(no subject)
At the end of my first full year in fandom - 2003 - I found myself in the very same chair where I sit right now, writing "Thanks and Thoughts About my Year in Slash." As I wrote that night, for a variety of reasons I'm not usually given to looking back over the past year and counting my blessings, or looking to the new year and making plans or goals. But that year, for the first time, I felt a compulsion to somehow mark the passing of the year and what it had meant to me, because finding slash fandom was such a monumental thing for me. It changed my life, changed me, and I didn't want to let the year end without acknowledging it.
That first "end of year" post came straight from my heart - unplanned; something I just had to get out - but at the end of the next year I found myself wanting to do it again. And since then it's become sort of a tradition for me, to sit here and ramble on about my feelings about fandom at the end of the year. I fear it's of little interest to most of you...but it's important to me to do it.
I considered not doing it this year. It's become more and more difficult for me to write my end-of-year post; it's felt more...forced or something the last year or two. Last year I wrote that I seem to grow more embarrassed each year about revealing and expressing yet again the relentless sentimentality of my feelings about fandom, and that's part of it. But part of it is that...I don't feel quite so sentimental anymore. In past years I've described my end-of-year posts as my love letters to fandom - memorializing my deep and abiding gratefulness for the people and community I've found here. And I don't feel inspired to do that this year. Not that I don't love it or feel grateful - I do. But I just can't write the kind of post I have in the past, because, disturbingly, I find myself at the end of this year feeling more...disconnected from the community, and the people - and as important, from my feelings about those things - than I have since that first serendipitous discovery.
Why? It's a tough question. But I realized as I thought about it that while perhaps I don't want to write a fannish love letter this year, there are things I want to write - for myself, if nothing else; maybe not so much to talk about the past year for its own sake, as I have in other years, but instead to help me see what's happened and to think about how to get to where I'd rather be.
It's been a hard year for me in a number of ways, some of them more obvious and easy for me to understand than others. Every year I sit and write this post down at our beach house in North Carolina, watching the waves crash - though no crashing this year; it's blue and calm and sunny - but this is the first year that little Arnold hasn't been on my lap as I've composed. Last year I wrote, "Arnold the miracle renal kitty somehow continues to thrive, and every day is a gift" - and oh how I wish I could write those words again this year...if only I could will it so. But this year the luck ran out. It's been 5 1/2 months since I lost him, and sometimes I still can't believe he's not coming back; sometimes I still miss him with such a sharp and terrible ache. Merlin is a wonderful new addition to the family, a real sweetheart, and I really love all of them - but sometimes I look at my little cat family, and it feels...all wrong. For so many, many years Gwenny was the matriarch and Arnold was my little snippet; they were the backbone. All the others came after them. Koko was the "baby," and now he's the old man. This horrible feeling of loss...the other, and inevitable, side of the joy of having animals, and there are days I ask myself whether it's worth it - I look at Merlin and Conan and all I can think is how they're going to get old and die, too; or I think about the fact that Griggs is almost 22, and it kills me. I suppose I must think it's worth it, because I keep doing it. It still hurts so much, though, and I still feel...fragile about it sometimes.
It was tough that I lost Arnold right at the time of Close Quarters. CQ was one of the really good things that happened this year, even though I was in a bit of a haze of fatigue and grief. It was a pretty grueling lead-up, and I felt more than once like giving up and wondered whether it was worth it, whether anyone really cared, but in the end, once it happened...I loved it. Being surrounded by people who share exactly my obsession, who wanted to talk about nothing else for three days - it was wonderful. Relaxed and relaxing, and it was so good to have the support of the friends who were helping me. I think the haze of fatigue and grief actually helped me in the end - I was too drained to worry overly much, or to be too anxious.
I also really loved doing Never Far Apart - the editing and the typesetting and working with authors and artists and putting the whole thing together. Especially the typesetting - I like typesetting! *g* And again, it was the friends helping me who made all the difference. It wasn't something I did myself, in isolation - and having friends, fellow fans to help and support and encourage and just lend an ear...that was what made it so worthwhile, so rewarding and gratifying.
