if i felt everything my brain asks me to feel, there won’t be a person left. the other day, i wrote down, how much grief can we hold at once? anger? want? i’m almost always disembodied these days for one reason or another. trauma—both personal and collective—is stored in the body. if i pulled out every drawer at once, there wouldn’t be anything left to function with. i joke that i have to microdose my feelings, but it’s not far off from the truth. it’s a balancing game: if i want to access my empathy, i have to feel the grief, and vice versa. and i do, i just do it in bits.
i text myself a lot. they’re thoughts, musings, confessions that hit me so strongly that i have to get it out somewhere. i journal too, but the fleetingness of these emotions is faster than my ability to write them down. i tell myself, this will be a good essay. but when i come back to it, i can’t always muster up the energy to flesh it out.
enter: dispatches.
i hope some of these will eventually become long form essays. but in the meantime, i want to share more frequently what’s on my mind as they’re arriving, even if they haven’t quite hit their destination yet.
001. the hedgehog’s dilemma refers to the human condition of wanting intimacy and nearness, but due to their (our) spikes, they must keep a distance to avoid hurting one another. despite good intentions, mutual harm is inevitable. despite how much i want to be close to people, i want not to be hurt more.
002. my mother’s husband drinks diet coke like water. i was re-examining why a beverage brings out such a visceral hatred in me, then i remembered. i hate to remember, i worked so hard to forget the smell of his breath. funny how the door to the past is always just to our left.
003. in this global conflict (you know the one i speak of), what role does empathy play? how can we hold room for someone’s hurt without feeling like we’re betraying our politics? do the two have to be mutually exclusive? i want to talk to the world’s leading smart people (philosophers, psychologists, writers, etc) about this so they can give me something more substantial to chew on.
004. i have no natural talent. there’s no one strong suit of mine, not even writing, so i’ve treated my career like a renaissance woman. some years, i love to write more; others, i like film and the stage. i’m always half good at everything i do, then i have to shape the rest. i wonder what it’s like to be prodigal and not have to try so hard.
005. wellness feels like another never ending to-do list. i wish i didn’t feel this way. taking care of myself feels like a chore, which can say something about our culture, but says more about my relationship with myself. bummer. i tried to treat wellness like a job and then it felt exactly like that: a job.
Share this post