It girl // Ragdoll

I like drinking not just for pleasure but to the point where it effects my psyche to some degree

Effects what I am willing to share

Makes me feel more comfortable to share

Helps to mask the severe discomforts I feel existing every day on the planet

But I don't drink as a necessity. And I don't drink to survive. And I don't drink to make my life feel better than it does and I don't drink to ignore my problems.

but I sometimes drink and when I do, there's just that fact of the matter where it is a relief because I just... do feel more comfortable

And I hate that that feeling is deeply uncomfortable or incongruent with not-drinking-me or like, society judging drinking-me. Like not-drinking-me is capable, successful, loving, happy, good, and in some ways confident. Not-drinking me is around 80x more often than drinking me. But drinking-me isn't worrying what other people think of me, or isn't worried about respectability, or is just, for once, happy to share.

And I know they say that drinking isn't a problem until it starts to severely fuck with your life. But what *is* effecting your life and what if it does affect yr life for the better.

not-drinking me is afraid of judgement allllllll of the time. THAT is impacting my life. It's making be a bad facilitator, bad friend, bad lover, or at the very least constantly reaffirming how worried I should be that I might be bad at those things

Drinking-me feels safe enough to connect or share things that are awkward or take up space but not too much and kiss women who want me to kiss them.

And I suppose I'm just not at a place where I can have it all at all times. Confidence and capability have always been my downfalls but when I bring it up to Therapists I just say 'I'm hurting people I love' or 'I wish I was doing more to help people' when the actual question is literally, constantly, and for-so-long been, why do I feel like people so consistently distrust me or are disgusted or embarrassed by me' - which is something only drinking-me can say out loud and something only drinking-me can actually literally move past/beyond/break

I can only really cry about how fucked up i feel because I am being honest with myself when I am drinking. About crying or saying awkward triggering tings w colleagues or about how odd it is that I'm only recongnizinf and seeing all of the ways I am neuroatypical but I choose to read them like I am a scientist instead of someone affected by weird habits and neurosis and stimming and impulsivity every day.

And I can only really feel like and be honest with other people when I am drinking, delivulging sweetness and vulnerabilities and leaning in to kiss or saying how much I want someone or stripping myself or others is only ever physically comfortable if I am drinking.

I do not need to drink and I most often don't. I don't drink that much? And I've rarely thought really, 'I need a drink' to do this thing, and never for work or basic survival, and never during the daytime or where there are any kinds of low-stakes

Like I donno

But I was faking it til I was makin it

I didn't have the confidence or comfort or self knowledge or intensity or public kinds of desire and empathy and boldness and care that I think I do now.

You can learn so so fricken much in a year!

Last winter when I held my workshops I was in such a deep deep funk- pre breakup and dealing with the emotional bottlenecking and emotional holds and a self confidence rooted in another person and not myself, and in another person who did not believe in or take interest in my work, my performances, my art, my passions- public or otherwise.

I felt like I had to pull teeth to convince anyone to come to what I was putting on, including my best friends, including my partner.

I trusted veronica and her str8 space and her saying nobody could be interested in the event I'd envisioned (under 'try me'- only ever under a clear as day title to attract broad wide audiences)

This year, I feel like people are interested in what I've got to offer. This year I have vee and liza and Eleanor and Kevin, I have Keith and mila and Heather, I have laura and rowen and pending plans with sookie and Sam, I'd reconnected with lily and become way closer with erica, I see ames and their pals and call Pittsburgh laura again. I go to art events and networking events and readings and lectures and anti-o workshops and cool Brooklyn all day brunches-- even if sometimes I am lurking in the back

I'm going on so many dates w queers I think I actually deserve and get to enjoy even if they're not gonna lead to some kind of monogamous crescendo (if that's what I even want) I have Internet hookups and a couple inviting me in to play? I go to the sex club again?? (like...... bye shit ex) I am proud of my sexy zine?! I am!

I have, to put it in the best most comfy ways, made friends with myself... I've gotten really good at being myself again. And more comfortable with that self than I ever thought I'd be?

and have been made absolutely lucky with friends. Which I was before but now there's just more- and I don't feel isolated or trapped making sure I squeeze love out for one person - or a couple of people'- who don't want to give it back.

I am living the almost-30 life of my dreams, pretty much. I have every single thing that I want and the only only exceptions to that are that I don't quite have enough time to connect as much as I want to and that I have a debt mountain (but I also am filing my taxes and reading budgeting books??) . And I guess that I weigh a whole 20 pounds more than I had before... but I kinda like them. I miss my old pants but I'm curious and interested in my new dimples and folks and hips. They've done me well.

And I talked to a fucking unreal rad dyke activists on the phone at 11:30 at night to arrange a visit to her home to check out her 6 foot tall artworks created by a WOC dyke collective

Big day

I'm fighting hordes of inadequacy feelings and fearful feelings and guilt feelings (they are real! And pretty constant) and outward frustration and inner turmoil and being subject to slightly passive aggressive emails because of my associations with my work

(Aside from the ones attached to quitting the thesis)

And if I want to do good work then I have to show up for it outside of my job, and that's it. I've gotta be more outside of it if I am going to maintain my integrity being in it

But I'm learning every day. And my proximity to the big nonprofit giant puts me so so much closer to the people I aspire every day to be - courageous, busy, tireless, creative, badass dyke world makers whose email signature is a badge and whose answering machine name is a poem and who fuck with convention because it's convention and fuck with convention because that's how we friggen like, change the world.

So

There's that.

I get to drink it in and take these weird ass chances I'm handed and fuckin do the thing. Every day. And to cloud that in guilt is only hurting me, and to cloud that in guilt is doing a fucken disservice to the folks that aren't, and to cloud that in guilt is distracting from the airtime I actually give to fighting for justice