#so reading what i had written of this earlier made me realize that esther is demiromantic

[vhenadahls]

Esther/Merrill - 8!

Oh man, so based on the first document associated with this, you sent me this prompt in 2017. So uh. Apologies for the delay :P

truth so loud you can’t ignore

Merrill and Esther are feeling out what being in a relationship means. This ends up being a much different conversation than Merrill was expecting.

Esther Hawke/Merrill, G, ~1100 words

It’s two weeks after their first kiss - the one Merrill initiated - when Merrill realizes that Esther doesn’t know how to do this. They’re in Merrill’s tiny house, just the two of them, curled up on the bed and talking. The air’s cold, a frosty Firstfall day, but there’s a fire in the hearth and they’re curled up under the bright patchwork quilt that’s one of the few things Merrill still has from her birth clan. 

But Esther, bright and loud and ever-moving, is holding herself very stiffly, propped against the wall. Every time Merrill asks if she’s okay, she smiles and says yes, of course, this is wonderful, but it niggles at Merrill’s thoughts until she can’t take it anymore. 

“You’ve been with lots of people,” she says, not a question, “like Isabela.” Her hands twist together of their own accord, a habit she sometimes wishes she could stop. She keeps her eyes pointed at Esther’s chin, enough to see her reaction but not so much that she has to look her in the eye. Still, whatever words she was going to say next fly out of her head.

Esther’s eyes narrow, in what Merrill thinks is confusion. Or maybe uncertainty. “I’ve, uh, slept with lots of people.” Her voice is thin, brittle, unusual, like she’s afraid of what she’s saying. “But I’ve never done…this before.” Her hands don’t twist together like Merrill’s do, but instead pluck at the patchwork blanket, running along the seams. They’re calloused in a familiar pattern, from holding a staff, but without the myriad of scars that litter Merrill’s own. 

She wants to reach out and hold them. Maybe they’d both be less frightened. But she doesn’t, not yet. “Never done what, exactly?” There’s an idea, worming its way into her head, but she doesn’t want to push. Whatever it is, she’s probably wrong. 

A blush creeps across Esther’s cheeks - unusual indeed. “I, uh.” The quilt flashes between her fingers, faded pink and yellow and green. “I don’t just want to sleep with you. I mean -” she chuckles, sounds a little more like herself for a moment - “I do want to. But not just to sleep with you. And I’ve never really…felt like this, before?” She doesn’t look at Merrill, looks anywhere else - at the broken mirror shard on the table, the small shelf of books, the fire. “I don’t know how to want this. How to do this.”

The words float in the icy air. Merrill’s heart flips over, confusion and compassion and whatever her feelings are for Esther all tangled up. “Never?” Even when she had thought it might be something like inexperience - something Esther is loath to ever admit to - she’d never expected never. 

The next laugh that pops out of Esther is hollow, bitter, unlike her. “You’ve found a thing I’ve never done. Good for you! Now just like everyone else, you can tell me I’m broken.” Another laugh. “Magic. This. It’s always something.” Her voice is loud and searing, mean and cutting, and Merrill’s instinctive reaction is to run away. There’s that inability to deal with inexperience.

She’s not going to run away. Esther’s hands are still picking at the seams of the blanket, so instead of going to hold one, she lays hers down next to them. Small, tawny-brown next to Esther’s larger, olive-gold ones. “You’re not broken,” she says. She can’t find anything else to say, no matter how much she wants to.

There’s no reply, but Esther’s hands still on the blanket after a few minutes. She doesn’t apologize for yelling at Merrill, doesn’t reach out to hold Merrill’s hand, but eventually she looks up. If Esther were the type of person to cry, Merrill would expect her to be crying right now, but she’s not. “Have you?”

It takes Merrill some time to parse out what the question’s asking, but then she nods. “A few times. Once at Arlathvhen, when I was fourteen - there was a girl from another clan. She had the most beautiful hair.” Her voice is rueful, and she reaches up to tug on her short braids. 

