M

welcome to the rawest parts of me.

[sweatermuppet]

every day there is something new that will axe your heart right open all over again

[polynesia-deactivated20240207]

sorry ive been distant lately its because ive been distant lately

[ashstfu]

life is not constant suffering. sometimes you get to love and be loved in return

[weltenwellen]

Ae Hee Lee, from "Self-Portrait as Daily Sustenance"

[slimeseasonn-blog]

[ahmedsalih-deactivated20240221]

[geryone]

Wintered Over, Zeke Russell

[you-are-another-me]

[wedge-of-poetry]

“Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted, and don’t know why, when I am standing here in the cold and hoping you will get well and happy again.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess

[daughterofliterature-deactivate]

“I wish you to know

that you have been the last dream of my soul.”

—Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

[selfcare-journey]

Sometimes it's better to just reschedule if you're too tired for something at the moment. It's not fun to admit you don't have the energy for someone or something today, but ultimately it's better than burning yourself out. Good job for communicating today.

[funeral]

“That which is without familiarity is also without meaning. The traumatized person, therefore, is an exile, someone who is forced to live in a world that is no longer recognizable. It is a world in which hope itself may become a dreaded enemy. The feelings of expectation and desire that constitute hope, and which propel our lives toward some rosy future, can only be tolerated to the extent that experiences of uncertainty are also tolerable. When all certainty is exposed by trauma as a cruel myth and the future looks like a dark and barren wilderness, hope must be crushed lest it add further uncertainty to a future that is already unbearably precarious.”

— Doris Brothers, Toward a Psychology of Uncertainty: Trauma-Centered Psychoanalysis 

[griancraft]

“Why are so many kids [insert mental illness] now a days, they’re all faking and lying” hmm, I wonder what worldwide trauma and event made young teens and kids stay home with potentially abusive parents. Thus causing an exacerbation of previous mental health conditions and the formation of others? What a fucking mystery

[funeral]

“William Faulkner wrote, ‘The past is never dead. In fact, it’s not even past.’ Traumatic memories highlight the truth of his statement … Post-traumatic disturbance is best described as like time travel—an odd reliving of some or all of an event in the past. The purpose of therapy, actually, is to transform traumatic memories into being 'just normal memories.’ Post-traumatic stress disorder is a nonrational, strange mental phenomenon in which the past seems to be the present.”

— James Knipe, EMDR Toolbox: Theory and Treatment of Complex PTSD and Dissociation

[pilgrimattinkercreek1974]

transit by rachel cusk

[maryolive]

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente

[thatwriterwiththeblock]

This might be a bit of an unpopular take but it’s okay to be in love with someone who doesn’t like you back.

I don’t mean being in a relationship with someone who’s stringing you along or never getting over someone hoping they’ll eventually like you back, obviously, but like... the idea that if someone doesn’t return feelings for you then they were never worth your attention in the first place or that they should “look at what’s right beside them” or whatever is so bad but I also see it everywhere. Sometimes someone can be worthy of your love and also not like you back that way.

On top of that is the expectations of perfect love or that being in unrequited love is pathetic or sad, or that you can only be happy if someone you like a certain way likes you back the same way, and I fully blame societal amatonormativity for this. In movies and books unrequited love is always framed as either “they were never good enough for you (and usually there’s an undercurrent of about implication they were ‘using’ you)” or “by the end they realized what they were looking for was right beside them the entire time, they fall in love the end” and like

Yeah, it sucks when someone doesn’t like you back, but I’ve been in unrequited love a few times now and my general experience is that I don’t love them less because they love me differently. All my loves were close friends first, and they all remain close friends to this day, aware of my current or former feelings, and it’s... okay.

It’s okay to not be in storybook love. It’s okay to love someone differently than they love you. It’s okay to love someone who’s aroace or gay or straight and can’t be into you that way. It’s okay to be in love with someone and not want to start a relationship with them because you’re not ready or you’re happy single or you’re relationship types aren’t compatible, and it’s okay to fall in love with someone who loves someone else who isn’t the bad guy either.

Love is supposed to feel good. Loving being in love without it being requited is okay. Nobody has to be the villain or the bad guy or the one that’s missing out—sometimes, they just don’t fall in love with you, and that’s okay! If you fell in love with them for the right reasons, you should still love having them in your life, and love having them in your life while your feelings settle and you can both move forward.

Feelings are valid. Jealousy and pain and yearning are par for the course, but what you do with those feelings matters more than whether or not your feelings were returned. It’s okay to be in love with someone and happy to be their friend, because friendship isn’t a backburner to romantic or queerplatonic feelings or anything else. They can love you as a friend.

Stories can end without romantic or qp or other requited resolution—in my experience, sometimes it makes your relationship stronger, to be able to talk about those feelings and move forward without having them be requited. You can move forward, or move on, or stay in love or fall in love with someone else, and it’s okay. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t and maybe we want different things from the people we love, but it’s not a waste of time or a waste of feeling or a waste of a friendship for something to not work out how you’d hoped.

I just don’t think enough people celebrate loving someone without it ending in wedding bells. Maybe it’s the aroace in me too—but the people I’ve loved in my life have taught me a lot, and I think that’s pretty good, too. I like loving, and I really think more people should.