Radio Dada

I don’t care anymore if I make sense. People are as opaque to me as I am to them.

Dilemmas.

I’m really tired.

So bad.

Ranty McRanterson rant-style with a side of rant.

Like the forest fire that keeps burning and defies containment, sabotages everything. The horror movie villain in my life.

Fatigued beyond recognition.

Trying to stay on the rails through this next bit. I’m too tired for this shit.

It would take a miracle. Maybe I’m not unlovable or unworthy of love. For the right person, any amount of effort, any effort, felt right & reciprocated. Shame ebbed, and it became easier to dodge shame traps and come home to each other. That was home. Not a place, not a time, not an identity, the two of us more than the sum of our parts together. And our little dog, too. That’s not a kind of thing one can pin down and search for. And maybe there can be only one. Only one person in a lifetime that can make a home for me. For everyone else, I’m not real, or a whole person, and there’s always something about me that’s too much or not enough. So it seems. So it goes. What am I fighting for? What am I living for? My heart, my soul, my language is dead, and I’ve forgotten how to love, to fly. I’ve forgotten what peace, safety, flow, inspiration feel like. Definitely forgotten any sense of hope, or faith in other people, or anything at all that I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t want to fall into more oubliettes of compromise that suck my soul dry. I don’t want what I live with to be dictated by the max of what I can tolerate on a good day. Or what people addicted to money and labour believe I deserve. I can’t explain. Explaining doesn’t do any good, other than to provide people an excuse to justify their choices and feelings where I’m concerned. So I feel shame, a blow upon a bruise. I’m not all I can be when I’m in pain, fear, shame, neglect. I can be more, with kindness, gentleness, patience, support for the abilities and strengths I lack. These are capacities and invisible internal strengths that also take time, tending, exercising for people to cultivate. The shitty thing is one can’t tell by looking whether someone is strong inside or weak, just as one can’t see if someone is suffering or in pain until it’s gotten really bad. I wish there was a way to see the beacon of a strong, loving soul burning in spite of it all, to call in those who want to develop that way too. We hide our love and our pain away, and words can’t prove what’s inside or not.

Pain makes me grumpy. I get misanthropic around high-stakes conversations. Underneath every complaint is an unmet need. I’m triggered to an overtired earlier version of me who resents having to be the adultier adult or fall back on whining or making others feel guilty or bad or sorry for me in order to get my needs met. Basic, basic needs, access needs. I’m sick of explaining, it wastes my time. People play keep-away with doing the right behaviours by insisting I prove to their satisfaction my truth, and my need. That’s not how this works, as adults. I have inalienable rights, and non-negotiable needs. Whether you like it or not. Explaining gives you more opportunities to pout and resist. A recent Captain Awkward letter springs to mind, about not getting distracted from the main goal by the ‘educate me’ side quest. Also known as a derailing tactic, from the marvellous ‘Derailing for Dummies’ website. Oh, that vexatious Lucy-with-the-football-and-Charlie-Brown predicament. The implied bait of, “If you just said it right, in the right way at the right time which is convenient for me, with the right tone, I would understand, believe you, and do ask you request.” It’s the grown-up version of, “Make me.”