between2mysteries

[between2mysteries]

I’d be long dead in a ditch somewhere or just an absolute shell of myself if I internalized even a quarter of the things people said I was after I didn’t give them what they wanted from me. This period of my life keeps reminding me of Baldwin’s: “You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not its idea of you.” And Audre Lorde’s: “If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.”

Getting closer to 30 has been about realizing how deep self-betrayal runs in me and how profoundly I want to be liberated from acting like this. It’s boring and predictable. Sacrificing myself has never led to any real growth, fulfillment, or strength… I would much rather the discomfort of loss. I love and respect myself too much now to lay down for people. They will kill you if you let them.

People are going to decide who you are based on a myriad of factors completely out of your control and relevant only to their perspective and experience. I’ve learned it’s best just to say that ain’t got shit to do with me and move on for your peace of mind and spirit.

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can anyone please spare a few bucks so i can get something to eat today? first months rent and bills left me broke this month. I have an empty pantry and fridge. anything helps!

paypal

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in the embarrassing fantasy i think most of us share - the person you like likes you back and doesn’t want to lose you and sometimes things work out that way, and sometimes they don’t. i have to work on being okay with the latter

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alright i’m done agonizing over it. i think my abusive ex turning on me almost over night has very obviously resulted in some deep fault lines of anxious attachment. i’m trying to remember what my friend told me: worrying about it won’t change the outcome. if he wants to and or is going to sleep with other people or replicate the dynamic we have i can’t control that. i can only determine what is tolerable for me to handle emotionally and go from there

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“To try to not be more interesting but be more interested” literally changed my life perspective btw

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MARCO OBRADOVIC

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nikki giovanni

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I’ll keep this short, please donate to my dear friend Noor who is taking care of her disabled son in Gaza. Let’s raise another $100 this week. That’s just 20 people donating $5 each. Will you help? ㅤ𐙚♡

Skip your coffee today and consider the life of little Muhammad instead.

Vetted

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Vintage 18k and Diamond ‘I Love You’ Block Puzzle Charm by Cartier

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my friends took me to a gay bar a couple nights ago (my first time) and we went to three spots and by the time we made it to the last one, i asked a girl if i could buy her a drink and danced with her and asked to kiss her.

we were both drunk shouting into each other’s ear about who we were hung up on, drinking out of small plastic cups with about 1/3 of liquor for triple the price. she was gorgeous and she rejected me. we hugged goodbye and i left smiling like an idiot. it didn’t matter that i was rejected. i was proud of myself for putting myself out there, for pushing past the fear and anxiety of rejection and doing things i’ve wanted to do for years.

this right now, feels a lot like that. i feel good, no matter what direction this takes. i feel so good about where i might end up because i’m listening to myself and my needs. somehow, i sort of know it’ll all end up okay

[between2mysteries]

i’ve never been able to be up front with people i’ve been casually involved with / crushing on. i’ve always let them walk out on me, steer the relationship into vague ambiguous and ultimately anxiety inducing territory because i was afraid.

just now i sent a text to the person i like and have been seeing the past two months saying all the things i’ve been avoiding. full honesty. and while i don’t think i’ll get the response i would deep down want, and that it is likely over — i’m proud of myself for doing this. it’s a long pattern i’ve been on that led me to my abusive ex and just a bunch of other unfulfilling and hurtful dynamics, and while the result will probably be the same as the rest, i’m taking control for once. and i feel way more at peace and steady than i thought i would. i feel like i’m moving toward healthier habits that are aligned with who i am and what i want and more importantly what i need. instead of examining this whole thing from the perspective of what i’ll be losing by “gambling” with honesty, i reframed my thinking in that this whole situation has been making me feel like dog shit and that has to be the baseline and the north star. that has to be enough reason to walk away

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i need to move in with a tumblr mutual

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It’s ok if it takes several years.