“Your hair’s beautiful,” Esther interrupts. Her direct, intense stare is hard enough when it’s not directed at Merrill, but with the full force of it, Merrill feels like she might be swept away. 

“Oh!” Now it’s Merrill’s turn to blush, and she tugs at the braids again. They’re starting to look a little raggedy, and she’ll have to redo them soon. They definitely don’t feel beautiful, especially not in the sense of how she remembers that girl from the last Arlathvhen. “Well, I don’t really know, they’re falling apart now anyways, and I’ll have to take so much time to put them back in - wait, I’m babbling again, I’m sorry. Thank you, that’s very sweet of you.” Her hands are twisted in her lap again. She pulls them apart. 

“You’re welcome.” Esther’s voice is a little lighter, a little less fraught. 

Plowing ahead, Merrill continues. “She was from another clan, obviously, or I’d have met her before - not that Arlathvhen is the only time we meet other clans, obviously, that would be quite silly, it’s just the largest - sorry, where was I again?”

This laugh isn’t as bright or booming as normal, but it’s not hollow, bitter, broken. And it’s kind, laughing with, not laughing at. “The girl?”

“Oh, right!” Merrill giggles too. “She was just so beautiful. And older than me, too. I followed her around like a lost puppy, that’s what I did.”

“Dalish have lost puppies?” Her tone is teasing. Now she does slip her hand into Merrill’s, and Merrill feels her heart soar.

“Not really! Especially not mabari - I’d never seen one until yours. That’s a saying I picked up from Varric, I think.” She leans over to rest her head on Esther’s shoulder. “Anyways. I tried to talk to that girl - Mihris was her name - but I was just so awkward, I don’t think she ever really understood me.”

With another laugh, almost normal, Esther presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Do I understand you?” she asks, playful.

Merrill nods, vigorously. “More than most.” She squeezes Esther’s hand, wriggling closer under the blanket. “It doesn’t matter to me what you haven’t done. We’re figuring out lots of things already. We can figure out more.”

They lapse into silence, the only sounds the crackle of the fire in the hearth and the wind rattling the door. It’s quiet, and just warm enough, and Merrill finds herself drifting off to sleep in Esther’s arms. But there’s a rustle in her hair, like Esther’s whispering something, and she strains her ears to hear.

“Thank you,” Esther says, and Merrill’s wide awake again.

“Of course,” she says, shifting to her left so she can face Esther more head-on. “Absolutely.”

[klaineharmony]

300x3, “Samhain,” Take Two

So I posted a little bit of this earlier today - it is the start of a later story in the Midsummer Meeting ‘verse. This one is for Samhain, which means there are two sabbat stories in between that I haven’t written yet. However, @whatstheproblembaby informed me that I couldn’t possibly leave everything hanging the way that I did in the earlier post, so I wrote some more, and decided to put it all together in a new post. 936 words today, total.

Oh, also - never take any of the herbal remedies in these stories as gospel. I search for information and read articles to try and get things right, but I am not an herbalist by any stretch of the imagination.

As Sarah was setting the table for dinner, David came in from the fields looking tired. She frowned at him as she took in his pale face and weary demeanor.

“Davey, you look awful. Are you not feeling well?” she asked in concern.

He gave her a wan smile, sitting down heavily. “I’m all right, Sarah. Just - something feels wrong, today. It’s Samhain, and the energy in the air should feel wonderful, but it doesn’t. I don’t know if the energy I’m picking up on is from our world or theirs, but it doesn’t feel right.”

That gave Sarah pause. She had felt both lethargic and feverish all day, and the faerie energy that was usually so soothing to her, a welcome reminder of Katherine and Jack and their presence, had instead sent her nerves flaring painfully. She had kept preparing for the holiday, because Samhain, of all the sabbats, was one of the most important, but it had been an exceptional effort. She hadn’t realized, when David had left the house this morning, that they were both feeling unwell.  

“How strange,” she murmured. “I wonder - “

David suddenly gasped, cutting her off, and Sarah’s eyes widened as his skin flared with a sparkling green glow. The two siblings stared at one another, and then moved as quickly as they could toward the back door.

