so long, subtle alien vibes

the particular feeling of melancholy that precipitates a period of radical change

I thought I would make this a regular thing, but it seems that that is simply not fated to be. But I thought I’d force myself to write this time around since I’ve been missing writing not for money, and because I have some thoughts I’d like to get out, and because sometimes you just have to force yourself to write.

Lately I’ve been thinking about what it feels like to be held. Not in the physical sense, since I think we all kind of know (or can approximate) what that’s like. I mean that on Saturday I was at a Midsommar-themed party and did the requisite accompanying ~activities~ and the whole time I couldn’t stop thinking about those crucial two questions in the film which stood out to me the most, even more than the [spoiler!] ritual suicides, the blood eagle, the murder-suicide, any of the other gruesome deaths. It’s a film about the gruesome death of a relationship more than anything, after all.

“Do you feel held by him?

Does he feel like home to you?”

(I’m realizing now that this is quickly becoming a newsletter about home and its ever-evolving meanings to me, which is fine by my book.)

I don’t mean this in the traditional sense of a monogamous relationship either, which is where my personal musings differ from Dani’s (I also am uninterested in joining a cult). It’s more that I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it takes to feel held, what it takes to feel like I am home. On the bus to Philadelphia I was telling Joseph about how I’ve felt terribly lonely at times this summer in the city or convinced myself that I don’t have friends when the truth is, I do. I just don’t have friends who are as familiar + comfortable to me as my college friends, most of whom are still on Long Island or scattered elsewhere, or they’re in the city and I love them but I’ve got to expand my reach beyond my school’s grasp one of these days. The problem is that, like most people, I’ve conceptualized friendships as relationships that happen naturally with no effort needed, and that any strain or discomfort is unnecessary or indicative of a friendship being not worth my time.

But I know now that this isn’t true – especially as I gear up to finish my final semester of school, I’ve realized how many of my friendships have been formed out of necessity or proximity. You may discover that you don’t actually like someone – you’re just in the same square mile as them all the time, so you may as well spend time together. But that’s not what feeling held is; or if there’s any semblance of being held, it’s by a safety net and not by an intentionally constructed web.

I’m learning that just like any romantic relationship, friendships take time and nurturing in order to grow, and that just because there may be rough patches it doesn’t mean that the friendship is automatically worth abandoning. Genuine friendship has to be cultivated; genuine friendship means going out of your comfort zone sometimes in order to let your guard down, if only just a little bit, around someone who doesn’t already know you in that context. It doesn’t necessarily mean vulnerability (I’ve long since discarded the notion that vulnerability in and of itself is in any way “radical”); if anything automatic vulnerability/overfamiliarity is a huge turn-off to me, and usually an indicator that someone doesn’t have a good sense of boundaries–another thing that I’m starting to find genuine pleasure in enacting. You have to, as the kids say, submit yourself to the mortifying ordeal of being known in order to reap the rewards of being loved.

In general, I’m learning that it is impossible to feel held by just one person, and that that’s an unfair expectation to boot.

When I started falling headfirst into nothingness on Saturday it’s true that I immediately retreated into my partner’s arms, letting them hold me afloat as my body was racked with great heaving sobs. But the difference is that I may have stayed there in that black place had it not been for everyone else who reassured me that it was okay that I was crying, for the people who led me and my partner on a walk around the block and pointed out how beautiful and pink the sunset looked, who waited for us even when we trailed far behind, distracted by the sumptuous warmth of the concrete on our bare feet, who got me solo cup after solo cup of water.

(It’s been so long since I’ve been barefoot outside and not cared about it, also. Or even been in a place where it would be remotely okay to walk barefoot outside because god knows I am not doing that in Brooklyn or even Long Island.)

The funny thing is that I was afraid to feel held, to some degree. I was afraid of being a burden, of ruining people’s fun, I kept apologizing.

“For what?” everyone would ask. I never had an answer. But every time I realized that there was nothing to apologize for, not really, I felt more and more held.

I know now that codependency is bad and that it’s been a process, this violent unwrenching and reintegrating into myself without the acute need for another person, a process that’s almost painful at times. But now I’m trying to teach myself that the solution is not to run in the opposite direction, an impulse which I’m still trying to overcome. I am proud of my self-sufficiency and how far I have come in that regard, but I am also terrified of slipping back into that monstrous desire for subsumption. I guess the difference here is between need and desire–everyone needs someone sometimes. Sometimes I am needed. I don’t think it’s good to make a home out of any one person, but I think intentionally constructing your home, your community, your family is not just okay, but necessary in order to ever survive.

(from the intro to Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History, which I have yet to read)

Anyway, it’s getting a little chilly in NYC which is exciting and a little sad. The summer is over and I hardly believe it–I feel like summer always stretches on forever until all of a sudden there’s the first faint hint at an autumn chill in the air on an August morning. I wore a sweater today! Here’s to the changing of the seasons, and surviving great ordeals (which this summer has been for me, though it’s also been very fun), and to Virgos.

xo,

james