Untitled Work In Progress

I am annoyed.

I am angry.

I am frustrated.

I am exhausted.

Aside from the obvious feelings of loss, I was also consumed with the need, the desire to seek a medium.

For clarification, I’m not a firm believer of the paranormal. I am, however, NOT a non-believer. Despite never previously had any experiences with it that I could not explain away rationally, I was, at that time, I was convinced that I desperately wanted to part with any amount of money, go to any length, to seek someone who could bridge the veil.

Luckily, I have a healthy skeptic that resides in a corner of my brain. They are utterly cozy in a large, cushy armchair with a large bookshelf nearby full of well read, well loved volumes.

That skeptic kept me from bankrupting myself. Logically, I knew that I had far too large of an online presence that could be scraped for information to entice me into spending more and more money because I wanted what they had to say SO MUCH. So much more than is healthy.

It’s been quite a while since then and I have mostly found peace and closure in the loss. But I still am occasionally alarmed by just how desperately I wanted some kind of contact. I 💯 know that there’s a high likelihood that I’d have absorbed everything told to me without any question, simply because I wanted it so badly.

In a way, that desperation is still there, but it’s well managed. It has to be. I’m afraid that otherwise I’d have drifted away in a current that is littered with scammers and con artists.

It’s one of the few times when I’ve been… a little afraid of what I could become. You might be able to call it passion, which, I think is fair. But it would have been a very toxic passion. It would have been a passion that would have easily become obsession.

And, really? It would have been SO easy. And I fear that road not because of the road, but because of who and what I would become.

I remember, right before I left, my father gave me an analogue wrist watch. It wasn’t my style at all, but having and wearing it gave me comfort.

And when I would go to sleep each night, I would position my arms so that the watch would be directly under one of my ears. I would fall asleep listening to the steady tick of this watch and it reinforced my feelings that if I could just get through “this moment”, life would continue as it always had.

I wish I still had the watch but the strap broke within a few years and I couldn’t afford to replace it. So it sat on my desk next to my work area.

I have someone in my life who I have to carefully curate my words. We have a standing weekly date. But we haven’t had it for a few weeks. I was out of town, then they were out of town, and then they got sick for a few weeks. This week, they’re feeling mostly better and have been told by the doctor they aren’t contagious. So they asked if I was coming over.

Seems like a simple enough question, right?

I ask how they are feeling.

They indicate that they wouldn’t go out in public coughing like this but we won’t be in public!

After a little more banal back and forth, we decide that date night will be held.

Now. For ANYONE ELSE, I would follow up with a text assuring them that it’s okay to change their mind if they get to a little before my arrival and decide they’re not feeling up to company. They’ve been sick for a few weeks and they still aren’t 💯.

My point in saying this would be to convey that it is OKAY to change their mind.

But. If I say this to them, they will take that as… some kind of rejection. They will take it as a sign that I don’t wish to go. It’s like, to them, words have auras that no one else sees. So they are operating with information that *isn’t actually there*.

More than once they have basically said that we don’t HAVE to have date night every week. To which I ask if they want to keep doing date night. They say they do, but then continued to offer outs.

I think it’s a kind of rejection sensitivity. At the REMOTEST sign of push back (even perceived), they try to tap out. As if not wanting to be a bother.

So when they continued to offer outs, I said that I was perfectly capable and willing to express my desire should I not wish to go. I enjoy date nights, but since they are hosting, if they don’t want to have it, that is okay.

So I have to be extremely careful with what I say. Having a well developed emotional and mental health vocabulary, I typically try to assure people that it’s absolutely okay for them to change their minds. I want them to feel safe with me, emotionally.

Genuine question.

There’s no doubt that some creators have done absolutely deplorable things, whether or not they’ve been accused of such publicly.

But where is the line?

Michael Jackson was accused of some terrible behavior toward people who were unable to legally consent, which makes it, legally, rape. If the prospect of that doesn’t make your stomach turn, even a little, you might be an actual monster. (Call a therapist and work that shit out, if possible.)

Arguably, his music was iconic. I think it’s fair to say that most of the world’s populations, with the exception of groups who have removed themselves from larger populations for whatever reason, have heard at least one of Michael Jackson’s songs. I’m not talking about whether or not they like it (not yet), I’m purely referring to the recognizability of his music.

If they enjoy his music, should they feel bad about it? Should you?

Maybe it’s not a fair judgement to make since the creator is dead (though his accusers are not). And although he no longer benefits from the success of his music, his estate does — which includes his children

She rarely asks me a question, but when she does, I respond (to provide positive reinforcement for the engagement I desire). And sometimes we have an actual conversation, but usually it dies quickly because she has resorted again to statements rather than probing.

My anxiety is so much lower but now I feel like I’m uninformed. Arguably, I wasn’t very informed in the first place, though I did try.

The problem is that I feel like we are being inundated with so much information ALL THE TIME that our systems are overworked and exhausted.

I miss when news was more about keeping the public informed than it was about curating a perspective. I miss when I could watch a cute puppy video online and know that it was real.

I feel like I spend so much time checking things that I don’t have time to enjoy life. It’s like going to a carnival and wanting to check the safety inspections of all the rides. Yes, checking is the safe thing to do. But by the time I’m done checking, the carnival has wrapped up for the season.

“Too bad, I guess you’ll have to try again next time!” But the next time it comes around, I have to start over from the beginning.

It’s the worst game of chutes and ladders ever.

I feel like the only time when I get to relax and enjoy the fruit of my labor is when I shut literally everything else out and don’t look at anything new, anything novel.