Neither of them could muster the energy to run full-tilt, but they tried, holding hands and walking swiftly to the back of the garden, where they could already see a bright light inside of their ritual pentacle.

The two figures who materialized were not the pair they were expecting.

Katherine, half-conscious and with deep burns on her wrists and neck, was clinging to an upright but exhausted and disheveled Esther Jacobs.

Both Sarah and Davey froze at the sight, but then flung themselves forward with mutual cries of shock and alarm. Despite their fatigue, they ran the last few feet to their mother and Kath, trying to embrace both of them without causing any more injuries.

“Mama,” Sarah said, throwing her arms around both her mother and Kath, “is it really you? Please tell me it’s really you,” she wept.

“It’s really me, darling,” Esther said shakily, smiling at her daughter. “Davey,” she said, reaching quickly out to her son and touching his cheek. He clasped his mother’s hand in his own, his own tears falling freely.

“How? How are you alive? We thought you were dead,” he said tremulously.

“I know,” Esther said. “I will tell you everything, dear ones, but first we must help Katherine.”

Davey and Sarah immediately turned their attention to the red-haired faerie, who still had a desperate grip around Esther’s waist and was just barely supporting herself against the older woman’s body, her head limp in the crook of Esther’s neck. Her legs were clearly giving way, and Davey immediately stepped up so that his front was to Kath’s back and he could take some of her weight, while Sarah went around to her mother’s side and placed her arms around Kath as best she could.

“It’s all right, Kath, sweetheart,” she said gently, though she was sick inside at how pallid and listless Kath looked, and at the ugly burns that marred her beautiful skin. “Let go. Davey and I are here. We’ve got you.” 

Katherine moaned softly, but her eyes opened, and recognition flickered in them when she saw Sarah.

“That’s it, love,” Sarah coaxed. “It’s me. Davey’s right behind you. Just let go. You’re all right.”

Katherine closed her eyes again, and Sarah could see the effort it took for her to loosen her arms. As soon as she managed to let go of Esther, she began to fall backward, and Sarah and Davey grunted as they caught her, each of them adjusting so that they could put one of Kath’s arms over their shoulders. 

“There. We’ve got you, we’ve got you,” Sarah said soothingly as Kath moaned again. She looked over at her brother. “Davey, do you think if we both take her legs and carry her between us, we can get her to the house?” 

David nodded. “We can put her on the sofa, so that you can treat her burns and make sure she’s warm.” He bent over and placed his free arm under Katherine’s knees, and Sarah did the same.”

“Ready?” David asked, and Sarah nodded. “One, two, three.” 

With simultaneous effort, they lifted Kath into their arms so that she was held between them, and began to carry her back to the house. Because they were both so fatigued themselves, they didn’t waste energy on talking, and their mother seemed to already understand their situation, Sarah thought. She wondered how much Katherine had told Esther.

“Listen to me carefully, sweetheart,” Esther said as they walked, and Sarah nodded to show she was listening. “Once you get Katherine settled, we’ll need rose water, lavender, St. John’s Wort, and chamomile in a solution for her skin, and marigold, centella, comfrey, and more St. John’s Wort for tea. We need to get those burns healing, inside and out. Though I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t know,” Esther added, and her voice shook.  

“Oh, Mama,” Sarah breathed, struggling not to cry again, “I am so glad to have you back, no matter how much I know.”

“Mama, what made these burns?” David panted, his face tight with worry as he looked at Kath. “I’ve never seen Kath or Jack have so much as a scratch, much less something like this.” 

Esther’s face turned grim at the question. “Iron shackles.”

