Our Joyous Hearts Melt Away
Oct. 4th, 2021 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
Here it is, the last quarter of 2021. This is legitimately my favorite time of year; the weather turns cool, the leaves turn brilliant shades, and the holidays are right around the corner. The focus on friends and community this time of year is a big reason I love it so much -- no matter what happens through the rest of the year, you can spend a big chunk of time appreciating the people in your life.
I've been...pretty bad with community for the last two years. Everyone's gone through it in some way and I know we're all carrying damage around with us that we might not know what to do with. For me, I don't think I realized just how mistrustful I became about people over the last five years. I'm never sure that I can let my guard down and be honest. One thing you learn being on Twitter is that the more certain you are of being right, the more certainly you're wrong. And we've lost our tolerance as a society for mistakes, or for evolving thoughts on something. It feels like engaging with anyone is this game of Russian roulette where you shoot yourself with your own blind spots.
I also think I've lost touch with how people think and communicate as I've gotten older. There are these cultural touchstones I've lost access to or have chosen not to follow, so suddenly references have stopped making sense and memes point to this whole world of cultural understanding beyond my reach right now. I've never known how to express myself in the best of times, and these days, with our foundational context feeling more like quicksand -- combined with the very high consequences for failure -- it's exhausting trying to navigate this landscape.
I know that part of this is the job. I'm talking to customers in tricky situations where often a lot of money is involved. I have to be protective of my work-life balance while at the same time embodying the growth mindset we have within the company. And I'm constantly spinning plates in an environment of shifting priorities; you never know which smashed plate is going to be the thing the company builds its identity around for the next few quarters, or if it was going to be abandoned anyway. It feels like I'm tightrope-walking all day, to mix my metaphors, so when I'm done the last thing I want to do is the same thing, only voluntarily for free.
That being said, I don't know if friends have even noticed my relative withdrawal. I've always been kind of flaky, popping up here and there to catch up for a few days before vanishing into the ether again. But that's not the kind of person that's rooted into a community, and that's what I want. So the simple act of socialization is something I kind of sweat now, because I want to be a more constant presence and a more reliable friend.
We're nearly finished watching "The White Lotus," this limited series about an uber-fancy Hawaiian hotel resort and the very entitled people vacationing there. It follows three groups of guests: one super-wealthy, lonely lady as she tries to make peace with her mother's recent death; a newlywed couple enjoying their honeymoon after a brief courtship only to realize they may have wildly different outlooks on life; and the family of a CTO reeling from multiple stressors, who bring along their daughter's Black friend for a first-hand tour of what their privilege affords them. Almost everyone is terrible, but in a way that connects you to their humanity. For the most part.
The lonely lady started out her vacation heavily dependent on Belinda, the head of the resort's spa. She strong-arms Belinda into having dinner with her (though employees are not supposed to fraternize with guests), taker her along on a chartered boat to scatter her mother's ashes into the sea, and tempts the masseuse with seed money for starting her own business. But then she meets an affably dorky older gentleman who works at the Bureau of Land Management, and suddenly he's all she can think about. Poor Belinda is blown off time and again as she tries to talk about her business proposal, and Lonely Lady Tonya is spinning out because she's sure this budding relationship will only lead to more pain for her.
What's interesting is that Tonya just might be the most relatable character on the show. In episode 5 of 6, she tells Belinda that she's always worried about what someone will do when they find the layer beneath the one she's showing them, and the one after that, and the one after that. The center of the onion, she says, is an alcoholic lunatic. She's so afraid that once he sees what she's "really like," he'll be out of her life in a flash.
This really strikes home for me, and I think it's what makes it so difficult for me to open up to people. The center of my onion is this awkward, damaged little kid with weird thoughts he never learned to articulate. He enjoys being small enough to hide in weird places and watch people; he has elaborate fantasies about game shows and sports competitions where the winners grow bigger; he would have absolutely been a fan-fiction writer if he hadn't missed that boat. I worry, all the time, what people would do if they knew what I really think or who I really was. I'm also afraid of opening up to someone because I'd be hurt again. Everyone who was supposed to love me growing up ended up leaving. I never learned how to trust a relationship could be permanent, that love can be unconditional.
"You're crazy," the BLM agent said when Tonya broke down last night.
"I know I'm crazy!" She wailed. "I can't help it! Get out while you still can!"
My heart reaches for her. I think the older you get, the more crazy you become -- but the more you're able to manage your crazy. Human beings aren't...rational creatures. Figuring out how to navigate our irrational messy lives in a way that brings us some measure of stability and confidence is insane. No one gets out of that unscathed.
