Cleveland Socks

My anxiety is high today, as I leave Cleveland. I’m ready to be home, but sad to go for a bunch of reasons. And the travel and waiting and transitions and worry are making me downright twitchy. It’s easy for me to feel like my anxiety is about work but that’s not really true, or at least only half true. That’s just the thing with deadlines. The thing the world tells me that I must “succeed” at to deserve to live or take care of the people I love. The thing it’s easy to dump all of my other worry onto.

I am slightly worried about work. There are a couple of bits from last week that I didn’t get done, and would have liked to. One of them is possibly a thing I should take off my plate – one of those things I should be looking to actively divest from because it’s part of the ever-growing list of demands to increase the amount of work I do. It’s at least a thing I should write a program to do. But that’s a hard thing to decide when I’m anxious already – to drop a thing I talked about getting done and in theory could do. The other is a real task that I legitimately couldn’t get done last week, and that doesn’t have a real deadline, but it’s still an easy thing to hang my anxiety on because it’s “work” and it’s not done.

A more existential fear driving my anxiety has to do with the way that work defines my life. I’m not attached to my job as a definition of who I am directly. I’d give it up in a second if I didn’t need the money. But I’ve come to realize that I see providing money is a decent chunk of the way I understand my value to others. That because I know how to steal from rich people in a way that others don’t it’s my duty to do so, at least if I hope to be useful.and useful is often the best thing I can imagine being.

That of course ties into the way work is a default target for my anxiety, because not maximizing my heist on the capitalist class is evidence that I don’t care. That I’m won’t be able to take care of the people who depend on me. It feels like I risk becoming useless – or even a burden – on the people I love if I were to go 3 days without at least one job (which I haven’t done anytime in the past 23 years), or stop agreeing to all the bullshit that lets me steal faster from F5. So abdonment fears about my value to others, to go with my survival fears about not having enough myself.

I’m also feeling pressure about money. I haven’t really figured out how to fund life in Cleveland on top of the other bits. The month to month but I think will work out eventually but the setup bits and the travel are still just floating. I’m not at risk of not making rent or anything drastic, but I am at tapping retirement funds. And the patriarchy spends a lot of time telling me to feel bad about that. Telling me I’ll never ber secure if I do. Literally financially punishing me for needing access to money I earned and saved before I’m super old ¹This is pretty typical for buying entry into the capitalist class or formerly the aristocracy. It’s also common for immigration (i.e. Colonialism). You have to prove that you don’t need money for some period of years. Once you do that you can have access to (some of the) benefits of the status, but you absolutely must not need money … Continue reading, and making the threat of working until I die if I want to not starve. Plus I have to talk to the fucking Edward Jones sales drone about how I’m a bad person and he thinks this is a bad idea and taxes, taxes, taxes.

I know it’s not sensible to feel that way, given my goals. And for the most part I don’t; I’m quite happy with my ongoing plan of giving away money before it’s saved (which is why I only have retirement savings). But the retirement stuff is so ingrained in me. It’s the one thing Pete has ever talked to me about – retirement and related taxes. I read that now as 1%er nonsense but historically it felt like the one way I might ever be able to see him be proud ²Though obviously that never happened. Could never happen because he has never respected me and probably can’t for anything I’d care to be proud of myself. The latest season of iZombie where crazy dad comes back from the well and finally is proud of his son now that son is finally (reluctantly) a proper villain feels very relatable. … Continue reading of me. So it’s easy feel bad about it when I’m anxious. When I’m worried about taking care of people. When my job feels like a burden I am not prepared to sacrifice more and more for over the next few decades.

I also realize that I need to demand more from my job. For a while that’s been demanding that it doesn’t take so much time and effort, and that’s mostly been going fine. But I should also demand that it do things I like instead if simply tolerating it every week. Not caring about my job – seeing it as a way to relieve rich assholes of money – is a great start. But I should be doing that in a way that serves my other goals more directly, rather than just finding them.

In the short term, I should do more to pay attention to the actual form of my anxiety, and not just let it attach to work. I do a good job keeping it off other people. Maybe too good a job. I’m worried about hurting them with it – a worry I don’t have about anxiety pointed at work. But it’s eaiser to deal with if I have a better idea what it’s really about. And I don’t want to let myself get into avoidance of work over something that isn’t even work-related. I’ve got plenty of legitimate anxiety about work so I don’t need to make any up.

