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BLOGGING: ThERE AND BACK AGAIN
Jan. 9th, 2025 06:41 pmwell I didn't expect a family tragedy to completely upend everything in the middle of December, resulting in a several-week burnout of travel, work, and holiday exhaustion. attempting to come back to Blogging: The Experiment while allowing myself not to write an old-school diary entry detailing every adventure and aspect of the last month as if it's going to be plot-relevant later has been an arduous task for my brain. however, I want this experiment to stick, so here I am, trying again.
.
I've felt so at odds lately, as if I'm trying to think on eight trains at once and succeeding at none of them, scattered and newly anxious, worried I don't remember where any of my arms and legs are, the way you get when you're feeling overstimulated in a crowded room and are afraid of elbowing someone in the eye because you're not good at operating your body right now, but on a spiritual level. it only occurred to me after some worried ruminating that in the past year I've made more deliberate changes to my life, my presentation, and my operation of self than I ever have before. small changes, many of them, and most without a lot of forethought about how they were Changes, which would result in Things Changing. still, so many small changes -- what shoes I wear every day, what my face looks like, what I might answer to a question about my interests and hobbies and daily or weekly activities, what name I am called, what my political beliefs are and with whom I make connections and solidarity -- that I feel like quite a different person at the beginning of 2025 than I did at the beginning of 2024.
I shaved my eyebrows, changed my haircut, pierced my septum, got a tattoo, slowly altered what my everyday earring cluster looks like (not a Real Change, but one that shows up in photos as a shift in what Everyday Ordinary Me appears as), changed my goddamn name, got tattooed, became an anarchist, joined the I.W.W., changed my perception about what I am and am not smart enough or physically capable of doing and along with that what I might consider myself smart enough or physically capable of trying to do in the future. I like what most of these changes have done to me -- all of them, probably, but I leave a little room for error and cream and sugar. it's still disorienting. I worry people will like me less; I worry about alienating my partner, despite them pursuing and developing many of the same interests and types of growth alongside me, and an interest in not remaining static one of the primary tenets of our relationship and shared ethics. I feel more solid, more aware of myself, but in ways that also make me feel much more adrift, frightened of all the work I'll have to do, frightened of the things this new me will have to unlearn and relearn and reject, the old aspects of myself that will no longer be tenable now that my self is less of a blurry smear I change into shapes that other people might find acceptable, or that might allow me to fit into spaces, out of spaces, slither into corners undetected and undeterred.
anyway, this cake is great. the snow has started out the window of the cafe I'm typing from. I love you. I think I like who I'm becoming, it's not like I can stop it now.
.
I've felt so at odds lately, as if I'm trying to think on eight trains at once and succeeding at none of them, scattered and newly anxious, worried I don't remember where any of my arms and legs are, the way you get when you're feeling overstimulated in a crowded room and are afraid of elbowing someone in the eye because you're not good at operating your body right now, but on a spiritual level. it only occurred to me after some worried ruminating that in the past year I've made more deliberate changes to my life, my presentation, and my operation of self than I ever have before. small changes, many of them, and most without a lot of forethought about how they were Changes, which would result in Things Changing. still, so many small changes -- what shoes I wear every day, what my face looks like, what I might answer to a question about my interests and hobbies and daily or weekly activities, what name I am called, what my political beliefs are and with whom I make connections and solidarity -- that I feel like quite a different person at the beginning of 2025 than I did at the beginning of 2024.
I shaved my eyebrows, changed my haircut, pierced my septum, got a tattoo, slowly altered what my everyday earring cluster looks like (not a Real Change, but one that shows up in photos as a shift in what Everyday Ordinary Me appears as), changed my goddamn name, got tattooed, became an anarchist, joined the I.W.W., changed my perception about what I am and am not smart enough or physically capable of doing and along with that what I might consider myself smart enough or physically capable of trying to do in the future. I like what most of these changes have done to me -- all of them, probably, but I leave a little room for error and cream and sugar. it's still disorienting. I worry people will like me less; I worry about alienating my partner, despite them pursuing and developing many of the same interests and types of growth alongside me, and an interest in not remaining static one of the primary tenets of our relationship and shared ethics. I feel more solid, more aware of myself, but in ways that also make me feel much more adrift, frightened of all the work I'll have to do, frightened of the things this new me will have to unlearn and relearn and reject, the old aspects of myself that will no longer be tenable now that my self is less of a blurry smear I change into shapes that other people might find acceptable, or that might allow me to fit into spaces, out of spaces, slither into corners undetected and undeterred.
anyway, this cake is great. the snow has started out the window of the cafe I'm typing from. I love you. I think I like who I'm becoming, it's not like I can stop it now.
