#<- woman experiencing existential exhaustion | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

zoe-wrote · 6 months

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Germany, Amsterdam, what else?

I meant to update the next day. I didn’t. I lie here now two weeks later in my dorm bed in dublin. It’s a single bed like the one I had at Simmons, but this time I get the whole room to myself including a tiny little bathroom and a shared kitchen and living space down the hall with the five other folks in my apartment. Everyone is really nice.

I submitted a kind of shitty essay yesterday for my health psychology midterm. It’s nice to finally be done with midterms but holy fuck there were several criteria I know I did not hit- fine on the word count and such but I know my references were not enough and I should have expanded on the appropriate psychological models used. But it’s done. That’s nice. That’s part of why I’m letting myself lie in bed listening to eifuawn and writing my tumblr blog.

It’s been odd living independently for the first time. Odd and fucking wonderful actually- I haven’t quite learned how to adequately feed myself or stay on household tasks the way that I should, and I often find myself overtaken by the sudden urge to vacuum or deep clean a surface. I scrub the bathroom floor with a kitchen sponge almost weekly, almost always on a whim which becomes a burning drive to get the floor clean enough. But for the first time ever, if I fail it’s just my failure. There is something really wonderful about failing and not having anyone but yourself to blame. That’s not profound, it’s just true. I find the need to clarify that sometimes, because I speak in a way that I know sounds more convincing or more wise than it actually is. I was just raised by academics. My language is naturally more flowery. I’ve done a lot of therapy. I remember most all the facts i’ve learned in school and in therapy. I get lost on wikipedia all the time, and insatiable curiosity eating into me until I’ve delved so deeply into a question my wonder is temporarily appeased. Shortly satisfied until the next question starts burning up inside of me. I was sitting in a lecture on wednesday for my class on existentialism and humanism, and our professor was talking about “Le deuxième sexe” by Simon de Beauvoir as an important peace of both existentialist and philosophical work as a whole. She told us about her own colleagues and scholars she has encountered who don’t believe feminist theory or critical race theory to be true philosophy, saying with gritted teeth that she didn’t know how to respectfully say they were just wrong. Philosophy can’t just be told from the middle class white cishet man, she said. That isn’t all people. That’s one of Simone de Beauvoir’s big points in The Second Sex, the idea that she’s seen as a woman first and a philosopher second. The Second Sex is in the literature section of bookstores, not the philosophy one like the work of her partner Jean Paul Sartre. Dr. Foran said that alone says enough.

I have a lot of conversations in my relationships about boundaries, especially with my friends who have emotional communication styles very different from mine. When my wonderful friend Macy came to visit from Boston, I really wanted to make sure she had her needs met as an introverted person. I love people, I love my people, and I know the way that I love people and show it is different from others. I know that as an exceptionally extroverted person, my way of experiencing the world externally is foreign to others. The fact that I never get exhausted hanging out with my friends is also something that confuses people who rank more towards introversion on the introversion extroversion scale. I get scared that my ability to express myself externally so often, to be so affectionate and so open, will be daunting to my friends whose communication style is different from that. I don’t want people to feel like I’m dominating communication and their needs aren’t as important. They are so important. I love my people, I want their needs to be met even if it isn’t what I would initially have thought of. So I ask a lot of questions relating to boundaries, I try to give a lot of options when making plans. “Do you want to stay out or go home? Do you want to chat or sit in contemplation and be nonverbal?” The fact that I don’t get socially exhausted doesn’t mean my friends are obligated to hang out infinitely, and I think it’s especially important to establish boundaries relating to social energy when you’re going to be hanging out with someone for days on end, like I was with Macy, with my cousin Noa who just visited, and with my dear friend Jena who is my travel buddy.

I worry that when I give these kinds of options, people won’t think that they really are options I am freely giving and ok with. I fear people will say yes to things out of politeness or sense of obligation. I don’t want to jeopardize my relationships by folks appeasing my needs constantly because they think it will be easier. It won’t be easier, because it’s harder on them. lol yea this is what goes through my mind as an extremely extroverted person. i care a lot about my homies! i love spending time with them! but god it’s not fun to hang out if i think im the only one actually having fun, that’s why it’s important for all the homies to have their needs met. introverts i love you! im sorry if my externalization has made you feel silenced before. im working on it.

but that’s something i’ve thought a lot about recently- the externalization of my world experience. i have a drive to point out things i see, to start conversations about the things im wondering about- i don’t have a quiet brain, there’s always a lot of thoughts. i like sharing them; it makes me happy to interact. when im travelling, i try to experience things with as many senses as I can, whether it’s petting mossy trees when at a waterfall in the irish misty rain or letting the sea breeze whip against my face, smelling it and feeling its impact on my skin. i like to jump and skip and run, to wander and to spin and to smile and laugh, to spontaneously find the next location, to procrastinate and then urgently finish my midterm essay on contemporary dystopian fiction in a belfast hotel room.

I ended up talking about none of the locations in the title, no locations at all really. I’m not gonna change the title. I write these stream-of-consciousness so I’ll keep it as is. You’re really just getting a brief snippet into my mind. I do love it here. I’m in love. My life has been filled with a lot of beauty recently. im really grateful for that.

#studyabroad #stream of consciousness #travel #extroversion #communication styles

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wid0wing4dummies · 1 year

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Hello Friend

I feel like I'm spiraling again. I started this entry with a purpose and I kind of feel like I jut need to word vomit onto this page.

-I feel like I'm an awful partner to my first partner because of proximity.

-My home life is smothering.

-Existential dread. (lots of existential dread)

-My work life sucks.

-My work life balance sucks.

-I feel like a awful pet parent.

-I have such high hopes for my second partner that I find myself slipping into past habits that were harmful.

-I'm trying to mend a relationship with my biological father.

-I feel like I'm not moving fast enough in my life.

-My second partner scares me in the best way possible.

-I'm experiencing Jealousy that I've worked so hard to grow out of.

-I'm getting fat again.

It's just so much that's happening that I feel so miserable.

My first partner is utterly amazing. He's smart, funny, loving, and when we spend time together it's like nothing is wrong and nothing has changed. Even though I check in with him often to make sure he is receiving everything that he needs from me. And he says he is. I hope he's not just being modest. I'm genuinely excited to see him tomorrow for Dungeons and Dragons. I have to work on my balance between him and Steven. (As much as I want to spend every waking moment with Steven.)

My parents (My mother in general) are treating me like I'm a teenager and I have no idea how to express how annoying it is. Even though I tend to pay devils advocate and see both from each side. I am eternally grateful for how much they do for me and taking care of my puppy but I still feel the weight of being at home constantly.

I absolutely loathe my job. There are times where I feel like I have fun when I'm able to fix something and times where I am utterly bored out of my mind. I die a little bit every time I have to say welcome to chase. I'm also heartbroken at the realization that I feel like I have waisted time trying to get my degree and the credits I have earned don't count for anything. I can't wait until October to make parole from Chase.

I have no desire to do anything. I spend most of my day working and when I get off I am mentally exhausted. I spend most of my time disassociating and scrolling tiktok. I have at least found some comfort in self care of playing video games.

My Baby is a little terror sometimes. When we're alone she is sweet as pie. When she is distracted it is an utter problem and everyone looks at me like I'm not trying. I need to devote more time to myself and her because it honestly isn't her fault. I just feel so drained all the time.

I want my second partner. I want to live with him in a house with a picket fence and our dog and live happily ever after. However we live a non-monogomous lifestyle. And it's terrifying to me because it's so new that I don't know what that looks like. When I ask him what he can see in the future he simply just replies - "You." So I feel like he feels the same way I do but the uncertainty triggers my fight or flight. It triggers me wanting to cocoon myself and protect myself at all costs. I have to work on letting go and leaning into the what ifs and what could be. I have to learn how to just feel exactly what needs to be felt then instead of trying to be super woman with super feelings. I've allowed myself to be vulnerable but I can't lie and say that I didn't hate every bit of it. Not because It wasn't what I needed at the time but it made me feel weak and out of control. And I'm not sure what to do with those feelings just yet. Even now as I'm just feeling my feelings at the moment I just feel overwhelmed - but I guess it's just a positive thing that I'm able to let it out in this way.

I finally had a decent conversation with my father. It went well, and it seems like he's trying to make amends. But I don't trust him as far as I can throw him. I take things for what they are and actions definitely speak louder than words. I feel like I have been let down far too much to feel any different at this time. It brings me joy and equal sorrow to listen to him be a parent to my sister. It just makes me wonder about the what ifs. But at 32 I feel like my time is over and has been for a while.

I feel like at this point I should be farther along. I try not to compare my journey to anyone else's but it's a very hard work in progress. The fact that I still have 2-3 more years in this degree is so painful to even think about.

I met my second partner's partner. She's very nice, however I can't help but feel different. I felt the same way about my first partner and his wife and it passed. Simply because the reality of our relationship is that it can't go any further that what it is now. He has a wife and a family. I am just a supplement to his life. My second partner is different. he has the potential to be my husband, partner, and to build a life together. I feel like this is why it hurt so much to watch them interact intimately with each other. It needs more unpacking but I have no reason to feel this way. My second partner has done nothing but reassure and make me feel loved and cherished but am I not mirroring exactly what he is doing with my own partner?

Which leads me to my next bulletpoint. I have dug deep back into the ethical slut for answers. What am I missing that makes me feel this type of jealously? He checks in regularly when he is with her, He tells me good morning and good night, he makes plans with me and misses me when he's gone and is transparent. (You know - having this type of dialogue outloud does help.) I need to figurer out what kind of love I'm missing. (Maybe some self love?) Maybe getting back into a groove of working out and having some me time will make me understand myself better. I want to start looking back into pole lessons. It will be a good way to get active again.

I feel a little lighter upon writing out my feels. I say I should do this more often but I never make it a more regular thing. (I guess that's the lack of motivation speaking)

Til later?

-T

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girlhell2002 · 2 years

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“THESE HEAVENLY CREATURES”: Femininity, Rage and Cannibalism through the lens of Horror

Caravaggio’s ‘Judith Beheading Holofernes’ depicts the sweet, young Judith decapitating a seasoned general. The act is not unmotivated – the murder is a response to the destruction of Judith’s home, verbal degradation and attempted sexual violence. The painting therefore acts as a notable example of female resistance figured as body horror. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen argues the monstrous body, a key component of ‘art horror,’ is inherently cultural – the embodiment of fear through a ‘particular time, a feeling, a place.’ Judith’s monstrous nature, beyond her choice to murder, is rooted in cultural conceptions of gender, possessing a form of sexualised femininity and contradictorily brutal masculinity, and presenting as ‘virtuously superior to men’. But the connection between the feminine and the monstrous endures, over time and throughout different mediums. No matter the shifting context, within the genre of horror, there is always something fearful about a woman; whether she be a threat, victim or vaguer expression of deeper pain and repression.

Historically, the internalisation of women’s pain has had untold psychological consequences; the notion of the female-oriented diagnosis of hysteria, the silence and betrayals of female psychiatric care and the fraught history of lobotomy, responsible for the way female bodies and minds have been forcibly ‘feminised, rejected and policed.’ Horror has fruitfully interrogated this subject, asking the question: when this pain can no longer be contained, how does it manifest? Ducournau explores the malnourishment behind femininity in her film ‘Raw’ (2016), where we follow Justine, our heroine, who is opened up to an overwhelming desire for human flesh after being force-fed meat for the first time. The film presents femininity and female sexuality as a destructive force. Justine transforms from a quiet, docile young girl into a highly sexual, empowered and predacious woman - biting a chunk out a man’s lip after kissing him, and then later eating it in a repulsive close-up. Her actions and her perceived promiscuity are driven by one thing: hunger. The act of satiating that hunger to its fullest is seen as repulsive and unfeminine by society. No surprise then that we’re seeing women in fiction subvert that hunger into something else, something more carnal, fulfilling a desire deeper than just starvation. A desire to be seen. To be noticed. To be perceived as more than just a woman.

The physical manifestation of female rage and its viscera is further touched on in Zulawski’s Possession (1981), a marital drama drenched in existential dread, body horror and black comedy. Anna, played by Adjani, is a housewife boxed in by her domestic life with a desperation to flee. She is uncontrollable, unpredictable and hysterical - the opposite of what a housewife should be. She is an unlikeable character, she rejects motherhood, marriage - the antithesis of a typical heroine. Anna is trapped between her abusive husband and an affair with an insufferably self-important man, with both sides manipulating, threatening and physically attacking her under the sadistic guise of love. Neither man can own or control Anna. Perhaps one of the most transfixing moments in the film is when Adjani breaks down in a passageway by herself, losing all sanity before experiencing some kind of volatile miscarriage. Anna’s breakdown is not a breakdown borne out of frustration nor exhaustion. It is guttural, disgusting and oftentimes grotesque. Shot in several long agonising takes, the audience is forced to watch Anna screech and scream, overcome by a horrific force as she expels gunge, blood, urine and other puss-coloured fluids from her body. The act of being disgusting, and to disgust others is unfeminine, and to see Anna lose all control in a sequence like this perfectly demonstrates the ache to break out of the passivity of being a woman. Another example of this could be Anna’s ‘pet’, or the monster she hides in her secret apartment - a wet, gluttonous, fat mound of tentacles that eats men, and later takes the form of a man in order to protect itself from physical threat. In an attempt to regain her own agency again, Anna controls the ‘pet’ like her husband originally tried to control her.

