It’s 3:33 am on a Thursday night / Friday morning. I came back from a door knocking session, something I haven’t done in a while, and getting to the point where I’m winding down isn’t happening.
I forgot this happens. That I get pretty wired up when I’m door knocking, and I feel like I need time and space to myself when I get home.
I ate, watched Netflix, showered, folded laundry, listened to an audiobook, and even sent some things to a client, and I’m still awake. So I’m here offloading my brain and gaining some peace in the quiet night.
***
I was watching “Geek Girl” on Netflix. It’s definitely not a show I would recommend, because I’m annoyed with the slow pacing, the needless complications, and how things aren’t resolved with every episode (I’m old-school that way, because I prefer a monster-of-the-week type of show), but I am noticing the thoughts that bubble up because of it.
One, people are going to hate you, for no good reason.
Two, people are going to love you, for reasons you might not be able to understand.
There’s no pleasing everybody, and — something I also realised recently — every single person you’re/I’m trying to impress or gain acceptance/approval from will die one day, and along with it their opinions and judgements and “rules”.
Why go pleasing them? Even if you/I get their nod, they can change their mind, and rules can take effect and change at any time.
At some point in history people were “normal” if they had lovers (in the plural) regardless of sex and age. Then it was “normal” to be monogamous and heterosexual. There was once no such thing as marriage, and then people in power decided that there was.
But sooner or later people change. Or they die.
People move on and pay attention to their own life.
And what really matters is what makes you/me happy, and the people we decide to care for.
Something my partner and a tiktok video said is blending into a thought along the lines of… people won’t understand what’s between you, and your relationship, and anyone who makes a comment comes from their own bias/worldview/lens, even if you asked for their opinion and they actually do care, so what really matters is doing what makes sense just to the two of you.
And when it comes to my life, what really matters is what makes sense to me, not my parents. Because they’re living their life, by their choices, and I’m living mine.
***
I miss dance — specifically, the headspace I get into when I’m social dancing.
I haven’t had it in a while. I’ve been distracted the last few times I went social dancing, so I couldn’t get in.
I felt my brain fire differently when I first started social dancing. I didn’t know the moves in West Coast Swing, so I had to rely on something else to figure it out — I tuned into my partner.
So within the first few moves I had to sense who they were and how they would lead, and flow with that.
If they danced to the lyrics of a song, I’d sing my moves. If they were strictly counting, I’d keep the beat. If they were playful, I’d play along. And if they were in their own world, I went into mine.
With a different partner to every new song, I opened up to the nuances of their body. The strength and weight of their hands, the gentlest shifts in position, the politeness and lightness of their touch.
I watched feet and knees and smiles and nods, kept an awareness of the other dancers (after I bumped and crashed and fell one too many times), and let the music and my lead guide the flow.
Now, because I know more moves, I’m trying to pick up the same cues by technique, and it’s not yielding the same results.
I’m not one with my lead, and I’ve lost that skill I had as a beginniner — the exact skill that made me a good partnered dancer.
It’s also interesting to me that I was building (if I use the word correctly, I’ll check the definition in a second) a meta-skill. (Yeah I don’t think meta is right, but I’ll leave it there for the time being.)
Because I wasn’t picking up dance skills. It wasn’t learning to move to the beat or learning to spin while looking at the right places.
I figured out a skill that was a little bit higher. Something I could transfer to another domain in life.
It’s like how the whole point of education was to teach you how to think and not exactly the math and science and humanities… even though I don’t think I grew those skills… Or at least I have not shown myself that I have the skills, so I believe they were not formed…
***
Something else I noticed in “Geek Girl” was how critical she was of herself.
It’s something my partner has pointed out to me, because I am critical about myself, and I haven’t really known any different so I thought it was fine or normal…
Seeing someone else be so very self-critical is… heart-wrenching, in some way, and annoying, in another.
Heart-wrenching because here is a person who has learned not to trust herself, who second-/third-/fourth-guesses everything and it all leans “what are you doing? why did you do that? who do you think you are?” and her environment has reinforced that.
Annoying because you just want the person to decide, and to stop using all that time and emotion, because if she just went with it, things would either work or not, and she could take that information and keep moving forward. Annoying because I can see that as me, and now I can see how frustrating that can be from a different part’s perspective.
I really don’t trust myself.
Which is at odds with the fact that I’ve made decisions to let things that weren’t good for me crash and burn, and now I’m living my best life, so clearly I’m not that bad at taking care of myself, am I?
…
You only change when the pain is too much. When you decide something is no longer acceptable. when you decide to choose differently.
Maybe it’s all the Internal Family Systems reading that’s getting to me, but I know the part of myself that is brilliant. I know the part of me what will fiercely protect the rest of my parts. I also know that there is a part of me that wants to alight on a very specific goal/dream, and that it’s letting the parts that are fearful and protective call the shots instead. And I know that a part of me values authenticity, so sooner or later I must either chase my dream, or fall forever into inauthentic people-pleasing, coasting, indolent, shut-down behaviour.
No.
***
I want to create something universal. Something I can talk to anyone about, and for it to be helpful.
I’ve also always had the thought that it would be the exact things I’m not good at, because I will learn the skills and knowledge and perspectives from scratch and with the openness of a beginner, and that I would end up teaching it because I’ll naturally start writing and probably talking about it on the internet.
Divinity gives you gifts, and to use them is worship,
because they made you, and all they ask is for you to be yourself.
I write.
And I wish I could write with eloquence and kindness and wisdom and grace about the human experience.
And that means I need to live my life. As I know it. A unique experience. That, with enough introspection, means it’s connected to and reflected in everybody else’s experience. Because we are all unique, and we are all human.
So love and relationships and regulation. Not just outside, but also within. The internal journey. An internal journey. An internal journal.
‘Tis 5:01 am, and I’d better get to sleep.
💖🌧️