There were other good times, most definitely - ZCon stands out in my mind also. But...I had some tough times in fandom too this year. Nothing that merits talking about here, nothing more or worse than any fan who's been around a while has experienced, but sometimes I let things get to me too much. And when I'm hurt or feel insecure or unhappy or threatened, or sometimes even just sad, my first, unconscious reaction is often to retreat. Like a turtle or hedgehog or something. And unfortunately, with me that's a bit of a slippery slope. My sense of connection - with people, with community - is generally fairly tenuous. One of the things I've loved about fandom, that I've written about so many times; one of the things I expressed profound gratefulness for in my early end-of-year posts, is the feeling of connection I found here. I was so overwhelmed and amazed by that - to find myself so involved, linked to people, sharing parts of myself I'd always kept hidden - being far more open than I'd ever been. So connected. It was magical.
But while I've been able to do it in fandom more than anywhere else in my life, reaching out still doesn't come easily or naturally to me, and it's very easy for me to revert to type. Connecting takes energy for me, and when I'm feeling down, sometimes I don't have it. And also...well, reaching out to friends for help with problems, or when I just need a comforting or kind word because something is making me feel bad, as I did for the first time in fandom, is one thing when those problems are external to fandom. It's a lot different when the things that are making me sad or anxious or insecure are things within the community - things I don't feel comfortable posting about or discussing publicly, things I don't feel I can share, just to make the burden easier, just so I'm not alone with it, just for the lift it gives to have friends respond with their empathy or sympathy or advice.
So this year, instead of reaching out I really found myself...retreating from the more public aspects of fandom, participating less and less and feeling more and more isolated. Which meant, of course, that I cut myself off from the very things I need, and want - the friends who could make me feel better; the community that makes me feel connected. Of course I could, and sometimes did, reach out to individual friends, but even there...the thing is, retreating builds on itself for me, because isolation feels "normal" for me: the more I retreat, the harder it becomes to reach out in any way, and the more unimaginable reaching out to anyone starts to seem; I tend to get overcome with inertia and withdraw more and more, until I almost forget what it was like to be any other way.
So that's where I find myself now. And I don't like it. I'm not happy here. Sure, not every aspect of fandom is good - but I've let the bad things get to me too much, and dug myself into a hole until I've almost forgotten what the sun looks like (I say almost - I have wonderful, and patient, friends who do constantly remind me why I love fandom so much, and who remind me that I'm not alone). It's not a matter of losing passion for the subject matter - I'm as obsessive a slasher, and a Pros fan, as ever, and the reading never stops; the private, solitary part of fandom isn't the issue. I still want to do it all - I have tons of stories I'm in the midst of scanning for the Archive, and authors I'd like to court or find to get their stories online, and thoughts for the next Never Far Apart zine; I have the hotel reserved for the next Close Quarters, and I have vids I want to remaster... But it's all kind of come to a bit of a standstill.
I was consciously trying to remember today of what it felt like, what I felt like, when I posted in my LJ four times a month, and people commented, and I responded, and I felt connected to them; when I was so much better at corresponding with people, and loved it; when I commented on stories and made sure I had every Pros fan's LJ friended. I loved the feeling of being part of all that - not that things were perfect, not that I never experienced anxiety, but I loved it. There's no going backwards - but I want to find a way to get that feeling again. I thought about it yesterday when all the Pros fans were talking about and watching Private Madness Public Danger, the first episode that was aired exactly thirty years ago. I felt...well, I marked the passage to myself, and reading all the posts gave me a good feeling, but it wasn't the same as being part of it myself in some way or other. And I missed that. I'm not the same as I was a year ago, or two, but still - I want to post more, to comment more, to email more, like I used to do; to not be alone with this passion. To...share more. Looking back at my descriptions up above of the things that were good about this year, fannishly, I see that what I focused on, what made them good, was the people - the connections. That's what fandom gives me that I get almost nowhere else; that's what I don't want to lose, what I want to regain.
