i am not fighting to call out oppression, i am fighting to end it

this distinction necessitates different strategies and different ways of viewing/treating relationships

one nice thing about working here is that my boss is also chronically late to everything too even more than me

i hate having delayed reactions/anger/feelings/etc long after a conversation is over, knowing that that conversation was the one window of opportunity to actually talk shit through.

i hate that this person tried to end a relationship with me over text message, and said they “didn’t see where this was going” when i was trying to have a check in with them about it. i hate that it feels as if they didn’t even think a real conversation was necessary after sending me a bunch of half-apologetic and passively accusatory text messages about why this wasn’t working - after i’d had a 12 hour day - after i told them i’d been triggered at an sfwar training.

i hate that i went into the conversation feeling as if i were the only one who did wrong. 

i hate that i didn’t ask for clarification on more things and just accepted them as truth, when i really don’t fully understand what the fuck they were saying.

“i feel like your ex was the perfect match for you except for the fact that he wasn’t over someone else.” “i feel like you don’t really enjoy being intimate with me.” “i feel like you should cuddle with someone you actually like cuddling with.” “i feel like you are much more of a processer than me so you have more needs than i do and that makes me nervous.” “i feel like you expect me to be a certain way around you.”  ”i don’t know if this is too big for text but do you jsut want to be friends? i keep getting that feeling from you from our conversations lately.” 

notice a pattern? everything is an analysis of me or a projection onto me that i don’t even agree with at all. there is no room for conversation about their own shit and i wish i flipped it back. like, do you want to be intimate with me? do you feel like i don’t show you romantic interest? do you just want to be friends?  and there were all the other things… “i feel like you want someone else who can talk politics with you,” “i feel like you are looking for osmething i can’t give you,” “i feel like you don’t really like hanging out with me”

i was so fucking naive to think that this would just be able to go on and pan out nicely without drama — to hope that we could just go for a few months and phase out of our relationship feeling good about each other; feeling like we had a nice time and now time’s up. instead, a couple days before we were supposed to hang out and spend a lot of time together, i get a fucking load of texts at one in the morning about how “they feel” i want xyz things.

and the follow up conversation felt so fucking antagonizing. i tried to be open and vulnerable and understanding, but it was really hard to maintain that demeanor when everything - from the sound of their voice to the way they were trying to get through the conversation - felt so closed off. it hurts to be have the way someone talks to you change so dramatically in just a couple days. no tenderness, no affirmation, no nothing but this bored and angry and “over it” sentiment the whole way through. there were certain things i did wrong in this relationship, for sure. and i am so sorry to them for not understanding their needs better and that they felt disrespected by me at various points, especially around their body/health issues. and at the same time, i can’t read minds. i can’t know what i’m doing wrong if someone only vaguely says things here and there about their health issues, and then doesn’t let me know what kind of support they need from me in concrete ways. i know that next time, it is my responsibility to be more mindful of physical needs and really ask ask ask what kind of support someone needs in their physical accomodations and such. i wish i had understood better to what magnitude they were feeling like i was perpetuating some ableist shit, and i also wish they had communicated all of this to me earlier. 

but even then, the conversation didn’t really clarify these things about intimacy and cuddling and whatever. i get how they felt disrespected around me re: their access needs, but they were just so fucking vague about other shit they’d brought up lol. and didn’t even want to hear my own thoughts or explanations of my own feelings. “i’m sorry that you felt this way through our relationship, and that i disrespected you in those particular ways.” “it’s whatever.” “i hope you know that through this whole relationship, i have cared about you a lot.” “that’s nice?” “i’m trying pretty hard not to feel defensive right now, i feel kind of vulnerable in this conversation.” “why?”

in the text message convo we had a couple nights ago (which was full of mixed signals and apologetic wishy washy shit and projections and “i feel you are _____” and denial of own needs/that i might not be meeting some of their needs or wants), they said they didn’t want to make me feel bad or hurt me. but in that conversation and this follow-up one, it just felt like unloading onto me. and i tried to hold it all because that’s what i do when i feel like i have hurt people. i always tend to put myself in the position of the one who has done wrong because i am afraid of being a jerk, afraid of being the person that doesn’t understand or care about their impact.

they said they didn’t read my personal tumblr (this one). and yet i feel like something still happened that i’m not aware of. i guess people have random realizations all the time, but damn, having a wishy washy text message convo with me when you’re really writing shit like “i deserve a drink for dating a social justice tumblr scholar for too long when she was secretly having body negative thoughts about me” — is fucked. at least fucking face me like i am a person. and “secretly having body negative thoughts about me”? if anything, the ways in which i was body negative about them were about ignorance and not enough communication. if there was other shit then i don’t know because they did not clarify much beyond how fucked up i was re: that. and then when i disclosed some other shit to them (re: the last entry i made about wanting to cuddle with someone larger than me), how fucked up i was became the most important thing to talk about. i tried to hold space for that / be accountable to my own shit, but at some parts it just felt punitive.

i gave you way too much of my heartspace and care and intention because i was also trying to build the foundation for a friendship that would outlast our dating relationship. but people won’t always want that with you. sometimes you’ll give people some of the most thoughtful and loving parts of you, and they’ll want nothing to do with you in the end. 

i’m not just some internet idiot you can just dismiss with a flippant “GURL BYE,” people you build friendships or relationships with… are real people. i let this person into my home, my bed, my friendships, my community, my vulnerabilities, my heart. i regret it. this is what i hate about call-out culture — a person becomes the sum of their faults and everything else just doesn’t matter at all. maybe it’s some fucked up sense of loyalty that i carry with me, but i don’t believe in throwing away other people of color, especially other queer people of color, away like that. i don’t believe in just telling someone everything they did wrong and having that be called a “check in” or “conversation.” there are times for just cutting someone off and moving on, of course, i guess i just have different ideas around how and when that should happen. 

even when steph hurt me, even when we had fights, i always knew that he cared about me, and he always apologized when he knew that he had hurt me. but i don’t think this person even knows or gets that i feel hurt. and i guess that’s fine with me because i don’t really want to be around them again for a while. the feeling is now mutual.

1) i miss the cliffs above the ocean where red used to take me when i was sad 

2) saw steph today with sam and io. it was fine, nothing hurt. i was mostly just sleepy and wanted to come home 

3) i don’t think i will go to korea this summer afterall

4) i feel sick. i wake up with headaches each morning. 

5) realizing (again) that not getting enough sleep really impacts my state of mind. i feel like i degenerate into a bratty twelve year old who can’t do shit for herself. and when i don’t sleep enough, i also stop eating. shitty habits that feed into shitty moods and shitty depression, catch it before it gets you 

6) i guess sooner is better than later

ugh i feel so anxious. i really need to cuddle like right now with someone who is not tinier than me hahahahaha or has a big cuddling presence. no wimpy cuddles allowed ok. alas i do not get home til 930 and there are no cuddles or food waiting for me

dont you hate it when youre cramping so hard all you can do is lie very vert y still and try to wait for the meds to kick in

i do

soooooOoooo anxious… but not in a good way lm a o ugh

i finally made a separate facebook for work stuff (having to do internet outreach and shit cuz stupid FB pages are impossible to work) cuz there was no way in hell i was adding coworkers and students to my personal one, am i a grown up now???