Body horror has been an ongoing theme in this genre for over a decade: Marina De Van’s In My Skin (2002), which explores self-mutilation as a means of surviving the smothering patriarchy, explores similar thematic and visual spheres. The film follows Esther, a successful businesswoman about to move in with her boyfriend, who stumbles upon an obsession with butchering herself. The film is gory, but not violently so, it is clear from Esther’s actions that her extreme form of self-harm is merely a coping mechanism; a part of her routine, and it should be treated as such by the audience. The scenes in which Esther harms herself are also very sensual, often poised in close-up shots or excruciatingly long takes that let the audience inside her POV. De Van is careful in her portrayal of self harm, and makes sure to never minimise or belittle Esther’s self-destructive escapism. If it means regaining agency back from standards of beauty, work and performed femininity imposed by the people who supposedly care about her, Esther is willing to do anything. She does horrific things to her body: cutting at her skin with random pieces of metal, biting her arms and thighs, even going as far as cutting off a chunk of her skin to preserve and eat for later. Despite Esther's life seeming outwardly fine, she feels nothing. At work, she is bored, unfeeling. At home, she is placid but numb. In self-injury she finds intrigue and pleasure, fascination and joy. The world around her is ordinary, misogynistic, and lacking meaning, there is no sense and no purpose. So to feel pain, and to bleed, is to be alive. To consume one's own flesh is to prevent the world from consuming you instead, and to detach the body in order to feel something, anything at all, is to achieve stasis not only as a woman, but as a human.

Art horror extends beyond the cinematic. Female cannibalism has frequently made the transition from film to literature, exemplified in Chelsea Summers’ novel A Certain Hunger. Summers’ narrative follows a cannibalistic high-powered food critic as she reminisces on the murders of several of her old ex-lovers. Dorothy, its protagonist, is not a likeable character. She has no remorse, guilt, or empathy for what she has done. She takes great pride in her actions, often embellishing her baraborous endeavours with grotesque details. After dissecting her lover, Dorothy describes cooking a pound of his flesh in a frying pan, adding that she ‘skinned it, trussed it, rubbed it with olive oil, red wine, lemon, garlic and salt.’ She takes pleasure in her bad deeds, and feels no need to be remorseful over them, murder - much like self-harm with Esther - is part of a routine. It is a step that must be taken in order to stay afloat in the misogynistic haze that threatens to invade Dorothy’s world. While in previous examples protagonists have sought out pain to feel something more, Dorothy seeks to suppress and minimise. In Dorothy’s world there is no room for emotion, no time for it. In order for her to remain in a position of power and agency she must act without guilt. While many murder out of fear or anger or pain, Dorothy kills just to kill. She enjoys it, takes pleasure in it, and has a very nonchalant response to being labelled this way, casually mentioning, ‘I became a serial killer.’

Other examples occur in both the mainstream and the liminal spaces of popular culture. From the cult status and reemergence of Kusama’s teenage comedy-horror Jennifer’s Body (‘I’m going to eat your soul and shit it out’) to the enduring influence of Fiona Apple’s Paper Bag (‘Hunger hurts and I want him so bad, oh it kills’), female cannibalism and body horror permeate even the most unexpected of cultural spaces. Femininity is a destructive force, whether that be through murder of the self or murder of the body. It is worthy of such dissection across media because it remains incomprehensible and dark. Even now contemporary social structures are unprepared to confront the inherent pain of the female experience, and the hunger it leaves behind.

#written by me

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thelesbiancitizen · 3 years

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Anyway I am a woman, recently detransition[ed/ing]. I have a lot of thoughts on it and I’m hesitant to even write anything in 'public' because this (detrans discourse) feels like the wild, wild west of internet spaces. Anything I say, I know that someone will find offensive in some way, because that’s how things are online, and I guess how they are everywhere. I need to write these things and share them and hope that somebody somewhere might get something out of it. Even if, I suppose, that somebody is only me. Anyway... It’s only been about a week since I had the epiphany that transition was not, in fact, helping me anymore and that I was ready to accept that I had made a mistake. I didn’t want to call it detransition at first. That word seemed very loaded and I didn't want to touch it. I suppose it is what I am doing, though. I transitioned, now I'm not. I'm not going back to who I was pre-transition in any sense of the term 'going back', though. My entire understanding of myself, of my body, my mind, my soul has changed. I have a radically changed understanding of myself and of the world and western society. I cannot regret the things that I have learned from transitioning. Is it possible I could have learned these things without transitioning? Of course, and I’ll never know for sure either way. This is how my life has gone according to the choices I have made, and I must accept that. I must accept my current reality.

I wish I hadn't been made to believe that transition was the only cure for the feelings I had been led to believe were 'gender dysphoria'. I was vulnerable, I was in pain. I don't blame any one person from my life -- not myself, nor any friends, nor my therapist, though in each of them I can't help but feel a little betrayed and more than a little disappointed. Disappointed in how my self-hatred and self-disgust was not only accepted, but encouraged. How I was encouraged to reject and abandon myself so profoundly. Repeating the trauma I had experienced all throughout my life -- experiences which these people were aware that I was grappling with when I made the decision to transition. I look back and almost can't believe how flippantly people around me treated the concept of transition, especially because at every step along the way I expressed hesitation and doubt. I had not learned to trust myself. I was told my doubts were normal and in fact, were more proof of my inherent 'transness'. It's all a lot to think about. I'm not anti-trans. I don't want people to think I am. Evidently transition works for some people, and as a phenomenon it cannot be ignored. But my understanding of what 'transgender' means and what transition is and is meant to accomplish is completely upended. I'm just trying to make sense of it all and I'm realizing that it's something far, far bigger and more complicated than I ever understood it. The concepts of gender, sex, sex-based oppression, identity, these massive questions that I had been so convinced that I understood. Now I see how little I really 'got'. My whole world has changed. I'm processing so much. I'm exhausted. I'm angry. I'm trying not to feel guilty or ashamed. I'm just wondering what the fuck has happened to get to where I am, to get to where we are as a society, as a world. I have an existential crisis every other day, so what's new. This feels different... perhaps because it's more personal. I'm admitting and feeling the pain that I've kept bottled up my whole life. It's been trickling out for a few years and maybe I'm just finally able to handle feeling it in bigger doses... processing and digesting what I kept suppressed out of survival for the majority of my life. What a fucking crapshoot, life! Being a human is pretty fucked up.

There are very few people who have been through the experience I have been through -- the world-shattering experience of detransition. I guess I'm just hoping there is anyone out there who can even begin to relate to this whole fucking mess.

#detrans #detransition #thoughts

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punksarahreese · 4 years

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"Don't go. Please. I need you." for the chronic au 👀

👀 this was fun

CW: hemiplegic migraine attack, panic

***

Sarah should have stayed home that day.

She kept having this recurring thought that something bad was going to happen; existential dread had set in the second she woke up. She only had a bit of a headache though, one she had been dealing with for a couple days by then, so she figured she would be fine. She was just being dramatic, she told herself; work couldn’t wait.

Here she was though, five hours later and regretting her decision. The pain got worst quickly, a splitting headache through the right side of her frontal and temporal lobes. Tylenol didn’t touch it and she had to wait for her break to take anything else. She was trying to work through it, reminding herself the pain was temporary, but it was proving to be difficult. It was the muscle twitching that appeared slowly, a slight tremor only noticed when she had trouble inserting an IV in the afternoon. When her vision started getting blurry that’s when Sarah became concerned; blurry vision following a tremor was almost never a good sign.

"Sarah?" April’s hand fell on hers when she noticed it was shaking slightly. The resident had been talking to her about a case they were writing notes for when she had fallen silent suddenly. It concerned April because Sarah appeared to have zoned out.The grip she had on the charting tablet loosened suddenly and it clattered the short distance to the counter, making Sarah flinch.

"You okay?"

Sarah forced a nod, "Fine, just a bit of a headache."

April didn’t believe her, that was obvious, and she took the tablet away gently. Sarah was about to protest because she needed to finish her notes before doctor Charles asked, but the nurse shushed her.

"Go take some Advil and get some water. Take 15 minutes at least; I’ll let Maggie know."

April did it out of concern, Sarah knew she did. She couldn’t get mad either because she knew logically she wasn’t fine. Treating patients in her state would be a mistake but she hated showing weakness. Still, she let the nurse shoo her away to the ED lounge, pressing two ibuprofen from a bottle at the nurses station into her hand before she left.

She did as she was told, going into the lounge to get a glass of water. The way her equilibrium was off made her feel sick after taking the painkillers though, the room spinning a little. She had to set her paper cup back on the counter when her tremor picked up again, making the water slosh precariously. Sarah cursed under her breath as she barely caught herself when her legs suddenly buckled.

Lowering herself to the floor the rest of the way, Sarah winced as the sudden movement made her head ache more. The harsh fluorescent lighting made shapes dance across her line of vision, adding to the nauseating dizziness she felt. The right side of her face felt numb and her one eye was almost completely blurry, telling Sarah she was probably experiencing facial paralysis by then. She should have stopped and gone home or called Ava at the first sign of a tremor because this was definitely a hemiplegic attack manifesting quickly.

She couldn’t speak at that point to call out, not loud enough for anyone to hear anyway. Her words would have been slurred and unintelligible, so it didn’t matter. She knew there wasn’t anything they could do anyway, but the thought of going through an attack like this alone again was enough to make her cry. Her brain was already jumbled and she didn’t know what to do other than sit there, back against the cabinets, and cry silently as the situation overwhelmed her.

Crockett was certainly not expecting to encounter such a scene when he walked into the lounge 10 minutes later. He just wanted to grab his wallet so he could go get coffee on his break, so to say he was shocked by the sight of his friend on the floor would be an understatement. His confusion was quickly replaced with concern when he saw Sarah was crying and noticed the hemiplegia warping the right side of her face. The other doctor was on the floor with her in seconds, asking her if she was alright and insisting they go to a treatment room.

"N-no," Sarah protested weakly, the rest of her sentence lost in a jumble of incoherent words. Crockett frowned at her, reminding her that even if it was just a migraine attack she needed to be monitored in case it progressed to an ischemic attack or mini stroke.

An aggressive head shake caused her to stifle a sob, aggravating her pain, the only decipherable word a shaky, "Av... A-ava."

"You need her?"

The pleading looking in Sarah’s eyes was enough to have Crockett on his phone in seconds, paging the resident’s girlfriend with a 911 so she would get there as soon as she could. He told Sarah she would be on her way soon, reassuring her that everything was okay. This was the second time he had found her during a migraine like this and it never got less terrifying so he couldn’t imagine how scared Sarah was in that moment.

She reached out for him with her arm that wasn’t paralyzed, grasping at his purple stethoscope because it was the one thing her good eye could fixate on. She was relying entirely on her left side, slumping over because her muscles refused to work. Crockett caught Sarah before she fell, helping her stay upright by leaning her into his side, an arm around her waist because it’s all he could do to comfort her. Sarah couldn’t relax into him even if she tried, all she could do was cry as she got more frustrated with the situation.

"Crockett?" A familiar accented voice was heard from somewhere close by in the ED. He called out to Ava, telling her they were in the lounge.

Ava’s heart dropped in her chest when she walked in the door. Her girlfriend was slumped against their colleague, hemiplegia clearly affecting her harshly as she had to lift her right arm with her left to shift her body weight. She was with them on the floor immediately, hand finding Sarah’s cheek and wincing as she felt the paralyzed muscles under her fingertips.

"Darling?" She made sure Sarah could see her from her left side, "Are you alright?"

Crockett watched them for a second before gently detangling himself from Sarah’s arm, helping her lean against Ava instead. He made sure they were alright before saying he was going to inform Goodwin about what was happening. Ava barely heard him, way too preoccupied with trying to gauge how lucid her girlfriend was at that point.

"Sarah?"

Sarah was staring at her with an amount of fear in her eyes that made Ava herself feel like crying. She knew these attacks were some of the most terrifying moments for her, since they came on so suddenly but so slowly at the same time. She could never differentiate between a “normal” migraine and a hemiplegic one until the tremors and paralysis set it. It was always there, a constant threat of them, and Sarah was never prepared. They also raised her chance of an actual stroke by a lot, and one bad bout of ischemia could end her medical career and even her life.

To say she was terrified would be a major understatement.

“A...Ava...” her name was stuttered out through a gasp of pain, her good hand gripping at the surgeon’s scrubs tightly. Ava just hushed her gently, telling her it would pass because she knew it would. Her hands were on Sarah’s face, in her hair, trying to soothe her with familiar touch because it’s all she could do. Sarah was numb to it but she knew Ava was there, she couldn’t quite focus on her reassurances but she was grateful regardless.

“I... I don’t...” Sarah was frustrated because her brain couldn’t get the words out, “I...scary.”

“I know, Sarah,” Ava replied, “I know you’re scared. I’m sorry.” She shifted a little, trying to pull the other woman closer so they were in a more comfortable position. She didn’t expect the small movement to get such a big reaction, jumping a little when Sarah’s grip on her tightened and she whined painfully.

“Do- Don’t go...” tears had come back to her eyes as she clung to Ava, “P-please. Need y... need you.”

“No no, darling,” the blonde looked at her sadly, hand coming up to hold her face gently. She knew this kind of episode was disorienting, the fact that Sarah was lucid enough to speak like this was rare. The other woman was terrified and it broke Ava’s heart; she would never leave her alone during a moment like this.

She held Sarah for a second, trying to calm her shaking body with the stability of her own, “I wasn’t going to leave. I’m right here, Sarah.”

“S...stay?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ava promised, “I’ve got you.”

Sarah nodded a little, not able to hide the flinch that proceeded the motion. They stayed like that for a while, Sarah basically in her lap on the floor in front of the sink. People were probably staring, already knew what had happened, but Ava could not care less. All she wanted was for this to pass so she could take her girlfriend home. She needed rest and she wouldn’t get it there.

After some time, Sarah did stop crying. She relaxed a little in Ava’s hold, her head knocking against her shoulder as she gave into her exhaustion. Ava didn’t press the matter, just told her it was alright while she slid a hand down her wrist to check her pulse. She was tachycardic but it was slower than before, a promising sign. Her arm must have regained feeling because Sarah wrapped both of them around Ava’s neck to feel more secure. Still, she wouldn’t move until Sarah felt safe to do so because sometimes the paralysis could return.

“Ava?” Crockett’s voice tore her from her mental monitoring of her girlfriend’s vitals. The surgeon was standing by the door again and Ava could see Doctor Abrams behind him. Of course, they would have to talk to Sam before Sarah could go home. He liked to observe these attacks so they could be sure it wasn’t an actual stroke.

“I think we’re calming down,” she told Crockett, “She won’t want a CT, doesn’t need that stress, but a neuro exam couldn’t hurt.”

