the language of the stars

i don't know why i'm here, but i'm going to make the most of it.

[littlealienproducts]

[zackisontumblr]

*clings to obama’s leg*

[j-k-g-m]

[guccikisses]

[thunderstruck9]

[rauschvoi]

[hazelpalee-deactivated20200531]

IMG_2921 by Tongchar on Flickr.

[triatic]

Every morning is a piece of art

[unusualyoung]

Marta R

[drunp-archive-deactivated201711]

[thestirge]

So I heard this story second-hand, many years ago, but the gist was that a friend of a friend lived in what was generally considered a bad neighborhood, because he was a super poor college student and it was what he could afford. He didn’t have any furniture, he just slept on a blanket on the floor and had a milk crate for a chair and like an old wire spool as a table. No TV, nothing in the fridge, no microwave, basically just bare walls and a roof to keep the weather off. So one day he comes home, and there’s a man in his apartment, just standing there, with this look of utter amazement and horror on his face, and he turns to the guy who’s just entered and says, “This your place? ‘cause I broke in to rob you, but shit, man, you ain’t got nothin’. Wait here, I’m’a be right back.” And the burglar left, leaving a puzzled college student alone in his empty apartment. But sure enough, the burglar came back a while later, and brought some friends, and they delivered a table, a couple of chairs, and a small TV. “I think I got you a bed, too, but that might take a couple days.”

So, the poor college student made some friends. And he didn’t ask where they got the stuff.

[honeyvial]

[emsratajkowski]

[brutereason]

Emotional labor is often invisible to men because a lot of it happens out of their sight. Emotional labor is when my friends and I carefully coordinate to make sure that nobody who’s invited to the party has drama with anyone else at the party, and then everyone comes and has a great time and has no idea how much thought went into it. Emotional labor is when I have to cope, again, with the distress I feel at having to clean myself in a dirty bathroom or cook my food in a dirty kitchen because my male roommate didn’t think it was important to clean up his messes. Emotional labor is having to start the 100th conversation with my male roommate about how I need my living space to be cleaner. Emotional labor is reminding my male roommate the next day that he agreed to clean up his mess but still hasn’t. Emotional labor is reassuring him that it’s okay, I’m not mad, I understand that he’s had a very busy stressful week. Emotional labor is not telling him that I’ve had a very busy stressful week, too, and his fucking mess made it even worse. Emotional labor is reassuring my partner over and over that yes, I love him, yes, I find him attractive, yes, I truly want to be with him, because he will not do the work of developing his self-esteem and relies on me to bandage those constantly-reopening wounds. Emotional labor is letting my partner know that I didn’t like what he did sexually last night, because he never asked me first if I wanted to do that. Emotional labor is reassuring him that, no, it’s okay, I’m not mad, I just wanted him to know for next time, yes, of course I love him, no, this doesn’t mean I’m not attracted to him, I’m just not interested in that sort of sex. Emotional labor is not being able to rely on him to reassure me that it’s not my fault that I didn’t like the sex, because this conversation has turned into my reassuring him, again. Emotional labor is when my friend messages me once every few weeks with multiple paragraphs about his life, which I listen to and empathize with. Afterwards, he thanks me for being “such a good listener.” He asks how my life has been, and I say, “Well, not bad, but school has been so stressful lately…” He says, “Oh, that sucks! Well, anyway, I’d better get to bed, but thanks again for listening!” Emotional labor is when my friend messages me and, with no trigger warning and barely any greeting, launches into a story involving self-harm or suicide or something else of that sort because “you know about this stuff.” Emotional labor was almost all of my male friends in high school IMing me to talk about how the girls all go for the assholes. Emotional labor is when my partners decide they don’t want to be in a relationship with me anymore, but rather than directly communicating this to me, they start ignoring me or being mean for weeks until I have to ask what’s going on, hear that “I guess I’m just not into you anymore,” and then have to be the one to suggest breaking up. For extra points, then I have to comfort them about the breakup. Emotional labor is setting the same boundary over and over, and every time he says, “I’m sorry, I know you already told me this, I guess I’d just forgotten.” Emotional labor is being asked to completely explain and justify my boundaries. “I mean, that’s totally valid and I will obviously respect that, I just really want to understand, you know?” Emotional labor is hiding the symptoms of mental illness, pretending my tears are from allergies, laughing too loudly at his jokes, not because I’m just in principle unwilling to open up about it, but because I know that he can’t deal with my mental illness and that I’ll just end up having to comfort him because my pain is too much for him to bear. Emotional labor is managing my male partners’ feelings around how often we have sex, and soothing their disappointment when they expected to have sex (even though I never said we would) and then didn’t, and explaining why I didn’t want to have sex this time, and making sure we “at least cuddle a little before bed” even though after all of this, to be quite honest, the last thing I fucking want is to touch him.

Miri,

“Emotional Labor: What It Is and How To Do It”

(via amberying)

I want every man I know to read this and really think about how it might apply to you because if there is one overarching theme among you all it’s that you read this stuff and share it and nod and go “yeah wow men suck” and NEVER THINK THAT IT IS TALKING ABOUT YOU. IT IS.

(via karaokay)

[fuckyeahizzycornish]

[warholfig]

[obvhiously-deactivated20240706]

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[thriftedrose]

[mxdvs]