So that's where I am. Trying to figure out how to be less aloof and more open, but also less self-conscious and awkward about my eccentricities. No big deal. I've just been trying to do that for my entire life.
I've been...pretty bad with community for the last two years. Everyone's gone through it in some way and I know we're all carrying damage around with us that we might not know what to do with. For me, I don't think I realized just how mistrustful I became about people over the last five years. I'm never sure that I can let my guard down and be honest. One thing you learn being on Twitter is that the more certain you are of being right, the more certainly you're wrong. And we've lost our tolerance as a society for mistakes, or for evolving thoughts on something. It feels like engaging with anyone is this game of Russian roulette where you shoot yourself with your own blind spots.
I also think I've lost touch with how people think and communicate as I've gotten older. There are these cultural touchstones I've lost access to or have chosen not to follow, so suddenly references have stopped making sense and memes point to this whole world of cultural understanding beyond my reach right now. I've never known how to express myself in the best of times, and these days, with our foundational context feeling more like quicksand -- combined with the very high consequences for failure -- it's exhausting trying to navigate this landscape.
I know that part of this is the job. I'm talking to customers in tricky situations where often a lot of money is involved. I have to be protective of my work-life balance while at the same time embodying the growth mindset we have within the company. And I'm constantly spinning plates in an environment of shifting priorities; you never know which smashed plate is going to be the thing the company builds its identity around for the next few quarters, or if it was going to be abandoned anyway. It feels like I'm tightrope-walking all day, to mix my metaphors, so when I'm done the last thing I want to do is the same thing, only voluntarily for free.
That being said, I don't know if friends have even noticed my relative withdrawal. I've always been kind of flaky, popping up here and there to catch up for a few days before vanishing into the ether again. But that's not the kind of person that's rooted into a community, and that's what I want. So the simple act of socialization is something I kind of sweat now, because I want to be a more constant presence and a more reliable friend.
We're nearly finished watching "The White Lotus," this limited series about an uber-fancy Hawaiian hotel resort and the very entitled people vacationing there. It follows three groups of guests: one super-wealthy, lonely lady as she tries to make peace with her mother's recent death; a newlywed couple enjoying their honeymoon after a brief courtship only to realize they may have wildly different outlooks on life; and the family of a CTO reeling from multiple stressors, who bring along their daughter's Black friend for a first-hand tour of what their privilege affords them. Almost everyone is terrible, but in a way that connects you to their humanity. For the most part.
The lonely lady started out her vacation heavily dependent on Belinda, the head of the resort's spa. She strong-arms Belinda into having dinner with her (though employees are not supposed to fraternize with guests), taker her along on a chartered boat to scatter her mother's ashes into the sea, and tempts the masseuse with seed money for starting her own business. But then she meets an affably dorky older gentleman who works at the Bureau of Land Management, and suddenly he's all she can think about. Poor Belinda is blown off time and again as she tries to talk about her business proposal, and Lonely Lady Tonya is spinning out because she's sure this budding relationship will only lead to more pain for her.
What's interesting is that Tonya just might be the most relatable character on the show. In episode 5 of 6, she tells Belinda that she's always worried about what someone will do when they find the layer beneath the one she's showing them, and the one after that, and the one after that. The center of the onion, she says, is an alcoholic lunatic. She's so afraid that once he sees what she's "really like," he'll be out of her life in a flash.
This really strikes home for me, and I think it's what makes it so difficult for me to open up to people. The center of my onion is this awkward, damaged little kid with weird thoughts he never learned to articulate. He enjoys being small enough to hide in weird places and watch people; he has elaborate fantasies about game shows and sports competitions where the winners grow bigger; he would have absolutely been a fan-fiction writer if he hadn't missed that boat. I worry, all the time, what people would do if they knew what I really think or who I really was. I'm also afraid of opening up to someone because I'd be hurt again. Everyone who was supposed to love me growing up ended up leaving. I never learned how to trust a relationship could be permanent, that love can be unconditional.
"You're crazy," the BLM agent said when Tonya broke down last night.
"I know I'm crazy!" She wailed. "I can't help it! Get out while you still can!"
My heart reaches for her. I think the older you get, the more crazy you become -- but the more you're able to manage your crazy. Human beings aren't...rational creatures. Figuring out how to navigate our irrational messy lives in a way that brings us some measure of stability and confidence is insane. No one gets out of that unscathed.
So that's where I am. Trying to figure out how to be less aloof and more open, but also less self-conscious and awkward about my eccentricities. No big deal. I've just been trying to do that for my entire life.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-05 04:47 am (UTC)