When I moved to Seattle, I stopped breathing.
My body tensed to hold its shape at every moment and granted my lungs room for little more than feeble panting. I rarely sang; I couldn’t through the anaphylaxis that cinched my throat ever more closed: choking, clawing, collapsing. Gravel grew in the walls of my esophagus building grit into my voice, straining the chambers I had once bathed so dotingly in tenderness, suppleness, calm. I used to boom unburdened, burst from the gut and bellow a mile, open channel like a beacon. I used to coo so softly and sweet, an…
Today is apparently the day the levy breaks.
Alone in my Seattle apartment as the sun went down, not knowing where to start with packing all of my belongings away, and trying so hard to stay positive in the midst of all of this sheer insanity we’re living through right now... I started crying. Staring at the tiny words and videos in my hand, hearing voices of warning through speakers, I started crying. And I haven’t been able to stop.
A compassionate reminder about maintaining and strengthening relationships when it’s uncomfortable to do so.
Boundaries are often painted in a somewhat negative light. They are portrayed as something that keeps people separate from one another, that indicates a disconnect in a relationship, or creates a limitation in interaction. “Oh, I just can’t talk about politics with my family.” “I can only spend time with so-and-so in a group setting.” “I’d love to hang out, but I don’t want to be around drinking.” There’s a general sense that the boundary is due to an offending party or to a personal weakness, that it’s a way to manage a difficult person or avoid an undesirable situation.
…
I had so many plans for the day. Actual house-leaving to do and errands to run. Now, I will completely restructure today’s aims for both physical and emotional reasons whilst my lady bits throw a surprise and violent bitch-fest-tantrum because their biological imperative doesn’t align with my personal world view and prioritized life goals.
And if that isn’t the epitome of womanhood and why we’re miraculous beasts for ever getting anything done ever, I don’t know what is.
Anytime something is achieved by a uterus-containing body, the world should be made uncomfortably aware that one quarter of that shit was done under extreme physical duress and in bloodshed.
Like, that’s just going to be my response when congratulated about anything here forward:
“Thank…
Just because we may be doing our best, doesn’t mean that we don’t shake shrapnel from our skin now and again which may embed itself in the flesh of those nearest to us. Shedding pain doesn’t make us villains, but the more pain that we try to shove out of ourselves by force, the more pain we are likely to cause, both in re-opening our own wounds and in creating new injuries for others. Even those of us with zero malicious intent can be very harmful.
For a time not at all long ago, I was feeling very much so…