“Wanna...” Sarah’s words were still choppy and slow but much more intelligible, “Go... go home.”

“Can we let doctor Abrams check you over first, darling?” Ava promoted as she smoothed down Sarah’s hair in a soothing motion.

“No... room.”

“No, no treatment room,” Ava agreed as she looked at the other two doctors for clarification. A big move like that, parading her through the ED, it would be too much on Sarah. Ava wouldn’t expose her to that, knowing it might make her migraine flare back up from the stress. Crockett just nodded, knowing exactly what Ava was worried about. Sam took that as an indication to come into the lounge, standing a bit away so as to not spook Sarah.

“I can do a quick neuro exam in here, Sarah, if it is more convenient. I can’t let you leave without one first, that would be ill advised.”

It took a little more coaxing before Sarah sat up, looking the most alert she had since the morning. Her right eye was still a bit droopy but her face had regained muscle control, the toll the attack had on her body and mind was evident in her posture. She let Ava stand up and then help her to her feet, though it was a slow motion as she still had one sided weakness.

Ava carefully walked Sarah over to the couch, making sure she was stable before she let go of her arm. Sarah took a seat, though she perched on the edge of the cushion and didn’t relax at all. She was still scared, adrenaline coursing through her body and sending her flight response off its rocker. She hated these part of the attacks the worst, the lull in between active symptoms and the regain of complete control. She couldn’t tell if she was okay or not; everything felt so muddled. Sarah glanced at Ava when she stayed standing, worried brown eyes searching for reassurance again because it’s all she could do.

“Stay?”

Her girlfriend took the hint and sat down beside her, not questioning it when Sarah took her hand. She was always very sensitive and overwhelmed during these attacks, especially when they were shorter because it meant they could come back stronger later on. Sarah tended to cling to Ava in these moments, because she was her safety net and the one person she trusted when she was this vulnerable. Ava understood that and would do anything to be with her through every bad attack and every scary moment. She never wanted the woman she loved to be in pain, especially not while she was alone.

“I’m right here, Sarah. I’m always here when you need me.”

#ava calling sarah darling >>>>>>>#feedback would be appreciated #because idk how i feel about this one #this feels weird like idk my writing is off today #it’s 2 am idk #chicago med #ava bekker #sarah reese #reesker #my aus #chronic #spoonie!sarah #mutuals #crockettstiddies #asks

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reflectionsforalostsoul · 4 years

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One

I don’t know what to say. What do you say when you feel like the world is ending? There are a million ways that life feels over. The pandemic. Climate change. Pollution. Lack of resources. Misinformation. Lack of values. Lack of morals. The list could stretch on.

I am not a scientist. I am just someone who started their existential crisis a few years ago, who now suspects that many others are caught up in their own crisis as well. How did I get there? That isn’t something I am ready to talk about, but I can tell you that I think it started for me the way it would start for most people. I lost my faith in humanity.

I had always been an optimist. Someone who always had hope for the future. I saw the good in people, but then again, don’t we all at some point? Yet life experience slowly erodes that youthful naivety that some of us are naturally imbibed with, and perhaps it was only a matter of time before that slipped away. It was like I had been stumbling around for years in some kind of haze that I can only liken to drug induced euphoria. And then they pulled out the rug and I was on my ass sober.

My perception grew sharper, and I tried to tune things out the way I had before but found myself unable to. I was noticing the people around me in ways I never had before.

Social media made me sick as I scrolled through my feed. Everyone carefully wording the things they shared to cast them in a positive light. The desperation for attention… Sharing countless memes to let the world know, Yeah, I’m funny. I’m a catch. You should know this. Everyone needs to make it known that they say what’s on their mind, consequences be damned. I mean, maybe they are blocking dear old Grandma from their stories, but everyone else is going to know exactly why you have a problem.

Maybe I am explaining it wrong. Let me just tell you exactly what I think.

People complain about the pandemic’s effect on mental health. Everyone feels cut off. Disconnected. But I’ve been feeling that way all along. I think people have been unaware of the great disconnection we are all experiencing and are just now realizing when confronted with social distancing alone we are all feeling.

Maybe it is just me. Maybe it is just my age. My Mother told me one day I would have a family and disappear into it. She said when you have kids that slowly life becomes more about them than anything else, and friendships fall by the wayside. This was told to me when I asked her why her friends didn’t visit anymore. I didn’t believe her. I was just a child and there was nothing more important to me than my friendships. The thought that my best friends wouldn’t always be a part of my life was ludicrous. I vowed to prove her wrong. That would not be my life.

My Mother had a funny way of doing that. I always knew she was an intelligent woman, but there were so many pearls like this that she shared with me throughout my childhood that would make me react in disbelief. So many times she was right, and now it’s too late to say it to her… But let me digress.

That’s not my life, you might say. My friends still come around. They still call. We have a great relationship! I am happy for you then. But I am not talking to you. I am talking to those people who are curating their online profiles with a fine tooth comb in an attempt to get recognition. Bad self esteem is easier to handle when you get positive reacts to a selfie. Anxieties about parenthood are easier to handle when you share an inspirational quote about how you need your children more than they need you. Your marriage isn’t so toxic when people are fawning over pictures of your special anniversary dinner together and saying things like, “You guys are so lucky,” or, “Look how happy they are!” Maybe things aren’t as bad as you think they are. Everyone else sees how happy you two are together. As a matter of fact, people constantly say how happy your entire family looks. Maybe you are focusing on the negative too much. You’ve gotta work on that. You have to be less negative. So, you share some more inspirational bullshit to your friends and family online. You take lots of selfies and caption them that you are loving your life or that you are #blessed.

It makes you feel a bit better. The tightness in your chest lessens a bit when your friends and family hit that like button. They wish they had your life. You are lucky. You are grateful.

I feel bad for the children though.

They will never experience what life was like before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every old person says this. Things were better in my day. It is almost a cliche. Unfortunately most people tend to view the past through a nostalgia filter. My Mom didn’t do that. She constantly told my siblings and I how lucky we were to be around for such a wonderful period of human history. She marveled at video games and happily played them with us. She was jealous of us getting to experience what she called the Golden Era of Disney. She made sure we appreciated the time we were alive in. I am aware of my children’s luckiness too. They have a world of information at their fingertips. Pictures and videos can happen at the touch of a phone screen ready to preserve all those precious memories. That’s nice. It really is. I would have died for a video camera in my childhood. Plus, they are living through meme culture. Such hilarity. So many funny vloggers. So many silly trends… What a time to be alive!

My kids do not ride the school bus though. They are considered car riders. The week they are with me I drop them off at school and the week they spend with their Dad his Mother drops them off. My kids get sad about this sometimes. The thought of riding the bus with their friends seemed like an adventure. They had heard funny stories from friends and even from their family. They wanted to experience it. So, I made it happen.

Those young bright eyes were wide with excitement as they waited for the school bus. They had had to get up way earlier that morning since a bus route takes much longer than me driving them directly, but they didn’t mind. They were hopeful. Their morning held so many possibilities. Their joy at the novelty of it all made my chest swell with happiness. It lessened my nervousness about it. Yes, bus rides could be fun, but there is always potential for harassment or bullying. That morning I pushed my anxiety aside and focused on the moment, tried to live in it with them. We laughed as we said goodbye that morning. I could feel the excitement. For a moment I was transported back to my own childhood and that flood of adrenaline on the first day of school. I couldn’t wait for them to come home and tell me all about it.

That afternoon I picked them up from school. There wasn’t enough time for them to ride in the afternoon, not with homework and dinner prep. So, I waited in the car rider line at the school drumming my fingers on the steering wheel in anticipation. I kind of expected happy little hops towards my car when they came out the door, but when I saw them it was a bit more reserved. They looked sleepy and ready to put their long day behind them. I was kind of surprised, but it happens like that sometimes. School can be exhausting.

Immediately they relaxed when getting in the car, sinking down with exhaustion. I turned on the music and we drove. They said they were tired from getting up so early. I had forgotten about that. So, I asked the question I had been waiting all day to ask, “Well?”

They both gave me a shrug. I was confused. I expected to hear stories of them chatting with friends. Not the disinterested attitude they were displaying. It took the whole ride home to figure it out. Apparently they didn’t do much talking with their friends because everyone has a cell phone nowadays and there were sixty little faces glued to their phone screens the entire time. My children were feeling disappointment but also jealousy. They wanted phones too and didn’t understand why they weren’t allowed to have one yet. This wasn’t how I had expected the day to go. I sensed opportunity in that moment. Those pearls of wisdom my Mother gave me in my childhood? I was determined to do the same. Our car rides were where we had our most serious conversations because there are no distractions to the kids. It is one of the only times I have their undivided attention, so I spoke.

“Babies? I am really sorry for how the bus ride turned out. It wasn’t what you were expecting, and I know that you’re feeling frustrated, but this just shows why you don’t need a phone yet. You’ve just seen it yourselves.” My son looked angry at my words. He has been asking for a phone for several years and I sometimes wonder if he feels embarrassment at not having one like all of his other friends. I continued before I could be interrupted and lose my train of thought.

“My childhood has lots of happy memories. When I am sad sometimes I think back to other happy times in my life and it helps me to get through the day. I have so many memories with friends and family that I treasure-”

“But if I had a phone I could record those memories,” my daughter interrupted angrily from the back seat.

“You are missing my point, let me finish,” I admonished her. “Lots of people are missing out on good times and fun because of their phones. You all don’t see it that way but it’s the truth. People get addicted to their phones, and not just children. Adults are addicted too. They miss out on everything happening around them. When I go to visit Grandma I always feel frustrated because she isn’t paying any attention to me, her face is buried in her phone. Apps that you would use are MADE to be addictive. There are studies about this. You get a rush of dopamine, your happiness chemical, when you get things like reacts from your friends. People are becoming so dependent on it that they are creating any true happiness in their lives. They are slaves to their phones. It isn’t just social media, phone games are made the same way. They pay people big bucks to manufacture games in a way that leaves you coming back for more, over and over. It is how they make money. People pay to speed up the reward systems in these games, and it is like being manipulated.”

“I wouldn’t get addicted,” my son muttered angrily beside me.

“That’s what everyone thinks, but it happens slowly. You know how we do family dinner? Do you ever see me on my phone?”

“No,” they replied in unison.

“Exactly. I think it is the pinnacle of rude behavior to sit down to dinner and ignore everyone around you because you are playing on your phone. That isn’t how you create good memories. When you have a bad time you think back on the good times, right?”

“Yeah,” replied my son.

“And those good times involve your friends and family, right?”

“Yeah.”

“When you are going through something hard you are going to look back on times where you felt joy, or when you shared laughs with your friends over something funny that happened. You will never think back to hours spent on a video game, especially a phone game.”

“But I have had fun playing online with my friends! You’re wrong,” my son quickly pointed out.

“Yes, I can see some good memories happening in those instances, but for the most part you are playing alone. Those good times are few and far between. You might have had a laugh over something happening on the game, but how long will you hold that memory dear?”

What I should have said before we arrived home, and maybe it didn’t occur to me to say at the time, I love looking back on experiences with people where we had deep conversations. Where we were discussing important things. Where our young minds were filled with the wonder of infinite possibilities. Do I hear my children having conversations like that? I do not. There is hardly any depth. Before you say that this is me being old and being disconnected from the youth, let me say that I am not the only one who had deep conversations with their friends in childhood. You cannot say that you never pondered the meaning of life and what your role in it was.

Are children not having as many of these conversations because we are not teaching them that skill? Or are they more guarded because there are so many more ways to experience bullying these days? Do they feel unsafe to open up? I know that I am making mistakes as a parent myself. My son told me that he wanted to be a famous youtuber one day, and I couldn’t stop myself from showing that I was unimpressed with his aspiration. I asked my son why he no longer wanted to be a writer and said matter of factly that it was a terrible idea. I shut a door between us before it had even fully opened. I didn’t mean to, and have apologized, but I know that I will never get it back. How can he open up to me when I disregarded something so important to him? I didn’t mean to do it, and I regret it.

It wasn’t just the job itself though, it was my motherly instincts.

My children have not had to deal with online abuse yet. They have never been bullied in that way. They simply cannot fathom how nasty people can be when cloaked in anonymity. How many online influencers have killed themselves in the past year? Several that I have read about.

Eventually my son did ask why I had a problem with it, and I finally got to explain a little. I mentioned the nastiness of online comments, the suicides, and the depression that these people struggle with. My son assured me that he could just ignore nasty comments. I’m not so sure.

My son is definitely funny. He talks to himself while playing video games frequently and I can hear him from the other room. I am constantly chuckling at his antics and sound effects. Do I think people could appreciate his videos? Definitely. I love his commentary. Do I think people will be jerks to him anyway? Yep. That’s what people do. It is their outlet for their hate and rage in life. People take it out on others online, because when you act like a jerk online there are rarely any lasting consequences. Maybe a temporary ban or mute, but then these online bullies very often have multiple accounts so that they can continue their bad behavior unimpeded.

I try to reflect on my motives often. I find myself wondering about others motives all of the time, so I try to scrutinize myself in the same way. Because another big problem that I notice in life is that people are not searching for introspection and very often do not understand their own motivations. People lie to themselves constantly, and if there is one thing I am sure of it is this, if you cannot trust yourself, how can you trust anybody?

Am I being a terrible parent at this moment? I definitely feel I screwed up in my response to his aspiration that he shared with me. Is this me being overprotective and stopping him from pursuing his passions? How much damage have I done by my initial response? I want my child to feel he can talk to me, and I just made a common parent blunder. Every generation of children feels that parents just don’t understand. I want to do better.

Fame is fleeting and leaves you under the microscope of public scrutiny. I would never want that for myself, and cannot imagine my son dealing with those pressures. Way too much importance is placed upon external validation. Yes, it’s nice to have but I think it is much better to validate yourself. Don’t get me wrong, my Mother validated me constantly. She made me feel so intelligent, so witty, and so wise. I think she was the greatest for this, but it is necessary to validate one’s self as well. When you are dependent entirely on other people’s praise and all of your self worth comes from the attention of others you are destroying your own resilience. Sure, people preach self love constantly these days, but I don’t see it working too well in most cases. People are bashed for being prideful, or maybe they were prideful about the wrong things. Why are you so focused on loving yourself at any weight? Don’t you know that skinny shaming is a thing? Don’t you know that your outside is irrelevant? What matters is on the inside! Insert eyeroll. These aren’t my thoughts, but just an example. Everyone has an opinion and the internet gives them a place to share it. There will always be someone who is critical of your view. Preach self love all you want, but it is still so hard to come by.