@wordshakerofgallifrey, @writemetohell, @queenofbrooklyn, @elozable, @thelittleredheadedmusician

[pickledchickenetti]

I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye documentary

Tonight I finally watched the documentary I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye. This documentary, released last fall, is about Joshua Harris admitting that he no longer supports the courtship model he pushed in his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye and the followup, Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship. The first book, released just over twenty years ago, was released when he was an unmarried 20 year old, and the second was released three years later after he got married. A week and a half ago he and his wife announced they were getting divorced, and two days ago he announced that he no longer considers himself a Christian. I hesitated to write about the documentary given that he’s seemingly done more soul-searching since then, but I decided to share my thoughts on the documentary with a disclaimer that (unless otherwise stated) these thoughts are not about any of his beliefs that have changed since then. The process of leaving a faith system that ran your life up until then is not an easy process, and even if it often turns out to be a good thing, I still don’t wish that struggle on anyone. It’s a painful process full of soul-searching, and when you finally come out on the other side you’re met with people claiming you never truly believed anyway, which is a huge slap in the face. Coupling that with divorce must make it even harder, and I hope he seeks the help he needs and is able to pick up the pieces, move on, and build a new and happy life for himself.

That being said, I really disliked his documentary. I will admit that I had heard mostly negative things about it beforehand. While I tried my best to go in with an open mind so I could form my own opinions, I did go in knowing that a lot of people whose opinions I respect took issues with it. Now that I have watched it, I can see the basis for a lot of those issues. 

Early on in the documentary, we see a conversation between Joshua and his wife Shannon where they talk about the fact that they fell and love and married after the book was already popular, which forced them to adhere to the standards it outlined. At one point in this conversation the two of them laugh at why anyone would listen to marriage advice from an unmarried twenty year old. It’s a fair argument, and one that my friends and I had already mentioned earlier in our viewing. In the context it was presented, however, it almost seemed to set the tone for the rest of this documentary. Joshua pretty regularly expressed sentiments about how his book hurt people, only to turn around and give some sort of but. This book hurt a lot of people BUT they didn’t have to take my advice. A lot of folks felt it really damaged their lives BUT they could have just stopped reading. Many of my beliefs at that time maybe weren’t the greatest BUT it was other people’s fault for taking them too far. At no point in this documentary did I feel that he truly felt he was to blame for the hurt that others felt. 

In the months since I heard he had changed his beliefs and made this documentary, I have often questioned how much he should be held responsible for the effect his book has had on the last couple generations of kids raised in the church. It’s true that other people took the book to a much bigger place than he likely expected at twenty years old. And he and his wife were right in expressing the absurdity that anyone would listen to an unmarried twenty year old’s marriage advice. A lot of us wouldn’t even listen to a married twenty year old’s marriage advice. But does that absolve him of any and all blame? I’m honestly still not sure what I feel on this subject. 

What I do think is that this documentary did more harm than good. If he had simply come out and said “I understand that my book has done a lot of harm. I know longer believe in many of the things I wrote twenty years ago, and the book will no longer be printed. I hope all of those who were victimized by the things I wrote and said are able to find the help they need and move on” I would likely feel differently about him than I do now. All I saw from this documentary was a man pretending to apologize by placing the blame elsewhere. No one called for him to apologize, he offered it. Then instead of a real apology he gave the typical gaslighting apology of “I’m sorry if you felt hurt by my actions” which does not mean at all the same thing as “I’m sorry for my actions”. If he had never given a fake apology I wonder if I would have even felt that he needed to apologize, but because he did, I do. 

The other day I posted screenshots of tweets from Elizabeth Esther, a writer who was one of the interviews featured in the documentary. In a TED Talk, Joshua Harris cites a twitter conversation with Elizabeth as the starting point for his change of beliefs on the contents of his book. In her tweets, she says she regrets her participation in the documentary, as he did not seem to truly have changed his beliefs and edited things in ways that took her words out of context to make himself look good. She directly says “I feel used” in her tweets, and I feel for her. I paid special attention to her interview, and can understand why she might not like the way it was cut. I’d love to see the unedited interview. The sentiments expressed in her tweets almost directly contrast her message of forgiveness expressed in her blog post on the subject a year earlier, which was written in response to their initial interactions on Twitter. Knowing he was pulling that sort of editing trick less than a year ago does make me question his motives in being open about his faith journey in the time since. 