I've never been one for making resolutions. I just don't tend to really systematically look ahead in that way - I don't set goals or think about where I want to be in a year, or five years, or whatever. I'm not sure if that is a product of my lifelong fight against feelings of hopelessness, futility, particularly with regard to thoughts of endings - the inexorability of the passage of time, of change; the ephemerality of...well, of everything. Or maybe it has to do with my sense that it's just about impossible to plan anything; life is always throwing curve balls, and it's stupid - it's hubris - to think I could make plans years into the future when everything could change at any minute. Hope is something I've always feared and never allowed myself. Or maybe it's some sort of native cynicism - "resolutions" made only because it happens to be the turning of the year aren't likely to last particularly long; it's hard to change, and anything I care enough to "resolve" to start doing is likely something I've been unable to do thus far - so it's unlikely I'm going to be able to start doing it just because of a resolution.
Can you resolve to "try" to start doing something, or is that cheating?
Anyway, this year, right now, I feel tired of the way things are, and I want to try to make some changes in the new year - for myself, because I need so much what fandom gives me. I want to try to get a little tougher: not to let the bad stuff get to me so much, or at least not to cut off my nose to spite my face - not to let it cause me to cut myself off from the good stuff. I want to try to find my way back to, and into, the community and the people I've loved so much and that have given me, that give me, so much. To do what it takes - sharing, working, contributing, corresponding, all of it - to regain that feeling of connection that's worth more than anything.
Is that a resolution? I don't know. Will I be able to do it? I don't know that either. But I want to.
And you know, I find at the end of this that I have a bit of gushing in me after all: for those of you who have reached out this year, in however minor a way, and so kept me feeling like there's still a place for me; and especially to the friends who keep doing it, who won't let me be an island, who remind me over and over again of all those things I wrote about in my early end-of-year posts, all those ways in which fandom changed my life, all those reasons I want to stay connected. You are wonderful, and I am so very grateful to you, and I have no adequate words for what your care means to me.
And on that note, I wish all of you a year filled with peace, happiness, friendship, and plenty of fannish love.
That first "end of year" post came straight from my heart - unplanned; something I just had to get out - but at the end of the next year I found myself wanting to do it again. And since then it's become sort of a tradition for me, to sit here and ramble on about my feelings about fandom at the end of the year. I fear it's of little interest to most of you...but it's important to me to do it.
I considered not doing it this year. It's become more and more difficult for me to write my end-of-year post; it's felt more...forced or something the last year or two. Last year I wrote that I seem to grow more embarrassed each year about revealing and expressing yet again the relentless sentimentality of my feelings about fandom, and that's part of it. But part of it is that...I don't feel quite so sentimental anymore. In past years I've described my end-of-year posts as my love letters to fandom - memorializing my deep and abiding gratefulness for the people and community I've found here. And I don't feel inspired to do that this year. Not that I don't love it or feel grateful - I do. But I just can't write the kind of post I have in the past, because, disturbingly, I find myself at the end of this year feeling more...disconnected from the community, and the people - and as important, from my feelings about those things - than I have since that first serendipitous discovery.
Why? It's a tough question. But I realized as I thought about it that while perhaps I don't want to write a fannish love letter this year, there are things I want to write - for myself, if nothing else; maybe not so much to talk about the past year for its own sake, as I have in other years, but instead to help me see what's happened and to think about how to get to where I'd rather be.