Have I helped equip my children with resilience or self love? They seem to struggle with it. Have I praised them enough? Do I feel that they are mentally strong? Not as strong as I would like, but I fear the ways they could attain mental strength. I have experienced a lot of rough times in my life. I have overcome adversity. I have been at the bottom and drug myself back to the top. Is that the only way to build mental strength or resilience? Through pain? Everyone struggles in life. Will my children’s struggles help them to grow to be strong people or will it leave them a broken person constantly questioning their own validity?

No one knows the future. How do we know that our methods are right? We can only proceed based on our own life experiences and knowledge. It is so terrifying not to know what the future holds. What seemingly inconsequential things did you say or do that will reverberate through your child’s life and affect them in ways you cannot begin to imagine? Hindsight is easy. Staring into the unknown future is much harder. It is incredibly difficult to face. Every single person is capable of causing untold amounts of ripples that expand into society and spread throughout the word.

Do you ever think about your own ripples?

Some people are aware of it and try to send out good ones. They try to pay it forward whenever conceivable. Maybe they pay for the person behind them’s meal in line at a drive through restaurant. Maybe they bring donuts for their coworkers. Maybe they stop and help people alongside the road who need help changing a tire. There is plenty of good still in this world. It isn’t all bad. But are we as a society focusing enough on the bad ripples? The bad energy we are sending out into the world?

So few seem to care these days. Humanity as a whole is selfish. It isn’t your fault, that is our nature. It is how we survive. But deep down how many times have you made an exception for yourself because you are special, you are you? The pandemic has really opened my eyes to people’s inherent selfishness. How dare you try to inconvenience me by requiring me to wear a face mask? I don’t care that it is mandated, and that you are simply doing your job, I am going to harass and abuse you! You may not be in support of wearing a mask on a personal level, but I don’t care about that. I am not going to live my life in fear like all of you sheeple. So, be prepared, I will hit you. I will spit on you. I will shoot you. Seems dramatic, right? But this has happened over and over again in this past year.

I want to ask where is the humanity, but I am beginning to fear that this IS humanity.

So often I struggle with wondering, is humanity worth saving? If this is the end-times do we deserve another chance? What makes us redeemable? The only answer that I can come up with is love. We are redeemable because of love. Maybe you have a better answer than me. Love is the only thing that I can come up with at this moment, and even that is hard to hold on to. I feel myself spiral and losing faith in humanity on a daily basis almost, and I have to make a conscious effort to remember the good things. Those loving moments that we are capable of.

The animals that we rescue. The children that we pray for. The couples who still love each other after many trials or years. The art inspired by it, or the music. Love is a universal feeling. It can unite us, though we face the ever present danger of hate dividing us. I am so past hating stuff. I can tell you that I intensely dislike our former president, but do I wish his death like I have seen others do? I do not. I think we have a world full of damaged people searching for meaning, and there is no manual. We are all trying our best and are making decisions based on our own life experiences. What is right to you is wrong to someone else. It doesn’t mean anyone is wrong. It is just perspective. There is no other way to view it that I am aware of. We all have different perspectives, our own personal narratives of events. That is just what humanity does. We are not a collective consciousness. So many people try to make things black and white, when really there are nothing but varying shades of grey. Had I lived your life and been through the things you have been through I might feel very differently. This is just my opinion on the matter, based upon my own life experiences. I don’t hate you for feeling differently than me. I just get sad sometimes that we struggle to find common ground. I want us to succeed. I want humanity to persevere.

How do I explain everything that is on my mind lately without making you feel it is endless rambling? I know this started with a list of things that make it feel like the world is ending, and I could go on forever. Do I drone on and on, or should I find some semblance of structure? I do not mean to be a bore, but there is so much to address. Is this a diary? Is this to my children? I am unsure. Maybe it is just for me. Maybe I just need to find the words that can make a difference. I don’t know about you but for quite a while now I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that time is running out and there is something I must do. I hope that by trying to organize my thoughts I can figure out what it is.

#existential despair #diary #what does it all mean #is this the end?#unfiltered #not trying to start anything #deep conversations #disconnected #firsttimetumblr

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theplumsoldier · 5 years

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STEVE IS IN LOVE

Summary: reader has been friends with steve rogers for some time and colleagues for even longer. circumstances had separated them for a while and y/n has never been more in need of a friend. also, not particularly proud of this, but i wrote it and thats that, do hope someone might find it in them to enjoy it nonetheless.

Pairing: steve rogers x reader

Word count: 4941

Warnings: vulgar language, angst.

“Hello there, Methuselah,” hailed you, attracting the attention of your favorite Captain. Diverged from his channel of thoughts, Steve Rogers turned in his moderate march, the white in his azure eyes widening and the steel in the blue softening at what he acknowledged as a divine sight.

“Y/N,” tasted Steve, subtly taking in the beauty in which you emitted. He failed to assimilate the rationale for your entry, immediately fearing the worst as he barely remembered the last time, he had seen you and he shifted, tentatively allowing the hug you claimed and distanced himself to regard any worry upon your features. “What are you doing here?”

“Do I need an excuse to see a friend now?” chuckled she, her hand brushing up to his face to remove the sod he seemed laden with. “Did you just get back? Bruce told me you were on an early-morning sortie.”

His hand came to wipe his brow, removing what sweat he imagined had gathered. “Yeah, it eh—it was

“You came all the way here just to ask me if I wanted a drink?”

Giving him a coy smile of invitation, your brows bounced as you walked close to him. “I mean, I had some business to run over with Bruce as well, but sure, you can take the compliment.”

Steve’s head dropped in a chuckle,

“Go get changed. I’ll see to the rest and then we can take off.”

. . .

In a bar on 42nd sat a Captain and his favorite girl, large beer glasses on the table, some filled and others not. In the corner of the room the two were nonchalantly exchanging stories; stories of contemporary topics, stories of world problems, of love as well as mishap, and of some belonging to the recollection which Steve had been nigh on neglecting and for that he cursed at himself. So much had happened during this time of calamity. He had been surrounded by tragedy and death for all too long. He knew nothing but the cold feel of his heavy heart, he had grown used to the weight pulling at his shoulders and Steve he would never admit to it, but he was growing pacific to snapping the life from another man.

He had not realized just how much he had needed this until your laughter stimulated his heart and it was beating for you and only you. How he needed you now and—gosh! Steve is in love.

The song on the stereo faded into the chatter of the crowd and Steve exhaled, for once in a long time, not feeling that prying pain in his chest. Instead, it had been replaced by a quick pounding sensation, one of affection rather than that of exhaust and melancholy. He never was one to waste his time, not much for allowing people to play around with him, make a fool of him; not until he got the chance to do something about that. And you never had given him any indication you were toying with his feelings, perhaps because he thought you to be unaware of said emotion, still, those moments in which you shared he felt weak. Exposed and breakable like the finest, most feeble glass forged, and somehow you still managed to build him up and make him feel as if he could conquer the world. It kept him awake at night—drifting off to the echo of your voice, the memory of your fine features, the idea of your touch but that could only be a fantasy.

Steve slid from the pensive mood and shifted opposite you, tilting his head and nodding. “What about that guy—Ron?”

“John,” you rectified, following with a shudder at the mere mention.

Candidly, Steve knew little of this man you had been wasting your time on since months back. Wasting in the way that he surely only was kept around because he had been in your life in a time where you were in need of consolation. Now, you were better, you were happier or at least that was what you enjoyed telling yourself after having a temporal existential crisis in the middle of the night. Therefore, it could be deduced you no longer needed him but the thought of leaving him simply because you did not feel you needed him seemed so brutal to you. But that was, yet again, what you told yourself in order to prevent facing the actuality of fearing going back to being alone. Now that seemed scarier than anything imaginable and you were experiencing too immense a sense of cowardice to take control of your life.

Steve chuckled at your reaction, his hand turning the cup on the table. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s just so—” you cut off yourself with a moan and dropped your head to the side, a pained squint in your eye. This was not where you wanted to go, not with truth serum to alcohol in your system. Unclenching your fist on the table, you expressed yourself in an elongated sigh. “I don’t know.”

“Well, are you fighting or—”

“We’re not anything! We’re not—we are not fighting, we’re not fucking, we’re not—we’re barely even talking at this point! And we live in the same damn apartment! You know—I mean, well, that’s of course, when he’s there.” You laughed but the grimace matching was cunning, deceiving and Steve knew it.

Was this where he retreated? Where he would back down before he got far enough to a place where there was no going back from? Once you had opened up, man, he would have to listen to that, and that he did not mind, he wanted to, only he was afraid to. Once you would become emotional, he would feel it nothing but orthodox to do the same. That would likely lead him to tell you how he wanted to be there for you, how you did not have to go about and think yourself happy, how he could help you. But he did not if he could be that one, not if you did not let him and Captain America was too big poltroon to talk love.

He boldly pushed it and reiterated, “when he’s there?”

Once again, you grinned, only stirring the concern in Steve and he could feel the brooding loathe seethe off of you.

“He’s always. . . off. Says—insists it’s work, and meetings and you know all that, but,” you stopped to pronounce a mono-syllabic laugh and again, shook your head at yourself. “Hell, if I know where—who he is runnin’ off to.”

Steve could feel the anger boil within him at the very thought. That was something he never quite had come to understand. How one could find it in them to cheat. A relationship it was supposed to be a commitment, was it not? He himself did not know based much on an experience-level, though on that he was adamant and to think one would run about with more than one woman. Was that not wasting everybody’s time?

“You think he’s cheating on you?” asked he carefully,

Shrugging your shoulders, you gave him a look as if to repeat yourself: “hell if I know.” And truthfully, you did not know but there remained this sense of irritation within you, convinced he had been seeing someone behind your back. Given the situation and the, likely, mutual gradual ennui, you also found little reason to care if John fooled around with some other woman. Surely, it was no healthy way to maintain a relationship, but it was your current reality and frankly, you cared little as long as John kept his business out of your home.

“But that’s—that’s like, sad, right? Yeah, let’s not go there. In fact, how about for tonight we just pretend all that’s bad doesn’t exist, huh? Can’t we do that? Let’s just forget about, like, stupid boyfriends, and bad decisions, and—oh! And alien, right? Invadin’ our planet and shit—who do they think they are?”

The smile on his face spread and wrinkles formed by his eyes, as Steve clicked his tongue. “Turns out they’re not all bad.”

“Hm,” scoffed you and mewled when the bottom of the glass showed. “Well, then say we forget bad men and bad decisions, yeah? I need another beer—”

“Why don’t we go for a walk?”

Your eyebrow bounced a tad, lips parting and trying to read his face. The idea did not sound bad, on the contrary, in fact, a mouthful of fresh air was tempting, and you mimicked his actions and stood to your feet, finding your balance.

Gathering your thing, you paid up and left the bar. Out on the street, the air was cool, the sky had turned to a dark shade of blue, and the various odors of whatever the street food-shops had to offer blended in your nose as you breathed in, releasing a soft moan. You clasped your hands together and turned to Steve who was shrugging into his brown jacket. In this new setting, you felt strangely lively. It might have just been the alcohol finally taking a toll.

“Where to?”

Steve simply nodded down the street and shoved his hands into his jean-pockets, commencing a leisure walk.

For the longest time, you had known Steve. First as Captain America, then he came along and became a colleague of yours, then he upgraded to a friend and suddenly in the process of it all, you realized you just might fancy him a tad more than what was deemed appropriate. One reason was that it surely would appear odd if you made an advance on the soldier while working your way up, career-wise, another rationale was that you had a boyfriend and yet another reason as to why you settled for neglecting your flourishing feelings, was that of fright. Scared you might lose a dear friend; you never found the courage to make a potentially damaging move. It had left you to keep your distance, thinking it better to admire him from afar if doing so in the vicinity only aroused your affection for him. Aside from him dealing with extraterrestrial threats and such and yourself with personal dealings, that was likely what had kept you from seeing each other over the duration of the past months. He still wondered why you had been so declining of his invitations, though.

You felt the beer had not had much of an effect on you while seated in the bar, and so it was not until you were walking in the open you felt it finally take a toll. After your mind wandered places you otherwise would have disregarded, your balance exacerbated and while your walls had abated, you laced your arm through Steve’s, taking him by surprise. Supporting yourself against him, you spoke as if you were not groping at the flexing muscles in his arm.

“Have you been seeing anyone?” asked you, composed while watching your feet work at a moderate pace, matching Steve’s walk.

“No,” hesitated he.

“Haven’t had the time or haven’t met the one?”

“Bit of both. Bit of both.”

The truth was he had not had a lot of time to meet someone, not under proper circumstances, at least, and it just seemed that every time he met a woman, they appeared to want nothing but a night with the well-known Captain America. He was ashamed to admit to it, but he had bowed under a time or two, giving in and hoping to relieve himself of, if nothing but a mere fraction of the pressure he felt. Now, he had come around to accept he was too perplex a character to find true love if that even was a thing in this wretched world. He remembered when people said, “this is a man’s world”. Usually, it was said in the context of something expressing oppression of women, but even that could no longer be said, he figured. No, not with alien and mutants and, hell, even Gods walking the same Earth he did.

You huffed and tilted your head to look at him. “Well, if you’re interested, I still got that cousin who’s up for whatever. She’s not looking for anything serious. Just, like, a husband, and a house, and kids.”

Steve laughed at your nonchalant proposal of marriage and looked away, hiding his blush, but then came to realize just how sullen that reality was.

“I don’t think I could ever live that kind of life.”

You noticed how your words seemed to have changed his mood for worse and you gulped, biting down on your lips, now feeling embarrassed you had brought it up. You knew he was right.

You clicked your tongue and pulled him along to the other side of the street. “Sounds boring anyway.”

