Self Potato

"People confuse awkward politeness with friendliness" - @stolemyhheart

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can't cope with others' stupidity anymore. can't. can't.

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amid the showstopping cherry blossoms stunning tulips delightful daffodils I’m forced to choke on pollen claw at my eyes sneeze my brain out and it’s confirmation of the teaching that even our highest seasons carry counterweights

but I will still listen to music in Iyar because I want to control the distribution of my own highs and lows

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I need a vacation because everyone is so STUPID and whatever I ask them they do the OPPOSITE and you can't expect me to accomplish literally anything if I have to spend all my time cleaning up other people's SHIT!!!!

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I know, I am compounding the problem, I can’t stop

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????????!

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כי ארכה לנו הישועה ואין קץ לימי הרעה

Starting this Chanukah in melancholy.

I’ve been living purposefully, ecstatically this year. We’re offered a life with depth, connectedness, the opportunity to regularly access joy. Embracing that is the best choice I ever made. I feel fulfilled, sweetly vulnerable and cocooned by a network of people who care for each other and the wider world.

Between those moments I pass through locked doors, ID checks, men armed with pistols and rifles: reminders that our joy is safest when it’s tucked away, and only sliding further so. Hesitant to thank them because I’m choking on tears. Thinking of how close we came to losing her. Sickened society and time didn’t give my grandparents the respect they deserved by marching strictly toward progress.

I’m so angry that our joy is never allowed to be pure. That every holiday on the calendar carries reminders of recently being marred by terror. I’m angry that we can’t confidently celebrate publicly, invite people in, trust.

I viscerally remember the year Chanukah was devastating, raw, piercing. Last year it was numb. I started to learn the necessity of opening up and finding sparks of hope to hold onto. But this Shemini Atzeret taught me that there is no happily ever after. There’s just a choice to embrace happiness and love amid the reminders of sorrow and fear.

[rayyblayy]

we came of age in a culture that celebrated diversity and valued uplifting minority voices and empathizing with lived experiences that we could never experience ourselves, and we listened and we made space and we learned and grew.

But when it finally became our turn, and someone raised in that culture stepped forward and told us he wanted to lead us by those values, he tried to placate us with silly anecdotes. he rarely acknowledged what we are fearful of and why it’s dangerous, because he still doesn’t understand. and when he saw it trending this way he shied away, gravitated toward those he felt safe to engage with, who he could tokenize, and avoided public confrontation.

Each of us is constantly asking ourselves where the line is between alarmism and the real thing but for me it’s the particular, acute disinterest shown by someone who preaches the importance of protecting minorities and claims to live and lead by it. It takes a high degree of obtuseness to get results this out of whack which just goes to show how widespread our concern is.

it’s frustrating and upsetting and tbh a little scary to move forward into this moment when for a year we’ve been begging him to make the effort but he doesn’t seem authentically interested in understanding us, and now he has even less of a need to make a show of trying anymore.

[rayyblayy]

!!!!!!!מועדים לשמחה

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what an insane privilege to be assured of exactly the life I want to be leading, in distinct opposition to other avenues I rejected, embracing the things I know make me happy, proud, and content, and have the ability to live it.