It's been a hard year for me in a number of ways, some of them more obvious and easy for me to understand than others. Every year I sit and write this post down at our beach house in North Carolina, watching the waves crash - though no crashing this year; it's blue and calm and sunny - but this is the first year that little Arnold hasn't been on my lap as I've composed. Last year I wrote, "Arnold the miracle renal kitty somehow continues to thrive, and every day is a gift" - and oh how I wish I could write those words again this year...if only I could will it so. But this year the luck ran out. It's been 5 1/2 months since I lost him, and sometimes I still can't believe he's not coming back; sometimes I still miss him with such a sharp and terrible ache. Merlin is a wonderful new addition to the family, a real sweetheart, and I really love all of them - but sometimes I look at my little cat family, and it feels...all wrong. For so many, many years Gwenny was the matriarch and Arnold was my little snippet; they were the backbone. All the others came after them. Koko was the "baby," and now he's the old man. This horrible feeling of loss...the other, and inevitable, side of the joy of having animals, and there are days I ask myself whether it's worth it - I look at Merlin and Conan and all I can think is how they're going to get old and die, too; or I think about the fact that Griggs is almost 22, and it kills me. I suppose I must think it's worth it, because I keep doing it. It still hurts so much, though, and I still feel...fragile about it sometimes.
It was tough that I lost Arnold right at the time of Close Quarters. CQ was one of the really good things that happened this year, even though I was in a bit of a haze of fatigue and grief. It was a pretty grueling lead-up, and I felt more than once like giving up and wondered whether it was worth it, whether anyone really cared, but in the end, once it happened...I loved it. Being surrounded by people who share exactly my obsession, who wanted to talk about nothing else for three days - it was wonderful. Relaxed and relaxing, and it was so good to have the support of the friends who were helping me. I think the haze of fatigue and grief actually helped me in the end - I was too drained to worry overly much, or to be too anxious.
I also really loved doing Never Far Apart - the editing and the typesetting and working with authors and artists and putting the whole thing together. Especially the typesetting - I like typesetting! *g* And again, it was the friends helping me who made all the difference. It wasn't something I did myself, in isolation - and having friends, fellow fans to help and support and encourage and just lend an ear...that was what made it so worthwhile, so rewarding and gratifying.
There were other good times, most definitely - ZCon stands out in my mind also. But...I had some tough times in fandom too this year. Nothing that merits talking about here, nothing more or worse than any fan who's been around a while has experienced, but sometimes I let things get to me too much. And when I'm hurt or feel insecure or unhappy or threatened, or sometimes even just sad, my first, unconscious reaction is often to retreat. Like a turtle or hedgehog or something. And unfortunately, with me that's a bit of a slippery slope. My sense of connection - with people, with community - is generally fairly tenuous. One of the things I've loved about fandom, that I've written about so many times; one of the things I expressed profound gratefulness for in my early end-of-year posts, is the feeling of connection I found here. I was so overwhelmed and amazed by that - to find myself so involved, linked to people, sharing parts of myself I'd always kept hidden - being far more open than I'd ever been. So connected. It was magical.
But while I've been able to do it in fandom more than anywhere else in my life, reaching out still doesn't come easily or naturally to me, and it's very easy for me to revert to type. Connecting takes energy for me, and when I'm feeling down, sometimes I don't have it. And also...well, reaching out to friends for help with problems, or when I just need a comforting or kind word because something is making me feel bad, as I did for the first time in fandom, is one thing when those problems are external to fandom. It's a lot different when the things that are making me sad or anxious or insecure are things within the community - things I don't feel comfortable posting about or discussing publicly, things I don't feel I can share, just to make the burden easier, just so I'm not alone with it, just for the lift it gives to have friends respond with their empathy or sympathy or advice.
So this year, instead of reaching out I really found myself...retreating from the more public aspects of fandom, participating less and less and feeling more and more isolated. Which meant, of course, that I cut myself off from the very things I need, and want - the friends who could make me feel better; the community that makes me feel connected. Of course I could, and sometimes did, reach out to individual friends, but even there...the thing is, retreating builds on itself for me, because isolation feels "normal" for me: the more I retreat, the harder it becomes to reach out in any way, and the more unimaginable reaching out to anyone starts to seem; I tend to get overcome with inertia and withdraw more and more, until I almost forget what it was like to be any other way.
