Blog for an Opera Buff(a)

hot take: beatrice saying “he hath EVERY month a new sworn brother” about benedick is her teasing him for just having an endless string of boyfriends

9 year old me honestly believing i had both the vocal range and operatic stylings of miss christine daaé:

Act like something they like is dumb

Ignore them

Underestimate them

Tell them gryffindors are better

The Wichita Daily Eagle, Kansas, December 30, 1899

The Saint Paul Globe, Minnesota, March 2, 1905

The Tribune, Seymour, Indiana, July 13, 1909

The Atlanta Constitution, Georgia, May 13, 1912

The Evening Journal, Wilmington, Delaware, June 11, 1913

Woodson County Advocate, Yates Center, Kansas, August 6, 1915

The Guntersville Democrat, Alabama, June 22, 1921

Daily News, New York, New York, February 13, 1925

The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky, May 22, 1950

St. Mary and Franklin Banner-Tribune, Franklin, Louisiana, August 27, 1971

Jesus was a baby once and he was Very Cool

The Big Red Man Is Coming

There’s snow outside. that’s good!

I’m alone on xmas and sad

Santa Claus is very sexy

Christmas trees. love em

Shout out to people like me who have parents who are loving but are black holes of emotional labor… It took me a long time to realize that it’s okay to have mixed feelings about your parents, about your relationship with them.

Sometimes parents can love you but be somewhat toxic to you and your growth, and that’s a very hard realization to come to if you, like me, grew up extremely close to them.

Sometimes parents can love you genuinely but lack emotional maturity, forcing you to perform disproportionate amounts of emotional labor. Some parents manifest symptoms of their mental illness in ways that are toxic to your mental illness.

Some parents, like mine, try so hard to be good parents but fall back on habits of emotional manipulation because they haven’t processed their own traumas and are modeling behavior they grew up with. That doesn’t make their behavior acceptable, and it’s okay to feel exhausted and hurt when they betray you. You don’t have to forgive every mistake.

I want you to know that it’s okay to protect yourself, to need some space apart from them. The love you have for your parents is still valid, and you are making the right decision.

Placing a safe emotional distance between myself and my parents has been one of the most difficult, heartbreaking processes I’ve ever gone through… it hurts to try to curb the strength of your own natural empathy around people you love. It feels disingenuous to your heart’s natural state.

But I promise you, you are not hard-hearted or ungrateful, and you are not abandoning them. You are making a decision about your own emotional, mental, and spiritual health.

I know what it’s like in that confusing grey area of love mixed with guilt and anxiety, of exhaustion and quasi-manipulation and unreciprocated emotional labor, and I promise you, you are not alone.