januarycanary

There isn't much space for grief. It's almost a month into grief group and I haven't quite gotten a handle on the impulse to feel ??? about mentioning non-death-related grief. Of all the things that are never talked about, maybe that one is the real kicker - we spend so much time trying to convince ourselves and the people around us that we are in fact OK. Maybe I should consider myself lucky. I am disabused of this obsession to present a face - when you've broken down in front of strangers and relied on the kindness of other women, or seen the abject indifference, contempt and annoyance by pe

A friend, B, that I hadn't talked to in a while called me today. I am lucky to have her in my life - she was one of two people who engaged with my abusive partner, W, and told me that how he treated me was wrong. She insisted I had to get out. It took several months for me to come around to it, which was helped along by the fact that W hated social situations and outings with the kids, so I had a lot of time without him to consider my experience of the kids, community, connections, without him. Is your house still a mess, she asked? Yes, I replied. She asked why, and I said, I don't know.

I react so badly to being scolded. It is interesting how much white men in professional positions of power are accustomed to be curt and charmless. Tone is everything, I suppose, and I am growing increasingly impatient with impolite, largely impotent men. What is it about that? That slinking, sinking feeling? It's a place that is all too familiar, it's where I have lived all my life. I do not want it. It makes me feel ill, and it sets me off. I wonder how far this is something I must self-regulate, and how far I just need to draw better boundaries. Probably any and all of the above.

It is important to me to write. There is such an urgency within, without the musculature to follow through. (Question: Have you considered that your depression stems from insufficient reflection? Something shifts in the world when you read back paragraphs you have considered, and found yourself self-assured enough not to annihilate each word immediately, for fear of judgment --whose?-- When you make yourself do the thing you feel successful. It is very important to feel successful.) Often I don't know where to begin. There are so many moving parts, and such turbulent and fleeting des

There is a place I used to go to, when I was fourteen. In the 2000s I would write journal entries, read about my friends' lives. In high school I found out that I had somewhat of a following. I guess that made me a writer at a time that I wanted so badly to call myself one, but never dared to because I always felt "less than". Back then I was moderately depressed. I wonder if there has ever been a time in my life that I wasn't. I grew up in Singapore, where in some families, a child's worth is tied to their grades. Doing well isn't sufficient, being the best forever and always is - it hel