not your dirge, not your girl
I yelled at Jeff. He yelled back. Now he isn't speaking to me. We've fought more in the past few months than we ever did when we were actually dating. Justin might be right--Jeff is in a different mind space. Well, I believe the phrase was, "a big baby." Although more blunt than I choose to call the situation, the truth is, I think I'm too emotionally unstable about it all. Actions breed guilt which breed self-loathing. It's a vicious cycle that started the second I allowed Pat Fowler into my life. Because a person doesn't like me, I flaw myself, and figure I'm the problem. There's no matter of who is the problem, there's a matter of communication and compatibility. To some degree, I still don't allow myself to deserve good treatment. I mean, the only people I tend to gravitate to, are people who shun me. It's during the shunning process that I grow tenacious and even a little wild.
It's really unhealthy.
I feel shame. Deep shame. About my sexuality, about my body, about my mind (at times). This shame comes and goes, is fluid. I need to read Leslie Jamison's chapters on female pain again. We are taught that our pain is invalid. Or that our emotional expressions are forms of weakness. My outburst at Jeff is a way of saying, "I really care about you and it's driving me crazy." He saw, "I'm crazy and get angry for no reason." It's a common misconception for straight men to view female behavior this way. To see it as a phase, a result of being "hormonal" or "self-centered." In this culture, we (ladies) are taught that our emotions are a way of giving up power. That any harm we do to ourselves or accept from others is a matter to be "solved" by way of therapy or drugs. Or both. What if it's a direct result of having been treated our whole lives like our voices are just a little bit less important?
Sometimes I wonder if all the anger I had as a kid was a reaction to being told over and over that I couldn't do things. When you don't have language to express how that makes you feel, you might go on a rampage and destroy your room, tear the mattress from the bed and sweep everything from the dresser. Yank everything hanging in the closet from its hanger. Chaos. Disorder. A way to fight a system you don't understand.
Fuck, I still don't understand it. When I see how Jeff reacts to how ladies express themselves or the way he comments on women's bodies (even in jest), I do wonder whether or not he truly gets what he's saying. "I'd like to put a baby in her. Put my penis in her." He finds humor in jokes that are at a woman's expense. Our culture teaches us these things are funny. That if I get upset about these jokes, I'm overly sensitive or an asshole. Sit back and chew your food, girl, because you haven't been given permission to eat the same thing we are eating.
I didn't mean for this to turn into a conversation about gender identity, but I guess the older I get, the more I have to consider how my unhappiness is a direct result of having a series of identity crises because I've never really fit anywhere. When I get close, I still begin to feel boxed in. Not a girl, not a dyke or just white, not a body that measures up, not a headmonster. Fuck all your expectations.
Thank fuck I have Kyle to talk to about this stuff. I know he gets a sense of relief when he talks to folks about these things and he has more avenues of dialogue (so it seems).
This all boils down to: I should stop being upset with myself. Should stop having high expectations for situations due to my own insecurities bred by those very situations. This is not who I want to be anymore--someone who avoids physical comfort. Someone who avoids letting people, someone who avoids letting the right ones in.
In Palm Springs this weekend, I rested my head on Adam's shoulder and walked hand in hand with Robert. It's these men who defy gender expectations and who defy what society has asked of them I feel most drawn to. If I could go back to the splitting of my embryo, I often wish the androgens would come a calling and that I could navigate this world as a man who wants men, a man who wants women. But mostly, I want to scrap that and navigate this world as a person who wants other people who don't see people through lenses, binaries, and boxes on consensus forms.
It's really unhealthy.
I feel shame. Deep shame. About my sexuality, about my body, about my mind (at times). This shame comes and goes, is fluid. I need to read Leslie Jamison's chapters on female pain again. We are taught that our pain is invalid. Or that our emotional expressions are forms of weakness. My outburst at Jeff is a way of saying, "I really care about you and it's driving me crazy." He saw, "I'm crazy and get angry for no reason." It's a common misconception for straight men to view female behavior this way. To see it as a phase, a result of being "hormonal" or "self-centered." In this culture, we (ladies) are taught that our emotions are a way of giving up power. That any harm we do to ourselves or accept from others is a matter to be "solved" by way of therapy or drugs. Or both. What if it's a direct result of having been treated our whole lives like our voices are just a little bit less important?
Sometimes I wonder if all the anger I had as a kid was a reaction to being told over and over that I couldn't do things. When you don't have language to express how that makes you feel, you might go on a rampage and destroy your room, tear the mattress from the bed and sweep everything from the dresser. Yank everything hanging in the closet from its hanger. Chaos. Disorder. A way to fight a system you don't understand.
Fuck, I still don't understand it. When I see how Jeff reacts to how ladies express themselves or the way he comments on women's bodies (even in jest), I do wonder whether or not he truly gets what he's saying. "I'd like to put a baby in her. Put my penis in her." He finds humor in jokes that are at a woman's expense. Our culture teaches us these things are funny. That if I get upset about these jokes, I'm overly sensitive or an asshole. Sit back and chew your food, girl, because you haven't been given permission to eat the same thing we are eating.
I didn't mean for this to turn into a conversation about gender identity, but I guess the older I get, the more I have to consider how my unhappiness is a direct result of having a series of identity crises because I've never really fit anywhere. When I get close, I still begin to feel boxed in. Not a girl, not a dyke or just white, not a body that measures up, not a headmonster. Fuck all your expectations.
Thank fuck I have Kyle to talk to about this stuff. I know he gets a sense of relief when he talks to folks about these things and he has more avenues of dialogue (so it seems).
This all boils down to: I should stop being upset with myself. Should stop having high expectations for situations due to my own insecurities bred by those very situations. This is not who I want to be anymore--someone who avoids physical comfort. Someone who avoids letting people, someone who avoids letting the right ones in.
In Palm Springs this weekend, I rested my head on Adam's shoulder and walked hand in hand with Robert. It's these men who defy gender expectations and who defy what society has asked of them I feel most drawn to. If I could go back to the splitting of my embryo, I often wish the androgens would come a calling and that I could navigate this world as a man who wants men, a man who wants women. But mostly, I want to scrap that and navigate this world as a person who wants other people who don't see people through lenses, binaries, and boxes on consensus forms.