measured response

to have a child consider you their parent is probably the second greatest honour in the world. the first is being considered their language teacher. most parents often also are the latter.

i’ve been wondering, if as children, no matter how much we may actively try to avoid it, do we ever manage to not imagine what kind of sex our parents have? so much of the previous generations sex was about power, as that infamous house of cards quote will have anyone testify, and power is something you see play out all the time. power bleeds. so does language.

conversation takes on a certain affect in a household. a lot of it is trust sure, that one is not being misconstrued, since the language is practiced well. but even when correctly construed, it can sometimes, just simply not matter. the dependency matrix is so skewed sometimes, that people are desperately scrambling to get what they need from you, taking your presence in their life for granted, so the rest of their carefully crafted life doesn't fall apart. a place of love becomes unfamiliar w anxiety and forgets how to handle it with grace. this is a tale as old as time.

a moment of tension in a household is almost explosive, reactive. it creates a liminality of push and pull. re-actions. you are more keen to affirm that your are a real individual w real needs just like them, than you are with finding a way to meet as many needs as possible. it's an awful loop of whatabouteries because a part of your body can sense that something is not being considered and you're scrambling to show them everything they haven't considered. this is also exactly how i came out to my mom in the middle of a fight btw- “HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THAT IM GAY”

lol.

fun fact: Julien Baker came out the same way to her parents

what happens in such moments is while the language is working annoyingly perfectly, you're not really able to help yourself. partly because you expect that help to come from the other, and that's the narrative your love has allowed you both to exist in. and partly just to reveal the plot-hole. beauty is powerless in the face of truth.

so the goal really is not to preserve the love or the label of it, but to simply, learn how to help yourself. to measure the consequence of your words, instead of expecting the intention to come through, in the name of love.

this is my measured response to the parenthood question, that i’ve been reacting to on this subtack for the last few weeks.

i need to allow myself to backspace when i write, instead of trusting the first most fiery thing to fall out of my mouth to be the truest. because even if it is, people just are bad listeners sometimes. no one’s changing that to hear you better.

what needs to change are the material reasons simply listening makes people feel so unsafe some times, so scared to be changed. the reason they build delusions to protect their peace.

and how they fall in love to make a relationship work. when it's always the other way around. when you fall in love first, you define a relationship, instead of describe it. love will always be a verb, not a feeling.