can't help but allow myself to be, my innateness has really led me into an arduous journey.
I'm finally beginning to believe I was designed for my life. I'm not going to get out of this alive, but that's the whole point.
I'm going to die, thanking all the powers that seemingly be, that I refused to intentionally shame or maim anyone for just being the way they were made.
Realistically speaking, I am going to die with some amount of regret, but I expect it will be for shameful things I've done unintentionally or with the best of informed but misdirected intentions.
I recognize and honour the fact that most folks who act like asses are simply working with what they have. I do not believe most folks who act like asses are doing the best they can. I can't believe that. We are designed to be better than what we can do. We are designed to evolve and grow despite ourselves. Fear and ignorance are poor excuses for haters.
I'm halfway through a marvellous pregnancy. I'm turning out to be a fantastic baby-growing device.
I can't help but wonder how I'll love this new human I'm manufacturing.
I am afraid I am too much like sandpaper and less like water. Right now I see child-rearing as a lot like two landmasses wearing away at each other. I acknowledge this process, while not exactly gentle, is necessarily subtle and should take a lot of time. It's a natural effect of two entities existing next to each other. Yet I make so many efforts to just erode methodically, like factory-work. I have discovered that I really don't like to spend a lot of time moulding the human child. In other words, I wish my efforts would have more immediate results.
I am attempting to be a creative parent. I do take some time and I think a lot. I do not do things instinctually because I don't trust myself yet. I have a lot of work to do in that regard.
In that regard, mechanisms that were installed very early in my life are being dismantled every day. I find a lot of this dismantling work comes in the form of dreaming. I have started to dream often about violence and rage with a target. I wish I didn't have to sleep sometimes.
I watch myself and see there is very little flow to the way I currently parent. I am hoping the experience of childbirth will help me become a more natural parent, like water, gently smoothing out the roughness and naturally helping my children re-arrange the jammed up places. I want to push only when it's a natural part of my children's landscape.
There's nothing like hating the way you are when you're doing something important. Talk about a force of nature. The way to go about this is like sailing; attempt to capture the power of the winds of self-loathing and glide as smoothly as possible towards the end
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