. . .

Somehow you had managed to talk Steve into getting your favorite take-out and take the party to your flat rather than walk the streets any longer. Shoving the key in, you thrust the door open and stumbled inside, laughing as Steve followed behind you.

“Be careful,” grinned he and shut the door behind him. He has only ever been in your apartment once before and had never gotten any further than the corridor. It was once, on a late-night, he had come to collect a report; something he for whatever reason had been eager to retrieve himself, and not make use of the men that were hired to do that kind of miscellaneous work.

Walking inside, he took in his surroundings. It was not nearly as neat as his own, but everything seemed to have its place, and it was obvious it was an apartment for two. It was then he came to wonder if John was away now.

You sighed a groan and stepped out of your shoes. “Please excuse the mess. John promised me to clean up. I’m usually a much more orderly person, you just caught me at a bad time.”

You were already picking up bits and piece that seemed to flood the apartment, irritation shooting through you as John, yet again, appeared incapable of keeping a promise.

“I won’t hold it against you,” responded Steve, eyes wary as the instinct of the Captain never did leave him. Sauntering about, he met you back in the open kitchen.

. . .

Subsequent to eating, you ended up chatting on the couch. Music was flowing from the Bluetooth speaker in the kitchen and throughout the apartment, however, at such a low volume it was merely a soft hymn over the thunderstorm brewing outside. The windows were rain-lashed, adding to the cozy sphere with a faint pounding sound and Steve’s laughter seemed the sweetest sound you had ever heard at that moment. He had completely lost track of time, in spite of repeatedly reminding himself he should leave before it got too late, before he was too tired and before he lost all inhibition, and before he poured his feelings out on you. The last thing he wanted was to put you in an uncomfortable position, and surely that was destined to happen for someone in your position; someone with an undeserving boyfriend on one hand, and a man willing to give you his unconditional love on the other. The time was half-past twelve in the night and your conversation matched the gloaming hour.

“I think it’s a kind of attachment, like, I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel like I’ve just known him for so long. It would be weird if all of a sudden, he wasn’t in my life. I mean, it’s not that I depend on him, just that he’s always been there for me when I needed him. When no one else was, John was there. Now, whenever I see him I just don’t feel that spark anymore and I know for sure he feels the same way, I just can’t seem to break things up,” maundered you, dropping your head against the back of the couch, trying to compose your thoughts.

It was Steve that had brought up John. He thought perhaps if you truly felt as you had hinted about him, your voiced thoughts might of convince you he was not good for you. He worried he was being selfish, for truthfully without John in your life, Steve’s mind asserted to him that meant there was room for him. He still did not know if you even liked him as anything but a friend, and he was awfully poor at interpreting your casual flirting.

“Y/N, you don’t owe him anything, you do know that, right?”

“Yeah, but that’s the thing! I—I feel like I do! John has always been a good friend to me, and so I feel like if I were to break up with him, it’s like saying I never cared,” tried you to explain, though your words did not justify your perplexing channel of thought.

Steve’s eyes shut tight and his brows creased for a moment as his head lolled sideways. You did not understand where this particular interest originated from. It was nice to know he cared for you, nevertheless, in a platonic way and that was not what you wanted. Of course, you knew one could not always have their way, but in your case, that seemed ever so rare and you figured, hell, if it makes me selfish to take what I want, then so shall I be selfish, and you wanted to; so badly. To just leave behind your last sense of inhibition and throw yourself in his arms, claim him as yours, take his kiss. But you were nowhere near bold enough to do just that, not with all the beer in the world fermenting in your stomach.

“No, but Y/N, he’s the one out there cheating on you—John is the dumbass, he doesn’t deserve you, don’t waste your time on him,” argued Steve and felt beyond stupid in seconds. Steve was one who prided himself for his aptness, his conscientiousness as well as his ability to be decisive when no one else dared, but above all was his capability to think clearly; that all went down the drain for his decision-making was heavily biased, but hell, Steve is in love.

His heart just about broke once he forced himself to look back up at you, eyes softening at your stunned, now worryingly contemplative expression and he had a clue what you thought: he does not understand.

You blinked a couple of times, pushing a stray strand of hair beyond your ear.

“Maybe you should leave,” spoke you softly, biting back the tears.

Steve had not noticed his lips were parted until his mouth went dry, his eyes doing the same as he pulled himself from the daze. Squinting his eyes shut, he pinched the bridge of his nose in thought, assimilating the situation, albeit in vain. It was as if his nervous central system shut down the minute, he laid eyes on you, your now pacific eyes causing him distress, your mortified channel of thought, suddenly, altering your mien for animosity in portrayed rigidness.

“Hey, looked,” Steve said, clueless as to what he was going to say. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t—I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“You don’t,” you concurred, hastily, arms crossing, rather for comfort than to display dissatisfaction. You really would have preferred not to talk about John tonight. Steve was a lot more diverting, anyway, always a pleasant man to be around even if he did make you think things that you ought not to. You cleared your throat, reaching across the table for the TV-remote, thinking to beguile some time. “Let’s just forget this.”

Silently nodding his head, Steve attentively watched you carry on and he was quiet for the following time, keeping still and somewhat austere in his place beside you. While you did your best to get comfortable, you could feel his gaze on you, only ever averting when you caught him looking.

Steve; he was nervous as they come and meek in his actions, afraid he might do something you were not content with, so he balked and did nothing instead. He thought he was playing it safe, and in ways he was, only you wanted nothing but for him to prove your suspicious mind true and kiss you right there. He possessed the conscientiousness of a gentleman and while he, as a matter of factly, did want to a long last feel your kissable lips, he worried he might take advantage of a feeble situation. Considering you always had told him he should start taking some, as opposed to merely giving, and that there was no shame in being selfless every now and then, he sat brooding for some time, in the end only deciding it wise to disregard his dither and, again, do nothing.

Time passed, only very few words exchanged, though you considered it more peaceful with a soothing effect, in contrast to Steve’s idea of an awkward time for brooding and self-loathe.

The hour grew later by the minute, and he, at one point, wondered if you wanted for him to just leave. It was safe to say; times had been tough on him, nonetheless, Steve had allowed himself a great deal of reprimand, thus he had come to, to say it as it is, take no bullshit. His mind had become impenetrable, his thoughts no one’s but his own and his ears, in the times of chastising, serving no purpose but that of a deaf person.

Regardless, that had been the work of those past months, and the longer he spent time with you, the more that facade seemed to crumble. Your mere presence made him paranoid, so unsure of himself and in ways he had not even ever been prior to his transformation decades ago. He ought to seethe at that belittling feel of not being in control of his emotions, but he had to admit, he did enjoy that weak feeling he would get in his knees and the red rush blowing at his pink cheeks because lord did it feel good to feel.

Once your phone rang, you shifted across the couch only to see John’s name light up on the display and Steve, attentive and wary is a soldier, made notice of how your face fell. Casting a glance to Steve, you excused yourself with a mellow, regretful sigh.

“John, it’s the middle of the night,” sounded your hushed greeting, as you shielded yourself with a wall to separate Steve from the likely hostile dialogue.

You heard his chuckle over the line, “Y/N, it’s lovely to hear your voice too. I’m sorry ‘bout the timing—I only just got off an hour ago, I hadn’t had a chance to reach you.”

Shaking your head, you did your best to not get visuals of what you could only imagine he had been up to. “You do realize I haven’t heard from you since this morning, right? I don’t mean to be crass, but I’d rather you hadn’t called until the morning. Not to mention the place—you told me you were going to clean up here, you’ve been saying that for a week now and for some reason, I keep finding your shit-papers spread all around!”

“Wow, okay, Y/N, I told you—I had no chance of calling earlier. I was—”

“Busy with business, yeah I know, John,” interrupted you, not caring for the sneer or spite in your tone.

He huffed, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I don’t care who you screw when you’re away, it means I don’t care how long you’re away; it never stopped you before but you have my consent to do whatever the fuck you want, as long as you don’t bring your sluts home and into my home.”

John made a weak attempt to save himself, but you had him beyond saving. There was no saving him, there was no saving this relationship. “Y/N, babe, what are you going on about—”

“And that’s what you did last week, and you can’t even be bothered enough to clean the fucking place after you make the apartment seem as if though a hurricane had been in here!”

John cleared his throat and you could tell he, still, was little bothered. “I said I would clean, but then I had to leave and—”

You could not help yourself but snort in contempt. Concerned your raised voice had caught the attention of Steve, you craned your neck around the corner and found him on the outer edge of the couch. Even as your eyes connected, he did not look the other way, more concerned for you than the fact that he had been listening. Releasing your lip, you sighed and took a few steps the other way.

“Look, John,” you cut in, “I have to go.”

“What? Why?” Now it was his time to become mad and you did not care in the slightest. “Babe, listen; I’m sorry when I get home, I’ll make it up to you, I swear, baby.”

“Yeah, no need to go to the trouble. Steve’s perfectly capable of that, I’m sure.”

The line went silent and for seconds you could not even hear his breathing. And when he spoke, at last, it was nothing but a weak: “What?”

Steadying your breathing, you nodded your head, trying to convince yourself what you did was for our own good. You deserved better, even if that had you going against every instinct of yours. “In fact, I should get back to him. Let me know when you get home, won’t you?”

You should have finished the call just then; it might have let you incite something surely regretful without tears in your eyes. But John’s attitude hastily changed, and his voice boomed on the line even before you could hang up.

“Hey, what the fuck are you talking about? You fucking Captain America now? The fuck is that about—is this you trying to make some point to me? Huh?”

“You know what? John, I’m not even mad that you’re fucking some chick in a hotel, I’m mad that you think I’m too darn ignorant to know. But then you go and bring that shit to my door, into my home! I only kept you around because I was too damn scared of being alone! You know, I could handle you having your frat-boy fun on your “business trips”, but the lack of respect!”

“Wow-wow-wow! “Kept me around”? Seriously, Y/N? Who do you think you are? You’re the one who taking Captain-fucking-America to our home, aren’t you?”

You laughed aloud, covering your mouth as you paced a circle. The low he had to get on to shift the fault of your failing relationship. You were ready to rip out your hair; hurt him; hurt yourself, and while you had been dealing with your forlorn relationship, Steve had left his place in the couch and precariously stood on his uneasy feet. While persistent thought of doubt gnawed at his mind, Steve was unsure how to react, nor if he even should for it was crystal clear by your hushed voice, you did not want him to hear.

“Go fuck a bitch, John,” heckled you, ended the call without a second thought. You clung so tightly to your mobile phone that your knuckles turned white, in contempt, in resentment, in great tragedy for you were alone even with Steve in the other room.

But he was not in the other room. He stood an appropriate distance away from you, unnoticed and watched in extreme agony as you let out a sob, hand coming to shade your face. Crying a curse, you clenched your jaw, teeth cold in your mouth as you shivered with profound gloom. Rebuking your boyfriend, arguing over fucking Captain America without fucking Captain America. It was all shit, wasn’t it? Shifting your sorrowful, gleaming gaze from the ceiling, you found yourself facing the mirror, standing with no spine and a smeared face. The mere sight was enough to allow another tear to race down your cheek. An intense feeling over anger overwhelmed you, vexing you so aggressively your breath hitched in your throat, and it was only when you were ready to bash to mirror out of pure disgust, Steve’s low voice stammered your name in the octave of an angle.

“Are-are you okay?” asked he, unsure what else to say, his hand tentatively kneading his other. Lord, a gift from the gods he was.

“I hate him, Steve.” Your head tilted to the side, a hint of the most bittersweet smile tugging your lip upward despite your resentful mood. You sniffled, “I fucking hate him.”

And right there, in that moment of convenient sorrow, you dissolved in his arms to cry your heart out. For the first time in all too long, you allowed your guard down in another’s presence, and the fact that it was Steve’s, a man you trusted with your life and so much more, you felt safe enough to hold nothing back. His large arms holding you close, keeping you from falling to the ground and drown in a puddle of tears, he whispered promises in your ear, ever so softly and you just might kiss him for his kindness, but for now; you cried and Steve did not mind consoling you one bit, for, at last, it was his arms you were in.

#steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #captain america #captain america gif #captain america x reader #captain america imagine #marvel #marvel imagine #chris evans #chris evans imagine #theplumsoldier

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sataniccapitalist · 4 years

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“Our survival depends on seeing this violent, barbarian behemoth for what it is.”

Chaos, violence, legal challenges, voter suppression and party suppression all culminated in the pathetic display of democratic degeneration on Election Day. After two decades of losing wars, plus the economic collapse of 2008, the response to COVID-19, and now the election debacle, if there were any doubts the U.S. is a morally exhausted empire in irreversible decline, they would have been erased with yesterday’s anti-democratic spectacle.

Democratic Party propagandists and “frightened” leftists are desperate. They tell their supporters and the public that the republic will not survive another term of Donald Trump. They point to his despicable, racist descriptions of undocumented migrant workers from Mexico; his characterization of some global South nations; his misogyny; his crude and obvious white supremacy; his authoritarian proclivities; and his pathological dishonesty—among his many character flaws—as reasons why he must be stopped.

However, for those of us who have been historically subjected to the colonial fascism that is the U.S. settler project, the liberal-left argument that the Trump regime represents some fundamental departure from previous administrations that were equally committed to white power and that he is an existential threat (to whom, we are not clear) remains unpersuasive.

As the Biden and Trump drama plays out, we ask from our experiences some simple questions on what might happen when a victor emerges:

Will either candidate really have the ability to restore the millions of jobs lost during the current economic crisis?

Will the illegal subversion of Venezuela and Nicaragua stop, and the blockade of Cuba end?

Will the prison-industrial complex that is housing ten of thousands of the Black and Brown economically redundant be closed?

Will the charges be dropped against Edward Snowden and the extradition demand for Julian Assange end?

Will Gaza continue to be the largest open-air prison on the planet?

Will the U.S. reverse its decision to deploy new intermediate-range missiles that will be equipped with nuclear warheads targeting Russia in Europe and China in the Asia-Pacific?

Will the Saudi and Obama-originated war on Yemen end?

