dream

Dreamed about going the fuck off on a friend's sister/sister in law about unquestioned sex typing and categorization. It was weird; in the dream I was prepared to just walk away at first, but then something changed and confronted her. Things escalated slowly, but at each point where it felt like I was giving her an out, pausing for things to sink in, she'd just dig herself deeper and I kept going. Eventually it was so bad that I finished my piece and started walking, through strange semi-rural pasture and back roads to get back to where I knew; it started off in my mind as just a mile, but ended up being like five or more, but I kept walking. My friend was not at all amused; it seemed to trigger some personal/past/family trauma.

the question

If much of my extended period of despair and anguish could be condensed, it would be simply, "How do I live?" It's so much more complex, complexifying, than that simple sentence would suggest. I simply don't know.

There are so many I care about, personally as well as categorically, so many injustices I want to work to righting, so many gigantic looming problems that demand to be addressed, and I simply cannot get to them all. I can't escape the feeling of so much that needs doing, as well as the feeling that not enough people are doing enough, and that leads to a crazy, hyperactive sort of desperation; at the end of that road I catch glimpses of exhaustion and defeat, and I don't want to go there.

I'm not doing enough, and what I am doing, I'm not doing well enough. There are people I would quite literally fight for that I don't know how to help (recently, I'm showing up on that list myself), and there are the untold billions I love as a class that I can't find a way to reach, to help at all.

But today, I saw deer on the path at lunch, an adult and two young. I turned away at first, noisily retreating, hoping they'd go on about their business without being afraid of me, but when I turned back, they were still there, and I felt like my heart expanded with compassion and wonder. I shuffled through the leaves loudly as I approached, wanting to give them plenty of warning, all the while mumbling under my breath, "Don't be afraid. I don't mean you any harm," knowing it would have no effect. The young deer ran away first, but the adult held position, longer than it seemed to take the younger ones to get away, before bounding down the hill. I caught glimpses of them moving through the brush as I walked out and back to work.

And I don't know how to hold moments like that close to me while I feel so perpetually overwhelmed. The beauty and wonder seem to make the despair sharper, cut more deeply. I don't think it's supposed to work like that.

I think I need to learn to cry.

lessons from recent dreams

It's OK to feel what I feel, and to worry less about that, straight from the man himself (maybe).


I need to learn how to stand up for myself, when it's appropriate, and how forcefully. Also, that people can surprise me, and that I'm not always the only one who suffers on some issues.