I want to believe he is genuine in all of this, and that he’s sharing this as a way to be encouraging. But for whatever reason I can’t shake the nagging doubt that he is the first of many who will say what they need to say to capitalize on the exvangelical movement that’s currently taking off on Twitter and in blogs. One thing that stands out to me in particular is that his recent post included his affirmation for the LGBTQ community and the fact that that post went up pretty shortly after Elizabeth Esther’s tweet saying he directly said to her that he didn’t affirm LGBTQ folks blew up on twitter. (An old tweet from December, yes, but a couple key exvangelical leaders on Twitter recently retweeted it.) I hope that in the time since he released the documentary he has come to feel differently. But in the documentary, which came out less than a year ago, he said folks who have acted on their same sex attractions “need to deal with that with God” before moving onto the next steps. I’m always wary to believe when people make a complete 180 on this subject very quickly because I am gay myself and it still took me years to shake off the negative opinions on LGBTQ folks that I was raised with. (I fully acknowledge that perhaps being gay myself makes it harder to do that 180 because it’s not just this concept you’re trying to stop hating but a part of yourself. I don’t know if that means straight folks can come around so much faster or not but I struggle to accept that it happens in the matter of months.) 

A friend asked me this afternoon if I had even read I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which made me realize that I’m not actually sure. While I know I grew up very aware of it and the message it preached, I was given a lot of purity culture books and materials as a teen and I now have a hard time distinguishing which ones I did and didn’t read. For that reason, I am considering going in and reading it in the near future just so that it’s fresh on my mind and I can have a clear idea of exactly what is in that book in particular. I have a feeling that Joshua Harris and his journey is a subject that will still be relevant for awhile to come and I don’t like to share too many opinions on a subject without being as informed as possible. (I likely won’t post a long post about my thoughts when I do that simply because I don’t expect my opinions on purity culture to change much from re-reading an old book.) 

As someone who grew up in purity culture, this documentary just seemed condescending. He expressed the sentiment that “no one was forcing anyone to read this book” multiple times, only to finally admit closer to the end that “maybe some people were forced by their parents”. He regularly expressed that the reason his book became so harmful because of the way other people chose to use it, which doesn’t take ownership of the fact that he still was the one who gave them that tool. There were other books on the subject, sure, but none quite as well-known as his. And that makes him a leading voice on the subject, whether he wants to be or not. 

[desertchicken]

on good, painful conversations and learning how to “grow up”

i’ve done no work this weekend but somehow I’m okay with that, and I’m okay with the prospect of getting up tomorrow morning and starting on my problem sets. and what i mean when i say things are okay, is to say i’m still in the process of learning how to live in the strange cognitive space of being overwhelmed by everything i’m learning about the world, being conflicted about ideology and future aspirations, comparing myself socially/academically/professionally to those around me and finding myself wanting but also

also being okay with finding what I’m interested in pursuing, the things i’m passionate about, and acknowledging my own limitations. and accepting the fact that i’m a social and emotional being, and actually reaching out and having difficult but necessary conversations with the people i love, to actually show them i care about them in a way that neither trite nor ironic. to acknowledge my own laziness and sensitivity and inability and fear of forming opinions about things, and to guide myself towards improvement in a way that’s neither too soft nor too harsh.

what I mean to say is

what i mean to say is i haven’t written in a while, so my thoughts about things are difficult and tangled but i’ll attempt to process a bit here. maybe it would be better to wait till after finals week, but there’s just so much right now, that I thought it would be good to unload while it’s still fresh:

i had lunch with jiwon and we talked for a long time about gender expectations and being in math/econ. it was after the analysis exam (harrowing emotional experience pt. 3, one more to go) when we just kind of laid on the tables and shared in our anxiety about our exams...but somehow that conversation about marriage/the future/gendered expectations, her talking about coming from a low-income background, talking about how she feels distant from her hs friends because of the very distinct trajectories their lives have taken, was just such an unexpectedly beautiful conversation that left me deep in thought about a lot of things (even when I’m exhausted, i’m so eternally grateful for these conversations that still find me and sustain me, with close friends like maya and iyanu, with “acquaintances” like frances and jiwon and theo and minh quan and alex and peter, little by little, in degrees of comfortability and vulnerability)

