-dear ymf: a couple of days ago, i posted a private, important, really significant thought from my life that i was hoping to get some good conversation and healing about. maybe i will repost it sometime here on my blog. it was kind of deep and pretty personal, but people are always posting things like that so i didn't think anything of it. for a long time no one said anything about it or made note of it. which is totally fine. i know reading my writing is sometime like walking through sludge and mud, and i can especially be overbearing and i kind of just throw things out there. but then hannah wheelright posted about not giving a guy her number and it got 100 likes in an hour. i love hannah and i think i groupie her as much as anyone, but in that moment i just realized that i was more of a stranger in ymf than i thought i was, and that i don't really fit in there anymore. ymf is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. i learned so much and most of all gained a self confidence and saw that i could give myself permission to take space, to have an opinion, to have emotions, to not apologize, to learn about others, to take my own security. but i've been feeling on the way out for a while and in the end, ymf is really a game for a very specific person. i don't know why i'm writing this all out except that it was such a clear, knowing moment and i think it marks a really important transition for me. i don't really know where i'm going. i think i'm going back to church, but i am a stranger there, too. as one of my good friends told me yesterday, "i don't really know where i fit anymore."
-dear boss: in one of the trainings you make sure to send all of your employees to (because you liked it so much yourself), one of the final things we talk about is how relationships are like bank accounts. you make deposits and withdrawals. this is tricky, because what a deposit and what a withdrawal means is different for every single person, and a big deposit for one person could be a big withdrawal for another person. well, recently you have made some huge withdrawals. like, i don't even know how we could have even had that much saved up. overriding my policies, doing my work in front of me so i will know how much you disapprove of my job performance (HEAVEN forbid you be direct with me and cut your passive aggressive bullshitting ways), not only ignoring but not asking for my (long-thought out, MUCH labored and cried and stressed over, professional) opinions because you made up your mind even before talking to me, passive aggressively accusing me of being THE reason for the WORST student employee's bad behavior ("don't you think?"), and being a straight up bitchy authoritarian ignorant sexist human being to me and expecting me to smile at you and say ok. passive aggressiveness is not righteousness. you are not helping everyone out here by being the type of boss you are very careful to be. when i first realized you steamrolled and ignored and authoritarian-bossed me like people wouldn't believe, i thankfully also quickly realized you do it to everyone. other people you mercilessly and thoughtlessly steamroll around here are willing to forget and move on and return your fake cheery smiles and greetings and help you keep your world in the perfect balance that i am embarrassed for you that you care so much about. but my relationship with you is essentially my entire job. and that relationship--along with my motivation for this job, my patience, and my longsuffering--are bankrupt. when i find a new job--whether that's in two weeks or three months or a year--i know you will ask why i'm leaving. and i don't know what i'll say to you, because this is the only truthful thing i can think of.
-dear mom: you are coming to see me on saturday to spend one on one time together, for the first time in probably six or more years. you're worried about me, as is dad. for about a year i have felt your desperate, worried, but always boundary-respectful desire to be let into my life, and i want to let you in. but i can't. because i am not the person you raised. i don't know if i want to stay in the church. i don't like church. i don't like the temple. right now, i don't want kids. nothing seems further away. dh and i are all-over-the-place, crude, boisterous, spendy, lounging, kind of messed up, overly-devoted lovers and that is the relationship i need right now. not only has he grown to understand and accept my feminism and my struggling and my depression, but he embraces it and is always the soft hand there to catch me. which doesn't mean you couldn't/don't understand those things, but what i don't need right now is a church lesson or the lecture on not being a victim or for you to tell me how proud you are of me because nothing makes me feel worse about myself than that. because you don't know where i'm really at right now and you wouldn't approve. i miss and need you, but is there even a way i could ever tell you why i'm stressed to shreds lately--enough that you can tell in an instant of seeing me--without telling you everything, and that i am consumed with worry, fear, disillusionment and being misplaced? deep down, i know you would understand and instantly accept--if not ache--for me. but i also know you will feel compelled to treat me in a certain way, knowing you will have to account to god as a mother for what you say to me. so can't we just skip the obligation we both feel and buy shoes and eat and just let being alone together heal us both a little?
No comments:
Post a Comment