I love having a blog that no one reads. I have been blogging for over 20 years now, since 1998, when I moved to New York and solidified zines as my preferred mode of contact, but it was right as the internet was becoming a preferred mode of contact for everyone else in the world. I'm talking diaryland and livejournal, and a geocities website for my zine, arrowed, that probably never got more than 200 views, ever.
There is something about the anonymity of the internet, much like that of living in NYC that is public performance, but also just a small cog in a machine. I appreciate that I could still go look at archives of my writing, even though it's been 20 years and I have no desire to actually see how terrible and dramatic my writing was/still is.
I have been writing for a few months now about missing people, and tomorrow I will have the chance to see a few of my favorites, for the first time in forever. It's so hard that I have friends who are so close in proximity and I can't get it together enough to make plans. Or I make plans and flake on them. I feel terrible about this, but I'm having such a hard time being able to manage my rest and self-care, mothering two rambunctious, smart and sassy kids, working a demanding job with my students, elbows deep in grief and transitions back to my original home, from my adult home. I cannot find the space for being in public yet, because I don't have positive or nice things to say, it's been a shitty year, this year is probably going to be shitty, too, and I just don't have the energy for small talk, even with my favorite people.
I am doing a campaign with my peer mediators at work that is about mental health awareness, and it's made me all too aware of how I am not okay. I repeat this like mantra "you are not okay, but you're worth it" to myself, because like my mantra to my children, I need to recognize and be grateful for just where I am. When one is at a low in life, it is important to slow down, show gratitude and tuck in. I am hiding from the storm a bit, but I'm also living right in the middle of it and watching life whirl around me. I am not in control, I am not in control and I don't need to be the master of my surroundings, just need to slow down enough to hear my breath, hear my heartbeat and focus on the beauty of its existence.
The political climate will never stop being pathetic fallacy for this terrible, until we impeach this nationalistic dictator cartoon character. His buffoonery masks how lethal he is. Holding American lives hostage, in the balance, for a structure built to separate and divide. We already broke the walls down, and will have to tear them down again, but white supremacists don't learn from history and keep wanting their story to be the persistent tale of victors. But the people have always been the source and root of power, and they still are. We are awakening. We are taking seats in positions of power, building businesses, owning our visions, divesting from capitalism, learning how to make and grow and be without that which they are selling us.
I miss being lolo, but I'm still her. Just a little quieter, three shades lighter in the course of living.
