![]() They divorced, messily, which was depressing even though I’d always known they didn’t love each other. I think that’s why I’ve walked away from some things. I’ve been having more difficult conversations about ways I was hurt and trying to own up to the times I hurt others, and I can’t tell if this is growth or if it’s coming from the same part of me that is angry: I hate ambiguity. I find myself trying to figure out how and why to change to keep people around. No one has ever liked me romantically, and I have to wonder, is it because I save the worst parts of me for those who know me? My fragility, my anger, my demands? I know I don’t have a perfect heart. I’m 31 years old, obese, as I said, and a virgin. What I want to look like is as much a part of me as what I in fact do look like. I don’t want to buy into patriarchal bullshit, but I don’t want to disown what I want, either. ![]() It feels cheap to say, ‘Ah, just want yourself! Just love yourself!’ Just stop wanting what you’ve always wanted! JUST GIVE UP.įuck that. I feel like I’m damned if I do - because how stupid, right, to want something that I know is rigged, that I know is stupid, that I know is arbitrary, that I have never approved of? And damned if I don’t, because I have never looked the way I wanted, and it’s hard for me to say if the reason I haven’t is because I am actually a coward afraid to look like I tried? Now that I am 31, I wonder if I will ever be … not even beautiful, but something that I want to be. Ultimately the reason I wanted to write you was because I spend every day of this pandemic looking at my double-chinned face on Google Hangouts, and I think about how my entire life, I have wanted not to be morbidly obese. ![]() And when I hear you say to never settle for lukewarm, I think: thumos. I am sad, but I am also angry, and anger has saved me. Is someone telling you that you’re not worth it? Blast Kanye and walk out on that motherfucker and preserve yourself. Are you about to feel shame that you’re not who you thought you were? Preserve the self you thought you were and change. I studied academic philosophy for a time, and there is a word, thumos, for the courage-loving, angry part of your mind, which rises up literally and figuratively in self-preservation. Why? When I read your columns, so often I find a voice that reminds me of the best voice in me. Let me say the obligatory things first: This is going to be a mess, and there is no one problem, and I am an enduring fan of yours.
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