Right now, I am in Texas seeing my girlfriend. These weeks off in my life always provide a respite from my very, very full-time life. Working full-time and pursuing a degree full-time while healing from deep trauma in EMDR therapy and trying to have a semblance of a life outside all of that is pretty exhausting, I must admit. I heal and gain great clarity on these weeks. Maggie is very good to me. :)
We got caught up on Lady Gaga's new business and watched the Abracadabra video. I am now becoming a Gaga Stan. Something very, very, very deep and guttural found words in me through her art.
I heard someone explain her new song as spell for getting through these dark times. I want to get up on stage and scream with her.
Let me talk to you all about something.
Y'all know my life has been a fucking mess. But let me talk about what happened after the mess happened.
I dissociate as a trauma response, and do it quite often in my daily life. That means I feel very foggy headed and have trouble grounding myself into my present. My body and mind do everything in their power not to be here, and I am learning the reasons for that as we speak in therapy. It's excruciating. But alas, after the mess of it all, I was very seriously on the verge of being hospitalized. My body was running out of resources to cope with and there is only so much resilience one person can maintain in their body before crashing out. Two summers ago, I was horrified at the idea of finding myself passing out from exhaustion, non-verbal on my floor, dissociating to high heavens. Dissociation is a really fucking scary experience, especially when it's that level of intense.
So I moved back to Indiana, for the temporary time being as I finish my degree.
I'm embarrassed by it. I fucking hate being here with every fiber of my fucking being.
When I moved back, I was in the middle of being off my anti-depressants and very quickly realized I needed to get back on them. As these massive shifts in my life were happening, I was learning about Gaza. When my sister came to help me load up in Columbus, she caught me dissociating and in explaining to her what was happening to me, she realized how bad it really was for me. I remember driving from Columbus to Indiana with my sister in a Uhaul, dumping on her about my life and the intense heaviness of having to move back home while two sentences later crying about Palestine.
The world, and my world, felt completely ripped wide open. I've fought varying levels of depression since I've been back (though this time is much, much different than being here before). Even if I wanted to help the world around me in the capacity I once used to, I didn't have the resources. Learning about Gaza changed everything I understand about the future of things, both personal and systemic.
In the long and short of it, where I felt powerless to help (as did many others), I saw kids dancing on rubble and singing. I had absolutely no excuse not to do the same in my life and country, though completely different situations. (And of course, may I acknowledge that even in my life's implosion, some of what I experience is an era of my life, not my every day. I see and acknowledge those for whom that is the case).
At the end of my wits and strength, I had no choice but to choose positivity. Sinking any further than I already was was simply not an option. If I want to effect change in the world, I must remain and I must find a way to thrive. There is no waiting around on getting people that don't care to care about what's going on in the world. There is only dancing.
As the world falls apart, we have an enormous opportunity to innovate and to make the world into what we want it to be. If Palestinians can find their humanity when it is wholly unrecognized, we are privileged to wrestle through ours. Don't you for one fucking second give up on that.
We need to be clear on what we want. Maybe we don't have that. I know it's bleak. I don't care, loves - Keep growing, expanding, and learning. Break down every barrier and bias you have within you. Dismantle the capitalism from within so that the capitalism on the outside matches the conditions.
We are not fighting for rights and pleading to a system that will not care. We are creating new paradigms and ways of being by piecing together the fallen pieces. The world feels shaken and split in two because we (ESPECIALLY white people) are gaining clarity - genuine, authentic, clear clarity - on what capitalism actually is and how white and genocidal it is. Colonial settlerism is not a thing of the past, it is now and it is the future. Everything traces back to the system of whiteness hoarding identity while violently taking from others - I mean fucking everything, every branch of every 'ism.
If I were to give any advice, any advice at all to any of my white friends right now --
Stop listening to me.
Go read a queer, black person's book. About damn near anything. I have no recommendations, it's not about my thoughts. Go read. Learn to listen.
From my experience in social justice spaces, they are the people that stay when everyone else leaves. They are the backbone of this country and the world's progress. Consider this: The people most excluded by the system are the most qualified to critique it.
Then, and only then, can you begin to see why this American discomfort is not new, only expanded and in plain sight once again.
If you're feeling like you don't know what to do, stop asking yourself that. Start creating. Start failing, and start creating. And if you've already been doing that, keep doing it. We fucking need you, you brilliant son-of-a-bitch.
We cannot stop
We cannot stop
We cannot stop
We cannot stop
We cannot stop
If Lady Gaga, through her fibromyalgia, can throw herself around on stage while casting a spell for the times, so fucking can you. If Palestinians can dance on their decimated cities, you don't get an excuse.
Get up and DANCE. Claim joy. Do not leave it on the backs of people that will be/already are forced to fight your fight for you. Get the fuck up and dance. You are wanted on the floor. We built this shit built by fucking brick. We did. They didn't. Now dance.