Will the U.S. settler-colonial state really defund the police and the military?

“The liberal-left argument that the Trump regime represents some fundamental departure from previous administrations remains unpersuasive.”

What is this “new fascism” the latte-left talks about? What is this “existential threat”? For most of us, the threat has always been existential. When colonial Nazism that was inspired by the U.S. Jim Crow South was applied in Europe—with its violence and racism—it was only then that it took on a different moral and political characterization.

The racist French government launches a domestic terror campaign against Muslims in the country, while bombing Africans in Africa and overthrowing their governments. The European Union gives a human rights award to a political opposition in Venezuela that burns Black people alive because those Black people are seen as Maduro supporters. Meanwhile, NATO, the military wing of U.S. and European white supremacy, expands into South America to support the Monroe Doctrine that morally justifies U.S. regional domination. But fascism is coming to the U.S., they cry!

For those of us who reside in the colonized spaces of empire, leading with uncritical emotionalism as we confront and attempt to deal with the Trump phenomenon, is a self-indulgent diversion we cannot afford. That is because, for us, the consequences truly are life threatening.

In occupied Palestine, Venezuela, Yemen, the South-side of Chicago, Haiti, the concentration camps for Indigenous peoples called “reservations,” as well as “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, our survival depends on seeing this violent, barbarian behemoth for what it is. We must have no sentimental delusions about the difference between the governance of either of the two ruling class-dominated parties.

For us, both parties are ongoing criminal enterprises that are committed to one thing and one thing only: Ultimately serving the interests of the capitalist ruling class—by any means necessary!

It is in that commitment that we, the colonized, the excluded, the killable, who experience the murderous sanctions that deny us food and life preserving medicines, the killer cops who slowly snuff out our lives with their knee on our necks, the deadly military attacks that destroy our ancient nations and turn us into refugees, the subversion of our political systems, the theft of our precious resources, and the literal draining of the value of our lives through the super-exploitation of our labor.

“Both parties are ongoing criminal enterprises.”

For us, we ask, what will be the difference if Biden wins? Wasn’t Biden part of the administration that conspired with the Department of Homeland Security and Democratic mayors to repress the Occupy movement once it became clear the movement could not be co-opted?

Didn’t Obama place Assata Shakur as the first woman on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list and increase the bounty on her head? A recent release of FBI documents revealed it was during the Obama-Biden years that the “Black Identity Extremist ” label was created.

The illegal subversion of Venezuela began with Bush, but intensified under Obama. The sanctions slapped on that country—that were expanded under Trump—have resulted in tens of thousands of innocent people dying from lack of medicines. It was the Obama-Biden administration that decided to devote over $1 trillion to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next decade.

Democratic and Republican strategists support the white supremacist NATO structure, the “Pivot to Asia,” and the insane theory being advanced by military strategists, who are wargaming a nuclear “first-strike” strategy against Russia and China that they believe can be successful in destroying those countries’ intercontinental ballistic missiles while the missiles are still in their launchers. That is why the Trump administration pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and has so far failed to renew the START nuclear treaty with Russia, scheduled to end in February 2021.

“It was during the Obama-Biden years that the ‘Black Identity Extremist’ label was created.”

Not being confused by the liberal framework that advances a cartoonish understanding of fascism that Trump’s bombastic theatrics evokes in the public imagination, it is clear the threat of increased authoritarianism, the use of military force, repression, subversion, illegal sanctions, theft, and rogue state gangsterism is on the agenda of both capitalist parties in the U.S. and the Western European colonizer states.

No matter who sits in the white peoples’ house after the election, we will have to continue to fight for social justice, democracy, and People(s)-Centered Human Rights.

It is important to re-state that last sentence because the left in the U.S. is experiencing extreme anxiety with the events around the election. They want and need to have order, stability and good feelings about their nation again. But for those of us from the colonized zones of non-being, anything that creates psychological chaos, disorder, delegitimization, disruption of the settler-colonial state and demoralization of its supporters is of no concern for us.

Unlike the house slave who will fight harder than the Massa to put out the flames in the plantation house, we call to the ancestors to send a strong breeze.

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC). He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch. He was recently awarded the US Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shim award for uncompromised integrity in journalism

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beloved-judged · 5 years

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Initiation and Adoption

My papa (initiatory father) has a lot to say on the issue of initiation and not being able to be connected fully without initiation. Since vodou is a religion of practice--that is, since we learn from people in a community and not from a book and on our own--there’s a lot missing from our lives when we don’t have that connection and community. He goes on quite a bit about this: about his own lineage, from biological family and from initiatory family. He has a lot of very good points, but for me where it gets personal is the idea of adoption.

I suppose this is just in keeping with the family history I’ve alluded to elsewhere, but let’s just say that while I have biological family, we’ve never been particularly close. In fact, I was legally emancipated as a minor (and through deed and relationship, emancipated in fact long before the judge signed off on it.)

I’m not an orphan, but I’ve spent most of my life feeling like one and trying not to envy people with functional, loving families. I have no fucking idea what it’s like to reach out to family members when I’m feeling down, or when I have trouble paying rent. I went decades without family members remembering my birthday, both in the sense of anyone getting in touch with me, but also in the sense of being called because my father was filling out paperwork and he couldn’t remember what day or year I was born.

My papa makes the point that initiation, when it’s done correctly, is adoption. He says, essentially, it’s not up to us to choose who we adopt. The spirit tells you who is to be a child and who is not.

Imagine my lonely shock when the spirits consented to adopt me.

There is no hunger like being totally alone in the world, and I spent many, many years alone in a dark apartment for Christmas, let alone when something broke and I needed someone to talk to. Decades of swallowing my emotions by myself, because even if someone had been there, I could not have possibly described myself to them.

I was missing too many parts to be able to account for myself.

The emotional ramifications of adoption didn’t quite hit me until I was there. The love at the temple knocked my fucking socks off--at first, I thought it was the people and I was just awestruck by the... radiant cleanliness and affection that I experienced in the badji.

Because holy fuck. People are often a snarled mass of confusion, anger, smoldering resentment, and/or self-centeredness that radiates from them in varying strengths. I have previously tried very hard to avoid people when at all possible because it’s like sticking your hands in sewage. Even when the person is otherwise awesome, the... well, it’s not pleasant to pick up on. It can be downright exhausting, though my tolerance for it has gone up considerably as my relationship with my spirits has grown and I have done as they bid me.

Obedience--even when the thing in question is a painful mess of self-reflection and change--gives strength and cleanliness. I obey and transform, and now I can be in the presence of all sorts of ick without existential fear or taking anything home.

I re-listened to one of my papa’s podcasts this morning and it hit me all over again: Me! They adopted me! Me, with no biological lineage (or at least none that I know about for sure.) Me!

I’m not even a part of the culture. They don’t have any reason to love me.

Someone picked me. Actually, quite a few someones picked me. They didn’t just pick me, they actually wanted me to be a part of the family.

I think I had to be alone for that many years to appreciate it, honestly. I have been one of the lost for a long time--a thrown-away girl and woman, easy to harm and worthless.

The idea that someone or someones would specifically say “this one” is...

Well, they say there are many motivations for being in vodou. Me?

I just want to be loved.

I have the assurance that, no matter what rank I do or do not reach, or what work they might have for me, that I am loved. I am finally someone’s child.

No matter what they have in store for me, it’s been worth it.

#vodou #love #intiation #adoption

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vnmblast · 5 years

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LISTEN UP, BITCHCAKES

BASICS. Given / Birth Name : Jessica Miriam Drew Nickname / Preferred Name : Jess Alias(es) : Spider - Woman Birthdate / Age : December 7th 1931 / 88 Place of Birth : London, England Current Location : Hell’s Kitchen, New York Gender Identity : Cis Female Sexual / Romantic Orientation : Pan pan pan pan pan all around. Her standards : low. Sexuality : mysterious. Romantic inclination : sad. Ethnicity / Race / Cultural Heritage: Indian, Greek Cypriot Marital Status : Single Occupation : Private Investigator + Back up Avenger Religious Beliefs : None.

CHARACTERISTICS. Height : 5′10″ Weight : 150 lbs Body Type / Build : Athletic. She’s all legs and core and could probably kick a hole through you if given the chance. Lady is, as the recently incarcerated might say, thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. Eye Color : Green Hair Color / Texture : Dark brown shoulder length hair. It’s thick. Makes summer months uncomfortable and winter a delight. Has been known to wear a wig with her spandex. To keep things interesting. Recognizable Features / Scars : Her entire body is littered with scarring but nothing that could be picked out of a lineup. Speech Patterns / Accent : Absolutely no discernible accent. When she was younger, yes, there was a definite British twang. That Spy Life ^ TM taught her to blend in well though, so her speech patterns drift towards whichever area she lives. Right now it’s New York and ... you can hear it. Languages Spoken : A lot. Hindi, Greek, English, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian. Don’t piss her off she will literally drag you and all your ancestors in every last one of them. Powers / Skills / Abilities : You know ... typical metahuman stuff. Superhuman strength, speed, reflexes, agility, healing, endurance and durability. She can generate bioelectric currents at her fingertips that can range from an annoying shock to lethal ( venom blasts ). Lady can not nor will ever stop sticking to walls. If you are her friend, there will be footprints on your ceiling. Poison / Toxins have mild effects on her at first exposure - but her body tends to nullify them pretty quick. Yes, that does include alcohol. Annnd last on the ‘metahuman’ list : she secretes pheromones. It’s not great. Results in people either taking an extreme liking to her or H A T I N G her. The later being more common.

Non - power - wise she’s fan - tastic at hand to hand combat in various styles. She was trained thoroughly in the art of espionage, intel gathering, covert operations and wise cracking. Knows her way around weaponry. Typical stuff. Sunday brunch stuff.

Overall Health : Excellent so long as you never look at an x-ray of hers ever.

RELATIONSHIPS. Order of Birth : First Number of Siblings : 0 Father’s Status + Relationship : Jyotish “Jonathan” Drew, deceased. A geneticist recruited by HYDRA for his works in creating radioactive resistance in spiders ( thought to be applicable in human genome, never tested prior to Jessica ). He was a quiet immigrant from Bombay ( now Mumbai ) and friend of Edgar Wyndham. Though he reported to the organization, they lived as a family near Wundagore Mountain in central Europe. His work with radioactive materials resulted in Jessica’s initial radiation sickness / deteriorating state when reaching toddler age --- he exposed his pregnant wife to near lethal levels of uranium. Mother’s Status + Relationship : Merriam Drew, UNKNOWN. ( Hello, Ophelia. ) Not much is currently known about her, and all records Jess could find indicate she was a mild mannered house wife. Kind, perhaps to a fault. Everything she knows about Merriam comes from an old physician’s file, it’s how she knows they have the same eyes. The file is currently locked up in her apartment. Sibling Status + Relationship : N / A Loyalty / Affiliation : Who is this ..... loyalty. Where’s her number, Jess just wants to talk.

PERSONALITY. MBTI : INFP Hobbies : --- fighting off existential crises on friday nights ya’ll holla atcha girl. Fixes old motorcycles. Binges a lot of Netflix. She’s a huuuuuuuuuge Foodie. Bad Habits : Fidgets, has a tendency of lashing out + pushing people away, keeps everything surface, all ‘yas girl’ and star wars references. Three Positive Traits : Knows where all the good places to eat are in any city at any given time / season. She’s resilient, able to take way too many punches in her personal and professional life. And she sees good in literally everyone. No one, to her, is hopeless. Don’t take her jabs as anything more than face value, she’s empathetic to a Fault. My girl here Cares. Three Negative Traits : Struggles hard with un - diagnosed Depression. Her pride, and sometimes her own thoughts, have convinced her not to seek treatment. Do not be like Jessica Drew, take care of your mental state. Paranoia is a big factor in her day by day life. Was that a weird looking tree or is she about to get drop kicked by some experimental AIM pet again. Disregard for personal safety. She’s a self - sacrifice - r. When in a Good headspace, she thinks through a situation with clear intent and plan. When not, it becomes a Hail Mary Every Time. Moral Alignment : Neutral Good

ASSOCIATIONS. One Song : make me feel One Quote / Piece of Art : “ from even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent. ” One Fear : rejection ! but with pizazz. One Strength : pop culture extraordinaire One Object : her motorcycle One Place : the beach One Food : no, all food One Scent : lemon One Lucky Charm : novelty deodorant stick called webpits

BIOGRAPHY BREAK DOWN.

born to a dumb - smart guy and his kind of complacent wife ( different times ). one of jon’s experiments shot an eXpErImEnTaL bEaM of radiated spider dna through merriam’s very pregnant torso. turns out, human dna doesn’t like that. jessica suffered the effects of radiation poisoning well into her eighth year of life when she experienced a sudden rapid breakdown of tissue. as a last ditch attempt to save her life, her father injected a serum of irradiated spider goop ( we only use the Best technical terms in this house ) that fundamentally altered her dna.

fight uranium with more uranium, just like grandma used to.

surprising exactly no one : she was still dying faster than the magic drug. this is where her entire history with HYDRA begins : Wyndham. wyndham was a fellow geneticist, you see, and really loved the idea of cryostasis ( heading the project himself ). he took jess’ case and allowed her body time to properly heal itself to the tune of thirty years.

it’s really disconcerting falling asleep a child and waking up a teenager. has zero perks.

in a truly fucked up move to uncover how jessica’s father altered her physiology, she was put through a battery of tests / training. they even went so far as to fabricate a boy they thought she’d care for. suffice to say, after an emotionally exhaustive day, jess discovered she could lightly fry people with her fingertips ... and that is apparently her new normal. mr. boyfriend died by her hand. she ran away.

fury found her.

she worked with SHIELD then didn’t. it’s a long story, maybe she’ll get into it one day.

“retired” to san fran where she started “masked hero” work with a PI business on the side.

now she’s in new york, still doing the masked hero gig and PI work but with cheaper real estate.

you may think i’m over-exaggerating about jessica being That Foodie but i’m telling you now she is eating in practically every background panel she’s ever been in and we Support her high metabolism.

