-overkill

My sociology professor had a really good metaphor for privilege today. She didn’t talk about race or gender or orientation or class, she talked about being left-handed.

If you’re asking me if I want you in my life, the answer is yes. If you’re asking if I need you in my life, then the answer is no. Love can make it hard to differentiate between “want” and “need,” but when you do so, you’ll have more room to love—not just them, but yourself.

“I was finally good, so good that I felt invincible. So I lowered my armor and put down my weapons and they started coming back. I feel my demons coming back and I wonder how is it possible to go from being on top of the world to feeling powerless in one day. Because that’s what they do, they take away your power and your body becomes an empty shell under their control. Anxiety doesn’t have an answer, it just gives you more questions and it doesn’t ring a bell, but I should’ve been prepared by now.”

When the Spanish first arrived in Tenochtitlan (now downtown mexico city) they thought they were dreaming. They had arrived from incredibly unsanitary medieval Europe to a city five times the size of that century’s london with a working sewage system, artificial “floating gardens” (chinampas), a grid system, and aqueducts providing fresh water. Which wasn’t even for drinking! Water from the aqueducts was used for washing and bathing- they preferred using nearby mountain springs for drinking. Hygiene was a huge part if their culture, most people bathed twice a day while the king bathed at least four times a day. Located on an island in the middle of a lake, they used advanced causeways to allow access to the mainland that could be cut off to let canoes through or to defend the city. The Spanish saw their buildings and towers and thought they were rising out of the water. The city was one of the most advanced societies at the time.

“Are you sure you won’t take him back this time?” Skepticism was written all over her face and it infuriated me. “Yes, because there’s nothing to chase after. The feelings are still there but there’s no honesty, loyalty or trust anymore so what would I even be chasing? A healthy relationship cannot exist without those three things. So yeah, it’s really over and he’ll regret letting me go one day. ”

On some days I just feel your absence more than on others. I don’t know if it’s because missing you gets worse or because I need you or because I want to hear your voice and know I can’t. Then there are days when I nearly forget about it: when I get to be blissfully ignorant for a couple of hours and don’t think about how you’re no longer with me. But then I remember that you’re gone and it’s like a punch to the throat, a kick to the chest that knocks the air from my lungs. On some days I want to feel the pain. I want to embrace it. I want to forget that it does get better and that time does ease the pain. Yet it hurts. It hurts like it did on the first day. It hurts after a month and it hurts after a year. And in ten years it’ll hurt all the same.