and somehow that conversation in particular and hearing about jiwon and how someone like her would be okay with not getting married and having children, and just hearing her say that was so...relieving, almost? after the strange anxiety that’s gripped me recently about finding an s.o., just seeing someone who has professional and academic ambitions similar to mine and not being in a relationship and not actively searching for one was comforting in a strange way, and I think i will accept where I am right now and be okay with my youth and being “alone”, so to speak, but in the presence of these people who I am learning from continually

on a completely unrelated note, a. gave me a hug after the analysis exam. he initiated it, and it was very normal and platonic. it’s just i didn’t expect it from him, of all people.

i still haven’t replied to lem i’m not sure how i should bring it up i feel like complete and utter shit but then that’s what happens when you’re a shit like me so please respond in the future to messages promptly thank you and good bye

that night we had a conversation with people in fellowship which was probably one of the most uncomfortable discussions i’ve been in for awhile, and that’s saying something. it was about the whole multi-ethnic and racial dynamic in fellowship, and on some scale it was a microcosm of the political conversations we’ve been having and i’ve been thinking about on campus as a whole: the tension between “calling out” and persuasion, respectability politics sort of thing, anti-blackness and depoliticization in asian-american communities, and so on, and so forth. i spoke once and it wasn’t that great and i know it wasn’t about me, but i guess some things that made me uncomfortable that I mentioned to iyanu later on in the brunch we had the day afterwards:

the sort of implicit “good ally/bad ally” dynamic, esp. in the context of asian americans/asian american boys

the extremely uncomfortable place of being explicit but also not really about calling out the first year asian american friend group for being exclusive and non-asian poc who might feel uncomfortable with that friend group

somehow a talk like this is “mandatory”, but the mandatoriness is implicit, and some people find it more mandatory than others but is “politicization” a sort of hobby? are the stakes too high? (perhaps this is a horrible characterization to make but the nature of the convo almost reminded me of the whole “good christian/bad christian” dynamic in a lot of conservative christian groups

but also i understand why students like iyanu/esther/lindsey were angry, and i’m just very confused sometimes about what our community ought to prioritize

in the end it was probably something jeremy said that made things make sense to me, and it’s that it’s not even about anti-blackness or race in particular, it’s the fact that members of fellowship care only about things that affect people close to them, and don’t really care when it doesn’t. so it’s a community issue. it’s a lack of community engagement, a sort of imbalance of emotional labor, which would make any relationship fall apart. so i guess i see the point of being uncomfortable, and i’m very glad i went. 

on a related note i walked out afterwards just feeling so drained and kind of done and confused and not knowing how to process, and i’m so glad i met theo on the way who had just had a conversation with pj about the whole irreconciliable anti-blackness talk. and so we stood in the oldenborg hallway for a good two hours (didn’t feel like two hours) and just had this really intense conversation again about colonization and genocide in Christianity, and anti-blackness in asian communities but not only that but anti-blackness as a way of civilization, and it was just...i still need to process that more and there’s so much there to think more and read more about 

had brunch with iyanu the next morning and it was a difficult but extremely necessary and good conversation trying to unpack the fellowship discussion last night. i’m so grateful for her. she asks me why i keep coming back for these talks, and i realize the ugly truth that i probably wouldn’t care about these things if it wasn’t for the fact that i befriended people who weren’t asian my first year. i don’t think that makes me any “better of a person”. i hope i will never succumb to that belief. but also...that’s the whole thing about being a “good ally” and a “good asian american” though i’m not sure what I think and feel about that whole thing again 

went to the workers’ delegation protest. felt extremely uncomfortable chanting again. i don’t know what to believe sometimes. i probably should have gone to the sociology sit in as well, but I really don’t know what i believe and i need to begin taking ownership of my opinions. i think i should have gone to the sociology sit in, because it wasn’t about alice goffman, it was about transparency. anyways, i stopped by at the sage tank presentations an hour earlier, and felt very keenly the divide between different student groups on campus. students presenting their entrepreneurship ideas to gain approval from rich alumni, and later on other students shouting down oxtoby and marching around bridges. i wonder if it’s possible to be a part of both those worlds. it’s a bit jarring to think about at times