#united task 001 #united intro #▼ ( jessica drew. )

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hahahadas · 6 years

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This evening Portland is exhibiting the weather that made me want to move here, how I envisioned it in California on the days leading up to the move - morning after morning of sunny sun - I longed for the calm, quiet overcast, wrote idealistic poems about it.

Whenever I have a certain mood that I recognize - this one being a sort of frantic nostalgia, a longing, a fondness for all the types of people I pass on the street, thanking the sky for being the way it is, head over heels in love with the overcast that somehow gives room for my thoughts...thanking the temperature for being just right. I should also say that this overcast magic combined with a book of profound short stories that hit upon some truths I didn’t even know existed about being alive and being a woman also adds to this mood. (Thank you to author Chelsea Hodson).

I’ve been feeling a pretty strong disconnect from my poet self. Or, maybe not from my poet self, but from poetry in the world. I don’t enjoy readings as much as I used to - I am instead left exhausted and overwhelmed instead of invigorated and inspired. I’ve noticed it takes me more effort to listen and take in, and I stay interested for less amount of time. Same with workshop. I used to be excited to go, and now I need to muster up the energy and enthusiasm. Of course once I’m there I’m usually happy I went but it’d be nice if I didn’t have to jump over the hurdle every week. And I haven’t been producing new work. The last poem I wrote was maybe a month ago and it isn’t even something I want to edit to improve. This is all very alarming for someone who calls herself a poet. And I know writers don’t always have to be writing to be called one, but still, I want to be doing more than I am. But no material is coming. I read at an open mic and felt good about it but it’s such a fleeting experience. And there’s always that flash of intense dislike for the poem right before I read it aloud. I’d like to read more often but again, it takes a lot of discipline to actually go. Or maybe discipline isn’t the right word. Whatever the word is for doing something you know is good for you but coming up with reasons to stay home instead. “I’m tired, it’s cold” being #1.

Sometimes I feel like I’m only experiencing about 5% of what life has to offer. I know it’s not true and I can’t really come up with what I’d lke to be doing instead, I mean, just working and exercising and cooking good food and sleeping enough and seeing friends is enough. Right? But (and maybe this is why I haven’t been writing much at all) I don’t have stories to tell. I have minute observations, little life moments that give me chills, the stuff of a certain kind of poetry, right? But the stories I love to read, stories people often tell during social gatherings...that kind of story seems sorely lacking in my experience. Sometimes I think I play it too safe. And I like it that way, I do, and can’t tell if this desire for new/unusual/risky/colorful experiences is something I feel like I should have or something I actually desire. So this is the mood that hits walking home, backpack heavy with groceries, the Monday of a very long work week (44 hours) after a month of only part-time work, thinking about what I am doing in this city, what any of us fills their time with, and how we find meaning without getting all melodramatic about it. You could even call this state of mind nostalgic existentialism. Where it’s a sort of pleasant musing, walking down a main road and seeing all there is to offer, all the establishments I walk by every day but don’t know their purpose, smells of Indian food, of cigarette smoke, of exhaust, of the coming spring.

Candle, incense, tea, biscuits, heater, the rest of that book of short stories, word vomit, 8pm approaching. My favorite way to experience solitude. (Inner critic says “I feel like such a stereotype”).

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picsofsannyas · 6 years

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Interview with Indivar. Osho Darshan Diary. The Great Nothing. Monday 4.October 1976.

Maneesha: How did you come to hear about Osho?

Indivar: I can tell you about the actual event that happened, but really it seems as if all that has happened up to this time has been a preparation for coming here. And looking back it seems that everything was necessary-even those things which were difficult or painful at the time.

But specifically I was having lunch with a woman-she’s a lecturer in psychology and she’d been to India and just returned. She said, “You should read this,” and put this book into my hand and I felt this current going up my arm, and I said, “What’s this?” That was “No Water, No Moon‘. And of course I was gone….that was it. Anyway, I read the book-and that was the first explosion. Prior to this it’s been quite a long story.

Maneesha: Can you briefly outline the things that you see as having been major points in bringing you here? Did you have any spiritual inclinations or see your self as a seeker? Your a psychiatrist aren’t you?

Indivar: A clinical psychologist.

Well, it’s been there for as long as I can remember, even as a small boy.

I trained as a clinical psychologist and after five years out of post-graduate school, I suddenly became aware that I knew nothing about what I was supposed to be doing. So I began to look into the nature of anxiety and discovered that there are two different sorts: pathological anxiety-which is at once or at the same time, protective-and then the existential anxiety: the anxiety of death, the anxiety of feeling meaninglessness, the anxiety of guilt-that life demands something of you.

This led straight into existential philosophy, which led directly into Zen, because existential philosophy says that you must commit yourself totally and do totally what you think and believe and then learn from the experience. So it is total commitment to depression, anxiety and all these things.

Then it just exploded and took off from their.

Maneesha: So your coming here seemed to be just a natural step in going deeper Into psychology, or were you also seeking something for yourself?

Indivar: Well, I never at any time wanted to be a psychologist. As long as I can remember it was always, “What is it all about?” And this was just naturally the next move and the thing to do. I just followed it.

Maneesha: So having become interested in Zen, what happened then?

Indivar: My first long service leave came up seven years with this particular employer, so I thought, well, theirs only one thing to do-three months in Zazen.

I did it and it was exhausting! I stuck half an hours Zazen, half an hour working or walking or chopping wood, and then back to Zazen-for three months.

Then I went back to work and this Indian appeared from nowhere through this woman, and he told what I’d been doing had been making too much effort, too much aggression, that I’d been making too much effort, trying to attack it. He more or less became my teacher-Chaitanya Nitya Yetti. Whenever I came across any difficulty, I would write to him and he would know the story. I’d never at any time thought of him as my guru, though I loved him very much.

Then I met Maharshi-such a beautiful man. His main thing was to ask “Who am I?”-which I simply became aware was irrelevant. What you have to focus on is the feeling of what you call “I” or “me“. So I began to do that, and I was doing that until I came here.

I keep a picture of him in my room. I keep meditating on that all the time, and it does exactly the same thing that Osho’s picture does-it goes blue, interestingly enough. I always keep it above me in the room in the clinic where I work and whenever I’m in doubt, I stop and just sit and look at it, and people to start to cry and to roll on the floor and just do so many things.

Maneesha: Were you keeping up meditating regularly all this time?

Indivar: Yes, I was. Every morning at five o’clock I’d get up, meditate for an hour and then go to the clinic.

Maneesha: Can you say something more about the changes in your work? You were becoming more passive, less of a doer?

Indivar: Yes. When I went into the study of anxiety and then into existential approach, this led to a whole great outpouring of what I call ”therapy by repetition“. What I would do was to take whatsoever was presented and just get a person to repeat that. Doing that would reinforce the thing they were trying to avoid. A great explosion of emotions used to come out and it was miraculous.

Maneesha: Had you any experience of encounter groups and that approach?

Indivar: Well, any therapy you like to name I’d used. Eventually I reached the point where I did nothing, because more and more you realize that unless this whatever it is-this force of grace-is there, everything else is irrelevant. So you simply allow the person to get in contact with this grace-what Perls calls the wisdom of the organism … simply allow that to take over-and that’s it. It just all fall’s into place.

Maneesha: What were your impressions, your feelings, on reading Osho’s books, about the person who had written them?

Indivar: As if I’d known him for thousands of years. It was incredible. I’ve fallen In love with four women in my life and really gone into this madness. Osho was the fifth! [Laughter] It was incredible. Just to read something: Ooohhh…too much! Put it down! It was like that. It’s the only way I can describe it. The same feeling exactly as falling in love. It’s almost just too painful stay with.

Maneesha: So how did you finally make the decision to come here?

Indivar: There was really no decision. It was a question of when I could arrange it. This long service leave came up and I made arrangements and got in a housekeeper to help my wife-which is interesting because Osho has been talking about the femininity in people and I am very much aware of the feminine me.

Maneesha: How have your family been reacting to your moving into meditation? Have they been quite receptive?

Indivar: Well, of course my wife thinks I’m mad. She’s a doctor, and being trained in the rational mode of medicines he finds it difficult it to enter the sphere, which of course has made quite a rift. I’ve found meditation extremely helpful in dealing with the reactions that come. But the children surprisingly enough have been brought much closer to me. In fact when I meditate they come and sit here [indicating his lap].They stay there-not talking, just sitting, particularly the younger one-she just sits….just sits. The older ones not so much. I was just thinking about that. Perhaps they were too old to experience whatever it was. Maneesha: Can you describe your first feelings on seeing Osho?

Indivar: I just felt so….well, like coming home…as if I wasn’t meeting him for the first time. It seemed quite normal: there he was and it was an “Oh, we meet again” sort of thing.

And when he asked whether I wanted to take sannyas I thought, “Well, that’s ridiculous! Why is he playing this game? Of course he knows I’m a sannyasin !I mean-how absurd! ”Because you know, it didn’t matter because he obviously knew what the score was and it just seemed to be a game really.

Then the groups started. That was an experience in itself.

Maneesha: They’ve been very powerful for you?

Indivar: I only lasted twelve hours in the Enlightenment Intensive. I became aware of just what a full vessel I’d brought with me.

Maneesha: What do you mean by a full vessel?

Indivar: Well, full of ideas, expectations, and also the realization that I’d been very much of a monk in the world, been strenuously striving not to strive. I could hardly speak or move or do anything, and I was completely devastated. I spent about three days recovering before I went into the Tao group. It was like recovering from a long illness.

Maneesha: And how was Tao?

Indivar: Well, for the first two days I found myself reacting almost automatically-doing the things I’ve been doing for the past twenty years without thinking about it. Then on the third day Prasad became filled by this energy-I didn’t know at the time. He was saying, “Indivar! Indivar! Touch my foot! Touch my foot!” And I thought, “Well, that’s a funny thing to say. Why does he want me to touch Is foot! Well, I’ll touch his foot If he wants me to.“ So I touched his foot with my hand and aaahhhh!!! This great scream came out of my body…as if it wasn’t me. I knew that something was making it, and it just came-a great scream. So I sank to the floor and fell back. It was so beautiful. I didn’t know where I was. I was just nailed to the floor.

They tell me people were coming and touching the body and having abreactions….screaming. There was one girl on the foot, weeping. I was spaced out completely. And that was the end! I’ve never been the same since. That was another explosion. There have been many more since, but that perhaps was the one thing which just went beyond reason because here was something unbelievable, but it happened and what it was I haven’t the faintest idea. It happened and I experienced it. And it happened three times in the same group.

Maneesha: Do you have any sort of energy experiences when you’re near Osho?

Indivar: Only in Darshan-Not in the lecture. I do in my room-when I’m doing Zazen, or when I’m running: running is beautiful. In fact that was the first way I discovered what centering was.

For many years I’ve been running about six miles every day. One day, going beyond the point of exhaustion, I suddenly began to float and I thought, ”This is strange. What is it?” I started weeping. I wasn’t running-I was floating and tears streaming down my face! I thought, “I’m going mad!” It only happens when you’re absolutely exhausted and just pushed beyond that exhaustion. It only lasted about two hundred yards and then I collapsed; that was it. It wasn’t until I read “The Book Of The Secrets” that I found out what it was: Your thrown to the center.

Maneesha: Of what about Tathata.

Indivar: What became apparent in Tathata was the reconciliation of the opposites. I would be directed to a passage in a book and it would open up on the opposites and about having to experience everything from one end to another. So taking these and reconciling them was the key thing that came up in Tathata.

Osho told me to read Lao Tzu. I couldn’t get a copy of him so I got Chuang Tzu instead. So I go fishing with Chuang Tzu. He’s crazy! He doesn’t even have a rod. Going fishing without a rod! What fisherman goes fishing without a rod? I ask you.

And you know what he does? He just sits on the river and looks at the river and he doesn’t do anything. So I sat there and then I said, “Listen mate, your enlightened and all this stuff, but tell me, what about these fish?”

He said, “You want fish? You sit there and watch!” And suddenly all these fish start jumping out at me-big ones, small ones, pink ones, thin ones saying, ”Take me! Take me!” I thought, “This is fantastic! I have to try this!”

The next morning I get up really early and I sneak off to the river leaving Chuang Tzu behind. I go and sit on the river and I sit in his seat the way he was sitting. I sit there and become very still and then what happens? The whole river falls in on me and everything else disappears…just falling. It was incredible. I don’t know how long it lasted.

I wrote a letter to Osho telling him about this, I put it in my pocket and of I marched, and you know what happened? The first thing he said when he came in the lecture was, “Do not hang on to any spiritual experience, no matter how ecstatic or blissful. ”So how about that?

But then of course the principle of non striving, which has been perhaps the greatest single thing coming here, came up in the hypno- therapy. If I was running and everybody else had stopped running, I’ve always been the last to give in, which of course has its positive side. And this non-effort-which is not of course, not doing anything, but dealing with what comes along….And its most strange because what you seem to need comes along without your doing anything. And I find that in a way I’m back to where I started but the difference is that now I can do Zazen without effort.

One of the single greatest experience is also came in Hypnotherapy, when under hypnosis. Santosh said that I would only have an hour to live. It was almost as if it was true-I believed this. So I went up on top of Krishna House on the roof and began to write in a notebook what I would have to clear away and then suddenly, ”This is ridiculous! What does it matter? In fifteen minutes I’m going to be a dead man! Nothing matters!!” Suddenly the heavens sort of opened up. It was impossible to do anything.

Then I said, “Well, I’d like to say goodbye to Prasad. We said goodbye. Then I thought “Well, what will I do now? “I said, “Where’s the best place to wait? Of course, at the gate! ”[of Osho’s residents.]

So I just went and sat by the gate. I sat there and there was no future because I was going to die and the past didn’t matter. Suddenly I was just being in the here and now. And I knew what he meant-just to be there….the sun shining, the birds, the trees, the ground. It was all so beautiful….so beautiful and peaceful and still, I could have died then it was so beautiful.

So there was this awareness of no effort, no future, no past-only now, If you’re there, there’s no striving, no striving for the future.

Maneesha: And the quality of your Zazen is of less effort now?