Travel itself is very hard on me. Not just in the physical sense, which is definitely a factor, but for lots of other reasons. Being trapped and unable to run away is hard for me. Being subject to enhanced scrutiny by people threatening violence is real hard too – I do okay passing as normal many days but I can’t live up to careful inspection ³Beyond the fear that my non-compliant status will be discovered and I will be punished for it, I also have to give up some of the things that I use for comfort, like access to my knife and (at least for periods) even water, let alone the supplies I’d actually need if this plane trip didn’t go well. Or if when I got to my destination I … Continue reading, at least not very often. And of course it triggers my abandonment feels, even if there no abandonment happening. I going home to my wife and dog but it still feels like it did in 2003 when I was going back to Ames and the den of isolation I had there. The place I went to be sure I wasn’t hurting anyone else too badly.

I’m ready to be home, and I’m confident that M will do fine without me (probably better once I stop stressing you so much), but it’s still anxious for me. Not because I think things will fall apart without me but because I might fall apart without them. When I’m in Cleveland it’s easier for me to believe that I have value outside of providing money or logistical safety. And there are the guinea pigs that snuggle my beard in a way Dog cannot (at the cost of constant supervision and the statistical certainly that you will be peed on). And of course it’s hard it leave the people you love. It’s hard enough not to worry when I can see you every day; it kills me a little to go days without being able to see past your sunglasses.

DerbyK is having a bit of a hard time (or at least was last time we talked; it’s been a couple of days). Feeling beaten down by the relentless parade of shit that’s in their life right now. And guilty about being there, like it’s their fault the world is terrible. I know there’s nothing I can do to just make it better, but I am at least trying to help you feel like your not being punished for bad actions. Punishment is a form of intentional pain authority uses to demand compliance. But there’s no authority here and even if there were punishment is itself unethical ⁴I’d argue that authority is also inherently unethical, but that’s outside the scope for today. These have already all been too long..

In the general case we’re asked by society to feel ashamed when things aren’t going well, so that society doesn’t have to bear responsibility for the way it tolerates harm – we’re asked to believe that bad things happen to bad people. But that’s clearly nonsense that people I power use to justify their abuses. And in your specific case shame is dialed up to 25 even for minor issues because the people in power are extra afraid of the topic. But remember that the assholes in charge are “in control” in the same way that Skip is “in control” – only because they’re dicks and we too often let them get away with it. So don’t. Protect yourself from their attempts at punishment but don’t accept their shame. It’s not for you. Not anymore.

I had a good day both Saturday and Sunday. I got to help M with a bunch of papers, which I really like doing, and to talk about your school plans. Those both help me feel like I’m useful and wanted, and like you’re not afraid to share at least one important part of your life with me. I got all my household chores done and learned about The Dome of the Rock and even got invited to play in the snow. It’s been a long time since I played in the snow – sort of a long time since I was even in snow – and it was lots of fun.

I got to hear about the way you stood up to – continue to stand up to – oppression even when it’s popular and widely tolerated. About the way you careully consider the causes of harm so as to allow people their freedom while still expecting them to be better. We got to eat two cheese pots and some chocolate fondue on an impromptu basis. I still don’t think the gummy bear martini was a wise choice but I drank Hot Damn 100 regularly in my 20s so I probably shouldn’t talk. I even got to snuggle by your feet and be weepy for a minute while Eggsy smoked us out before bed, and that helped today go better. It was great to get a quiet minute to talk about leaving and think about the ways you’ve helped me.

I talked to Don on the train today, after he borrowed my phone. About mental illness – his and mine, and the way I was dealing with it by giving people the help I never got. About the way society fucks with us just for trying to stay alive and exert a modicum of control in a world that tells us we think and want the wrong things. It was a little talking to a crazy person on the train but it was actually a really great way to tamp down my anxiety, and I’m so glad he shared with me. I sort of wish I had grabbed his number. I would at least liked to have thanked him. But he seemed glad to talk regardless and I’m happy we could make each other’s day a little better.

I’m almost to MSP. Less than half way home but almost done with the heightened scrutiny and tracking and hurry-up-and-wait bits. Still more being tapped and isolated but the next stop should be in WA state and from there I can escape. I would go to Ike’s for a malt while I’m here but Shanda tells me it’s permanently closed since last time I was through, which is a significant disappointment. Maybe I can find someplace else quiet to hide for half an hour before my next aluminum tube excursion. And to read my own writing to see where my feels are after all this venting.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.