Literary Escape

I cannot write on days when it feels like I need to escape. I kept that feeling at bay yesterday until evening, but gave into it before bed. I’m still getting yelled at a lot, for things that I can’t avoid. I know you’re having your own hard time with feels you can’t do all at once. But we’ve got to get to a better place. One where I can write and sleep and do my day job sometime before never. We’ve gotten control of our schedules again but there are still big feels between where we are and where we need to be. Let’s take time for them, in chunks as you can handle, instead of hoping something external makes them better.

You told me a good story about the importance of other people’s reactions, about keeping, and about home. You believed me when I imagined a way you might react, which makes it easier for me to believe that you don’t hate being seen by me. But mostly it was good just to have talked. We don’t always. I believe that you pay attention to me, but we only sometimes talk, and so I only sometimes get your reactions.

I don’t know how to get people to react to me, other than by creating a crisis. I’m still a 3-year-old yelling repeatedly for someone to pay attention. When I was actually 3 no one ever did, or when they did the reaction they offered was punishment. These days few people are foolish enough to imagine I can be punished, but I still don’t get good reactions. Stunned silence is a pretty common one, or other forms of being overwhelmed or fearful or disgusted. Or just disinterest, where there’s no reaction at all. Which I understand, because my life is not always great, and I can’t expect people to always be up for dealing with it. But it’s hard when the first step in any interaction about my self is for me to help you be okay with it. It does not make it easy to believe that my existence is actually okay – my existence seems sort of upsetting to most people most of the time, like it was when I was 3. And it makes it really hard to get help or reassurance, because just explaining my feels can make people want to run, even if I’m not asking for much support.

Here’s a no context picture of me with inflatable wings and electronic ears. They don’t fit my head. Nothing fits my head.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.