all of friday and saturday was just too much so i spent the evening laying around in my bed watching movies and looking at facebook. read the story of some little girl who got cancer who’s a friend of a friend, and she died in january. cried. watched silenced/crucible. cried so hard i got a nosebleed and felt profoundly angry at the injustice of the truth, the deep, profound injustice of abuse. (and slowly coming to terms with the fact that i feel things, and that it’s okay to base my beliefs upon emotions as long as they are grounded in fact, and being okay with feeling emotions and being human in general). which i mean, kind of helped in a way, but also i just thought about death a lot and i need to feel nice things as well. and being angsty but also learning how to grow up and have conversations with people and to balance realism with idealism and to never cease being indignant at the pain of the world... 

my aunt from shanghai visited today and we spent a surprisingly long time over dinner and in the oldenborg lounge talking (in my hesitant chinese, lmao) about self-sufficiency, charity work vs. sustainable development, inherited wealth vs. the whole “pulling up by the bootstraps” ideology, communism and capitalism, economic systems and injustice and everything. i don’t think i agree with her about everything but it was interesting to hear an opinion from someone who lives in a foreign country and also is not from my generation. and i’m grateful that she considered and responded to and was very respectful of my opinions, and that she never dismissed my ideas as the fallacy of youth or whatever. it felt very much like a discussion between “adults”, whatever that is. i feel old in a strange way that is also indicative of my youth. (though she did pay for my meal, cause she said i wasn’t working yet. lmfao)

called my parents last night and talked to them awhile about similar things. if there is anything i’m grateful for, it’s that my parents (esp my mom, probably cause she’s less busy) are progressively becoming more and more interested in discussing politics and philosophy and aapi identity and antiblackness and whatnot. even my dad is becoming more comfortable in our new mostly-black church. 

and i guess there’s not that much more than that, other than the fact that things are not necessarily becoming easier to deal with, but that i’m slowly learning how to deal with them in a way that’s not destructive to myself. maybe i’ll write about susan neiman and her book later. I still feel strange about missing out on things like the whole aamp ceremony today, seeing hanna’s pictures on facebook, hearing about people’s summer plans and internships and successes and whatnot.

but what can i say about this whirlwind of a year, of this semester? another whirlwind of a year? i will probably write more about this as the school year winds down to more of a close, but strangely enough, even though things are more difficult and stressful sophomore year has overall been a much more...lively and enriching experience(?) than my first year was. perhaps it’s the way that i was so terrified and anxious my first year of “making the most” out of my college beginning that instead i lost a lot of opportunities, and that my newfound desire to not give a fuck this semester has helped me beyond measure. what can i say, other than the fact that my world has, as I hoped for when i graduated high school, expanded far beyond the one i knew before. between skyping and having lunch with tannenbaum and sarkis, deepening friendships and intense conversations with friends and mentors in ppcf/aamp but also now in my math classes, learning not only the language of politics but now also how to stand by my own opinions, to come to the realization of the harsh, ugly reality of what the world truly looks like but also to never lose sight of the hope blooming in so many of the people i’ve come to know and love here, to feel the intimate pain of loneliness but also to learn how to openly express my love, to count and make the most of my blessings instead of comparing what i have to those around me and my friends back home because

because i’ve learned something about myself: that i’m sensitive and easily overwhelmed and i take a lot of time to process information, that the littlest things like these conversations hold so much meaning for me. but also to learn to accept my own seriousness and sincerity, but to take it with a grain of salt as well and be okay with lightness but never chastising myself in the whole “angsty teen” way of being misunderstood about being complex or needing to be someone i’m not

there’s just so much here, there’s so much, and i’m tired but also deeply grateful for what i’ve learned here and am continuing to learn, for my capacity to learn.