I’m listening to “Just A Geek” on bandcamp as I’m doing homework and I’m wondering: do you ever do that thing where you just tear yourself down inside your head with everything negative that’s ever happened to you and every mistake you’ve made just to make yourself suffer? Like you suddenly become your own worst enemy for the simple sick satisfaction of watching yourself fall. I know I’ve made a terrible habit of it, though I try my damnedest to stop.
Yep. A big part of that is my Depression being a jerk, and part of it is just how I’m wired.
The thing is, reflecting on mistakes is a great way to learn from them, and grow as a person. The trick is to recognize when that reflection stops being useful and becomes self-destructive. That’s not always easy, because the part of your consciousness that you use to separate rational from irrational can be stuck in an irrational loop, and it can be a real challenge to break out of it.
Look: we all mess up. We all do things we regret. We all hurt people when we don’t mean to, and we all hurt ourselves (or allow ourselves to be hurt) when we wish we would have protected ourselves. The difference between Good People and Bad People is reflecting on those times, making amends when necessary, and doing our best not to mess up next time.
My mother had three pregnancies, and two children. She had a miscarriage, between my brother and I, in that four year span between our births, there was another pregnancy, another child desperately wanted, who didn’t live to term.
My mother had her pre-natal care, and her post-miscarriage care, at Planned Parenthood.
Because it was the best place for her. Because at the time, she had a two year old child and a bike and they were living just around that nice little sweet spot between ‘desperately poor’ and ‘almost have enough to consider a savings account.‘ And when you are poor, and female, and need health services, Planned Parenthood is there.
And my mother walked past the protesters, walked past the people who screamed at her about not killing her baby, about how she was a whore, and she was going to hell. My mother, in mourning for a child that she had lost, blaming herself, hating herself for failing at this most feminine of things, walked through that, to care for herself, to get the medical care she needed. So that someday, two years later, she could have me.
I cannot speak to the courage that must have taken. But that path is walked by thousands of women. Every single day.
She donated to Planned Parenthood until her death. And she said to me, that the people who screamed at her saw her only as a vessel for a baby. They didn’t care about her, they didn’t care about her baby, either. They were pro-birth, not pro-life, because none of them would be there after her baby was born, to offer help and support and care.
The protesters didn’t care about her. And the medical professionals inside did. It is the right of every woman to have access to safe, affordable, quality health care, no matter where she comes from, what her income is, or what choices she makes with her life. And that is what these kind of bills are attempting to take away.
Make friends with people who aren’t your age. Hang out with people whose first language isn’t the same as yours. Get to know someone who doesn’t doesn’t come from your social class. This is how you see the world. This is how you grow.
note to self (via c0ntemplations)
Here is the secret to fandom:
Give zero fucks about what anyone else is doing.
Seriously. I mean it. Because inevitably you will love something that no one else loves. Or you will love something that everyone loves and people will shit all over it because it’s “so trite and unimaginative and done.” Or you will love something that no one else has ever heard of. Or you will love something dark and edgy and or obscure and people will roll their eyes and say, “What, do you want people to think you’re dark and edgy and obscure?”
Alternatively, you will not love the thing that everyone else loves, and you will wonder what precisely is wrong with you that the sight of that thing is aggravating the shit out of you now when the whole world sings its praises as one.
People will irritate you. They’ll irritate you with headcanons that make no sense and misinterpretations of canon. They will make the same jokes 500 times. They will overwhelm your corner of fandom with something you either are tired of hearing about or don’t care about. They will post art that isn’t theirs. You will meet people who think you are the greatest person ever and bombard you with messages only to wander off when they find someone new or shinier; you will meet people whom you admire and who do not really seem to notice you exist.
So give zero fucks about it. Seriously. Like what you like, blacklist what you need to blacklist, and ignore everything else. Be friends, play nice, enjoy it. And in the meantime, just do you. Like what you like, love what you love, and to hell with all the rest of it.
Reminder to self:
Your writing seems boring and predictable because
- You wrote it
- You’ve read it like eight million times.
A person who has never read it before does not have this problem.
I’M FEELING LIKE ALL OF MY LIFE’S STRUGGLES HAVE BEEN SOLVED