Indivar: Yes, well, it’s not really Zazen anymore. It is watching these thoughts coming up. It’s like going to the pictures: I’m just sitting there and watching all these things coming.

And also I’m getting these feelings or commands or whatever they are-being told to go to such and such place, to be here, to do this and to do that; so I just do them. Simple things-I sit in my room alone and the voice says, “Put on your best gown and go down to the coffee shop.” I think, “All right-I’ll do that.” Then someone comes up to me and says, “I want to talk about Rajneesh,” so I sit and talk about Osho with them.

Yesterday someone came up-a movie maker from Australia who wants to make a movie about Osho-so I brought him to the lecture this morning. The day before that, it was an industrialist from Bombay who has this world interest in advertising-I brought him along to the lecture. And all the waiters in the Blue Diamond, and the housekeeper, they stop me and say, ”What about this Osho?” So I stop and talk to them about him, and they ask for books….Very strange.

Maneesha: So this having directives from inside is something that’s quite new?

Indivar: Yes!

Maneesha: And the lectures…. Are they an intellectual stimulus for you or do you find you go into a meditative space during them?

Indivar: I just go into some kind of space. But always if there’s a question to be answered, the answer always comes up in the lecture-like the letter I told you about. Just comes.

Maneesha: You described how you got here as being a natural evolution of your work. Do you see that it must be everybody’s next-everybody who is involved in therapy, in psychology, psychiatry, the human potential movement? Do you see this realm as being a natural follow On?

Indivar: I think that which therapy has done is all right up to a point, but once you’ve reach that point you then have to jump into the abyss.

Their are two quite different journeys as you probably know. There’s the outward journey-you have to acquire an ego-there’s no other way. Like Osho says, if God didn’t want man to have knowledge he wouldn’t tell him about the tree; Man would still be wandering around in nowhere, not even aware of the tree of knowledge.

So there’s this outward journey-there’s this acquiring of the ego-and all these so-called humanistic therapies are concerned with ego fulfillment-which is more or less conventional psychotherapeutic treatment. You know-”OK will fix you up,” and so on and so forth. Its okay, but it’s only the outward journey. Then we must return back to the source

When I see that a person needs prompting or pushing on the outward journey…always with people now it’s trying to see whether that point of readiness is there, to begin the return journey. And my own journey into myself has shown me that the more open we are, the more open we become-that openness is your gift to others. So I’m not concerned with all this psychology and everything.

Maneesha: So you could say that these therapies bring you’re ego to a crystallization; to a point where it’s fulfilled and so naturally starts to rebound?

Indivar: Well, you reach a point where you think, “What the hell? Here I am and I’ve got all these things of life, but it’s still meaningless. I’ve achieved everything-but so what? I’m still exactly the same. “You have to reach the point of seeing the nonsense, the emptiness of all achievement. But it depends…Some people become much more ready even before this.

And that’s interesting because for some of the most seriously disturbed people I’ve worked with-even some schizophrenics-this in itself has been sufficient. They have become very spiritual. It’s quite extraordinary One alcoholic, for example, who had been an alcoholic of very long-standing and had thrown himself of a seven-story building to commit suicide and had crippled himself -he came along. He just went straight into self-observation or the self remembering of Gurdjieff, just like a duck takes to water. He was just ready for it, and all I did was to be a catalyst. This has been happening more and more.

Maneesha: What were your first impressions of the ashram?

Indivar: Well I came with conceptions or ideas of what it would be and was rudely shattered when I found it was nothing like that at all. The thing which was most noticeable was the indifference of people. I was surprised about that. I thought, “stone the crows!” [Australian for, “Good heavens!] What’s the matter?-so serious. Not interested in each other. I couldn’t care less, you know, it doesn’t make any difference to me, but I could see that it would for someone else. Since I’ve been here so many people have come to me and I just sit and listen and I wonder that perhaps there is a need for this-for a person to whom people can go because their are always people in a crisis or with problems. Maybe this happens-I don’t know. But it was just a thought today that this could be quite valuable.

But I see this indifference as a kind of selective device. Particularly for people with expectations or any ideas that they’re special-which we all feel sometimes. As long as there is an ego, one thinks one is special. So I see it as the first hurdle-a selective device.

Maneesha: what does Osho mean to you? Do you experience him as a personality or as an energy force.?

Indivar: It’s almost as if he’s throwing me back on myself. He sort of took hold of me and gave me one hell of a shake and then he said, “All right mate! Back you go now.” And I know what you need is within your self. I still have a tremendous feeling for him but if I were to leave now, it would be quite all right.

Maneesha: So he’s more of a reflection for you rather than an entity in himself?

Indivar: Yes. What he is, is within me, and wherever I go, whatever I do, there is no separation. What ever he is-that energy-is always there, always has been. But coming here was absolutely necessary



#indivar #sannyas #osho #spirituality #meditation

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lizzizzie-blog · 7 years

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At the Bottom of Everything

Well, Saturday the 10th was my 31st birthday. I am officially in my thirties. Last year, my unexpected existential angst about turning 30 drove me to write the first post for this thing, and like I wrote in the last post before this one, a lot happened in 2017. Too much.

In my first post, I wrote some thoughts about what I might accomplish in year 30. Let’s review:

“Maybe 30 will be the year that I grow up and address my physical health.” Nope.

“Maybe 30 will be the year that I get it together enough to clean my shower with minimally acceptable frequency.” Also no. Oh well.

“Maybe 30 will be the year during which I finally give in and start budgeting like a responsible person should.” This is a yes, but only because things got tighter than ever with purchasing a business, and we haven’t had a choice. It’s still not even budgeting, though. I’m great at expense tracking, but my version of budgeting is just… not buying anything except food.

“Maybe 30 will be the year I stop spilling shit and running into shit all. the. time.” NOPE, definitely not. I am currently rocking eight bruises on one leg, from thigh to foot. Six of them are from one fall (I failed to notice a step), and the other two are from running into the edge of same glass-top desk two days in a row last week.

“Maybe 30 will be the year I will give myself permission to do less.” I actually did pretty well with this one. I’ve gotten better at making decisions based on what I actually need and want, rather than what I feel I should do. I’ve started to say no when I can’t do things. This has been partly out of necessity, but also partly out of my commitment to (try to) love and forgive and not judge myself the way I easily love and forgive and don’t judge others. I’m doing what I need to do, and I’m saying no… I’m doing those things, but it still feels wrong. It still hurts and still makes me feel guilty and like a shitty friend/family member. But… baby steps. I’m working on it.

“Maybe 30 will be the year during which I grow completely out of trying to guess what my mom would think (but not actually asking her because I’m a #grownasswoman who values her own opinions) as a means of decision-making.” I’m getting better at this, too! Not just with my mom (whose opinions are still usually right), but in general. Related to the above, I’m valuing my own opinions and instincts more highly than I ever have, and I’m getting better at not apologizing for having them.

...So, I don’t know. I guess I was hoping for better/more personal improvement, but really I’m just proud I survived this year. It was hard. It was exhausting. It still is. I am so, so tired. There is way too much happening. My husband is working his ass off to make our store work, making difficult decisions and stressing, and I don’t see him very much. My job is still fully overwhelming and way too much for one person, and it’s totally kicking my ass. I’m always behind and the deadlines keep coming and more work keeps getting added and I feel like I’m failing all the time. I don’t have as much time or money or energy for my friends and family as I once did, and I feel like I’m letting everyone down. But I’m surviving, and I’m trying to take it one day at a time. And life keeps happening.

Saturday, March 10th was my 31st birthday. On Sunday the 11th, I got sick. I slept all day Sunday, and took the day off work on Monday. We also experienced a really shitty setback with the store on Monday (which I will leave cryptically vague because that’s not my story to tell). On Tuesday, I flew to Puerto Rico for work. If you’ve ever traveled while sick, you know just how awful it is. It was not a good day. Tuesday afternoon, after my coworker (who had to put up with my pathetic ass all week; she’s the best) and I found our way to our Airbnb (which didn’t have power) is when I missed the step and fell. It hurt. I was so tired, but I couldn’t sleep that night. Wednesday afternoon, I lost my voice. I spent all of Thursday and Friday fully unable to communicate above a whisper, which was incredibly frustrating since I was supposed to be training people and just, you know, functioning as a human person. We were staying in San Juan overnight on Friday to catch early flights on Saturday, and I tried to remain pleasant with my coworkers as we hung out and went out to eat, which was exhausting in itself. But then the week was finally over.

Saturday the 17th, I got on a plane to Atlanta at 6:20am. I dozed on and off throughout most of the flight in my well-earned Comfort Plus seat just behind first class. When I woke up the final time, I checked the flight tracker on the in-flight entertainment screen, and noticed we only had 20 minutes left in flight. That struck me as bizarre, because there hadn’t been any announcements about beginning our initial descent or returning our tray tables to the upright and locked position etc etc. As soon as I had that thought, the pilot came over the speaker and told us we’d be landing shortly, but that they would need us all to remain seated for a while after because they were “dealing with an issue onboard.” Oh shit. Then the flight attendant came over the speaker to repeat the message and clarify that they were “assisting a passenger who wasn’t feeling well” which, in retrospect, is a ridiculous euphemism. Then I noticed the relative commotion in first class, and the beeping of what turned out to be an oxygen machine. I noticed a passenger standing in his seat, looking concernedly at his seatmate and speaking with the flight attendant in the aisle. Then I saw another passenger from first class stand up from where he’d been crouching in the aisle, stethoscope around his neck. His expression was morose. It became clear that this passenger who was “not feeling well” was traveling alone and not doing well.

Next, the flight attendant looked around first class and said, to no one and everyone, “we’re going to need to lay him down in the aisle for landing.” I watched as several first class passengers stood up immediately and gathered around the person’s seat. There was suddenly a “we” as they all helped to lower the person (who I could now see was a man) to the floor. The flight attendant continued to crouch with him in the aisle, presumably holding the oxygen in place. I overheard the woman across from me turn to the person she was with and report to them that he was “an enormous man,” as if that was a relevant piece of information.

We landed and sped to the gate. The paramedics entered the plane and immediately began CPR. I heard the flight attendant tell them that he’d had no pulse for 25-30 minutes and that “the machine wasn’t working.” The pilots and all the flight attendants were gathered watching, some comforting one another. After a few minutes, they lifted the man and took him off the plane. The pilot came over the speaker again and told us they were continuing to do CPR in the jet bridge and asked for our continued patience. We sat for another ten or fifteen minutes. The two men in my row were talking to one another (but not me), criticizing the way the flight attendants had handled the situation, and swapping medical-situations-they’d-witnessed stories. The woman across from me reiterated how large the man was, and asked her travel companion two different times when their connecting flight was and whether they could make it, after he’d assured her the first time that they’d be fine. I was keeping to myself, taking deep breaths, hoping like hell that they’d revive the man, and steeling myself for news to the contrary.

Eventually, the pilot came over the speaker again. He mumbled a bit, and then sighed and said, “I don’t know what to say. I’m really at a loss for words over this tragic situation” (at which point the tears I’d been holding in finally spilled over) and thanked us again for our patience and cooperation. I sniffled and cried my way off the plane, and one person from the row in front of me kindly asked if I was okay. I said “of course I’m fine, it’s not about me, it’s just really sad.” I cried my way through the Atlanta airport to my connecting gate, including hiding in two different restrooms to sob. After I got to my gate and sat down and continued to cry into my hands, a woman offered me tissues. She must have noticed I’d used them, because she also went and got me napkins from the restaurant across from our gate. It was really kind of her. I was surrounded by people. But no one said anything to me.

I cried for a lot of reasons. I felt so awfully for the flight attendants who tried to save him, and for the pilots who likely felt responsible but were powerless to help, and for the random strangers in first class who tried to help and had to see all of that up close, especially for the person in the seat next to him who was so intimately involved the entire time. I felt so badly for the man’s family and friends who’d have to find out that their loved one had died alone… tragically, publicly. I felt angry that while he was dying, strangers discussed his weight and turned it into a pissing contest about other things they’d seen and worried about their connecting flights. I felt confused because, although two people showed me kindness, I was politely ignored by countless others while in obvious emotional distress. I felt upset with myself that I was allowing it to affect me so much, when it didn’t even really happen to me. I felt resentful of my overly empathetic nature. I felt tired. I felt really, really sad. (I still feel all these things.)

Anyway, I managed to make it through my last flight, to baggage claim, and out to my car, and cried again on the drive home, while listening to Bright Eyes. Because obviously. It’s always events like this that shake us up and remind us of how focused we are on the day to day, on getting our jobs done and planning for the future. Right when life is totally overwhelming me, when I’m caught up in resenting how hard it all is, I’m reminded again that the future is not promised. That all the day to day BS is really pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

We must blend into the choir, sing as static with the whole We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul And in this endless race for property and privilege to be won We must run, we must run, we must run

We must hang up in the belfry where the bats and moonlight laugh We must stare into a crystal ball and only see the past Into the caverns of tomorrow with just our flashlights and our love We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge

(And then we'll get down there, way down to the bottom of everything And then we'll see it, we'll see it, we'll see it)

Oh my morning's coming back The whole world's waking up All the city buses swimming past I'm happy just because I found out I am really no one

As of today (Monday the 19th), I finally have a little bit of my voice back. I’m not coughing up green stuff as much, and my nose is not quite so raw from blowing it. There is work to be done, meetings to be facilitated, and deadlines to be met, and I don’t have time to take time off, but… it’s too much. I woke up and I couldn’t do it. I’m too exhausted, physically and emotionally. I was in tears before 9am. I had to tell my boss everything and, thankfully, she is wonderful and took pity on me. She offered to help with my work and told me to take the time I need to rest and process. So that means I took this afternoon off. And while I realistically need more than half a day off work, this is what I can get, and I am making the most of it. So… I guess this is processing? It’s definitely resting. I’m on my laptop in my bed, with my sweet kitty curled up next to me. My eyes are finally clear of tears because I’m focused on writing this instead of just thinking all these thoughts to myself.

It was a horrible week. Life is hard. I am tired, and this post was mostly a huge bummer. But… for once, I’m not going to apologize for it. It’s true. And it is what it is.

Take care. I love you.

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