[between2mysteries]

some thoughts on desire & self-actualization

when someone leaves us, doesn’t choose us, ends things with us: we think of it as a loss and it is and it’s not to minimize the importance of someone to you and the impact they may have had in your life and or your feelings toward them but what dies is a dream. a dream where you are loved and found finally. where you can let your guard down. breathe. have sex with the lights on and your top off. a dream where you stop searching. a dream where you are you and loved for it. when someone leaves you, we think it confirms something about us: how unlovable we are, how unworthy, stupid, ugly, not smart enough, not good enough, not enough. when in fact it’s none of those things. all around you are people who love you and see you, who look forward to spending time with you, who miss you. your absence is felt when you don’t show up to the party, when it takes you a little while to climb out of your depression hole and respond to a text. your friends (and sometimes family) can rattle off an endless list of qualities about you they admire, that make you unique, that make you loved. you are loved. so why can one boy (girl, person, human being) make you forget that truth entirely? why is the dream they represented, their confirmation of desire braided into your self worth? why do we feel the most seen when we are told someone is in love with us, wants to fuck us, wants us more than they’ve ever wanted anyone? 

lots of reasons both socially, culturally, psychologically. i’m simplifying what isn’t simple and has, like most things, a million and one intersections but i digress. the person you want not wanting you back or changing their mind in their desire for you, ghosting you, cheating on you etc., i’m saying nothing new here: but it does in fact say a lot about them and nothing about you because you are all the things that are already loved, all the things that already existed and are loved. you are already desired, and missed, and longed for. when someone denies you their love and attention it can be for a number of reasons: sometimes they’re bored, callous, a person so far removed from acts of vulnerability they were never able to offer you the love you crave, they were never able to see you. it’s why you can be in a relationship with someone and enter a toxic abusive cycle, it’s like banging your head on the wall and wanting the headache to go away. you can’t receive something that was never there to begin with. but their inability to love you might end up being that they are never capable of real love, or at the very least the healthy love you deserve. 

it’s not because you are pathetic with nothing to offer someone but because they are possibly out of touch with who they are, with what they want; they might be scared, terrified. they might have felt something for you and out of fear like an animal or any being that acts on primordial impulses — they decided to strike first; leave before being left. or they never saw the deeply loved person that you are or they did and were threatened by it. and yes, of course they could determine that there are incapabilities between you. but that doesn't mean that those are unlovable flaws, it doesn't make you "unworthy" if someone decides that you're not the person for them. you're not erased by someone else being "chosen." people who are ready to give and receive love, walk out to you, palms open and forward. they meet you in the middle, you don’t have to work so hard. think of your friends. think of how you give and receive love from each other. think of the ease there. you don’t have to beg and plead and cry. you’re not filled with anguish or self doubt. you’re steady, you’re at peace and the right person adds to your life, they don’t define it, they don’t make it. 

as it goes: yes, no one saves you (maybe the power of friendship; i don’t care how corny that sounds, it did for me). but even then, you get up everyday, you try and you try and you try. you show up to the party. you embrace your friends with so much love in your eyes, with so much warmth and acceptance. i won’t say it doesn’t matter to be loved romantically, of course it does. 

it’s human and natural to want that but i think it’s important to remember that we are attaching a dream of self actualization to those we romanticize. that the right person will want to stick around, will never purposefully or intentionally hurt you. if we can separate our worth and anxieties from the person we desire, if we can cognitively recognize that we are unintentionally using people to confirm or deny how lovable or unlovable we fear ourselves to be, we might be able to accept heartbreak and disappointment without having an identity crisis. without feeling like the world is ending. we might be able to allow ourselves to feel the pain of another dream’s end, and recognize that nothing about us has been denied or rejected. fundamentally, they weren’t ready for you. they weren’t ready for what you had to offer. someday someone will be and until then, you have to give yourself the love you seek from others, you have to believe your friends when they tell you how incredible you are. as louise gluck says in her poem, The Empty Glass:

Maybe

this is what my friends meant, taking my hand,

telling me they understood

the abuse, the incredible shit I accepted,

implying (so I once thought) I was a little sick

to give so much for so little.

Whereas they meant I was good (clasping my hand intensely)—

a good friend and person, not a creature of pathos.

I was not pathetic! I was writ large,

like a queen or a saint.

Well, it all makes for interesting conjecture.

And it occurs to me that what is crucial is to believe

in effort, to believe some good will come of simply trying,

a good completely untainted by the corrupt initiating impulse

to persuade or seduce—

What are we without this?

Whirling in the dark universe,

alone, afraid, unable to influence fate—