So that's where I find myself now. And I don't like it. I'm not happy here. Sure, not every aspect of fandom is good - but I've let the bad things get to me too much, and dug myself into a hole until I've almost forgotten what the sun looks like (I say almost - I have wonderful, and patient, friends who do constantly remind me why I love fandom so much, and who remind me that I'm not alone). It's not a matter of losing passion for the subject matter - I'm as obsessive a slasher, and a Pros fan, as ever, and the reading never stops; the private, solitary part of fandom isn't the issue. I still want to do it all - I have tons of stories I'm in the midst of scanning for the Archive, and authors I'd like to court or find to get their stories online, and thoughts for the next Never Far Apart zine; I have the hotel reserved for the next Close Quarters, and I have vids I want to remaster... But it's all kind of come to a bit of a standstill.
I was consciously trying to remember today of what it felt like, what I felt like, when I posted in my LJ four times a month, and people commented, and I responded, and I felt connected to them; when I was so much better at corresponding with people, and loved it; when I commented on stories and made sure I had every Pros fan's LJ friended. I loved the feeling of being part of all that - not that things were perfect, not that I never experienced anxiety, but I loved it. There's no going backwards - but I want to find a way to get that feeling again. I thought about it yesterday when all the Pros fans were talking about and watching Private Madness Public Danger, the first episode that was aired exactly thirty years ago. I felt...well, I marked the passage to myself, and reading all the posts gave me a good feeling, but it wasn't the same as being part of it myself in some way or other. And I missed that. I'm not the same as I was a year ago, or two, but still - I want to post more, to comment more, to email more, like I used to do; to not be alone with this passion. To...share more. Looking back at my descriptions up above of the things that were good about this year, fannishly, I see that what I focused on, what made them good, was the people - the connections. That's what fandom gives me that I get almost nowhere else; that's what I don't want to lose, what I want to regain.
I've never been one for making resolutions. I just don't tend to really systematically look ahead in that way - I don't set goals or think about where I want to be in a year, or five years, or whatever. I'm not sure if that is a product of my lifelong fight against feelings of hopelessness, futility, particularly with regard to thoughts of endings - the inexorability of the passage of time, of change; the ephemerality of...well, of everything. Or maybe it has to do with my sense that it's just about impossible to plan anything; life is always throwing curve balls, and it's stupid - it's hubris - to think I could make plans years into the future when everything could change at any minute. Hope is something I've always feared and never allowed myself. Or maybe it's some sort of native cynicism - "resolutions" made only because it happens to be the turning of the year aren't likely to last particularly long; it's hard to change, and anything I care enough to "resolve" to start doing is likely something I've been unable to do thus far - so it's unlikely I'm going to be able to start doing it just because of a resolution.
Can you resolve to "try" to start doing something, or is that cheating?
Anyway, this year, right now, I feel tired of the way things are, and I want to try to make some changes in the new year - for myself, because I need so much what fandom gives me. I want to try to get a little tougher: not to let the bad stuff get to me so much, or at least not to cut off my nose to spite my face - not to let it cause me to cut myself off from the good stuff. I want to try to find my way back to, and into, the community and the people I've loved so much and that have given me, that give me, so much. To do what it takes - sharing, working, contributing, corresponding, all of it - to regain that feeling of connection that's worth more than anything.
Is that a resolution? I don't know. Will I be able to do it? I don't know that either. But I want to.
And you know, I find at the end of this that I have a bit of gushing in me after all: for those of you who have reached out this year, in however minor a way, and so kept me feeling like there's still a place for me; and especially to the friends who keep doing it, who won't let me be an island, who remind me over and over again of all those things I wrote about in my early end-of-year posts, all those ways in which fandom changed my life, all those reasons I want to stay connected. You are wonderful, and I am so very grateful to you, and I have no adequate words for what your care means to me.
And on that note, I wish all of you a year filled with peace, happiness, friendship, and plenty of fannish love.