I soooo feel this hard!!!! I have many other reasons to feel alienated from black women-only spaces, especially lesbian/"queer." But for a spell, I'd be able to briefly connect, albeit superficially. Now...dear God now....it's a fucking wrap! I cannot deal!
I'm getting old and set in my ways. Perhaps realizing more and more the fragility of mortality is stripping me of my abilities to gaf. "I's tired boss..." LOL
I feel you 😹 I become less tolerant of the bullshit as I go along, too-especially being so outspoken about it. I'm a very deep person and crave deeper connections. It's impossible to have that within those black "queer" spaces, and I'm learning that I have to honor that even when it's difficult. I hope you can feel nourished by the spaces I'm creating, and that you can find other women to relate to in the ways you're seeking 🤎
I'm getting old and set in my ways too. Successfully ducked a pronoun circle twice on the weekend and wouldn't have had the courage to do so were it not for Nevline's writings. I bet everyone noticed but I was also the only brown person in the circle and greeted people in the Indigenous language of the country I now live in to pay my respects, so what can they say lol. We don't have pronouns in my own language anyway which I would have happily informed anyone had they asked me.
Omg yay!!! This makes me so happy to hear that I've encouraged you. I FEEL YOU on balancing being brown and proud with the deference to gender ideology--people really back off when you don't conform in that way. There is so much to say about that. Also! I am half-Nigerian and we don't have pronouns in my family's native language either. I love that you pulled out the Indigenous card 😹 perfect time to do it.
“ Perhaps keeping one foot in the spaces where I can’t be my full self, where my light is stifled, and where I will never truly be celebrated—is just me grasping the last vestiges of my own fears and insecurities. “
I resonated with this quote a lot, when I read it.
Back in March, I was going through some of my old belongings and thinking about some massive parts of my life from when I was younger that since had completely dropped out of my life. Then suddenly my brain did this leap and it was like within 2 weeks, I spontaneously regained a huge part of myself and old hobbies/activities/interests that I liked doing. Suddenly it was like I had only been 30% of myself for many years, and I was a way different person.
My spouse didn’t really like this. Our entire relationship had been based on us being able to tell each other ANYTHING, but after this happened it was like this previously missing 70% of me was something that they really couldn’t handle being told about, at all. We had months where the best conversations that we had, were me talking about how they had hurt me after a bad situation had happened. I ultimately ended up moving out. I was genuinely worried about becoming a widower two separate times because my spouse’s mental health was way worse than I thought and despite all of this, they pinned their full self worth on me. It was and still is all pretty wild.
At my new home, I have a new partner where I can unabashedly share whatever about myself and my thoughts again. I still go to visit my spouse sometimes and I found that living with them was the BIGGEST problem … being in a space all the time where I couldn’t do basic Me Things was terribly stifling, but visiting them in the same way you visit A Friend You Only Do Certain Things With is fine. But it’s totally obvious now — when I hang out with them in their apartment: I’m thinking on-and-off, there are so many things I could never do with them. And when I hang out with them in my own home: they are sometimes completely disarmed and bewildered at how to respond to me. (Down to bare bones, even some of the basic ways I emote makes them uncomfortable now apparently.)
And I’m like, man . . . I may still come over to visit to do hobby stuff; I may still care for them enough to take care of them and stay over for a full week+ when they have their tonsillectomy in December; I may still call them up when I buy groceries to ask if they want anything and I can pick it up on a separate bill to drop it off to them; but I should never move back in with them. It’d be so bad for me.
I had actually stayed a few consecutive nights over at their apartment the morning that I was reading your article, and I had experienced the previous day kind of settling back into old habits of: irritated thoughts of, “well if I don’t feel valued for doing the housework tasks I do, then I’m just going to mentally pretend I live alone and that I’m doing it only for me and not incorporate this person at all into my mental reward system.” I had to slow myself down and remember that my situation is substantially different now, despite doing something that was such a complete old muscle memory. But it was very odd. I was like, “why do they deserve these things from me in their life, anyway? Which, I don’t know, really? It’s awkward when my “I do this thing because it makes me happy and feel enriched” activity is cleaning because, “well I don’t want to refuse to do things that do make me happy out of spite, or whatever”. Or I’m still not sure why I haven’t started visiting my other local friends more often and why I still visit the spouse so disproportionately frequently compared to said friends. Maybe it’s habit; maybe I’m subconsciously still apprehensive at losing my medical coverage if we just fell out completely and divorced; maybe opening all of these old boxes is just exhausting sometimes despite the experiences I had before opening the boxes being practically Black and White to what I experience now.
The more we develop, the more we realise that we are true individuals. As a society, we just have to go back to liking or at least tolerating people who are not exactly like us. As it was in the time before social media, a time when we weren't segmented into marketing categories.
I soooo feel this hard!!!! I have many other reasons to feel alienated from black women-only spaces, especially lesbian/"queer." But for a spell, I'd be able to briefly connect, albeit superficially. Now...dear God now....it's a fucking wrap! I cannot deal!
I'm getting old and set in my ways. Perhaps realizing more and more the fragility of mortality is stripping me of my abilities to gaf. "I's tired boss..." LOL
I feel you 😹 I become less tolerant of the bullshit as I go along, too-especially being so outspoken about it. I'm a very deep person and crave deeper connections. It's impossible to have that within those black "queer" spaces, and I'm learning that I have to honor that even when it's difficult. I hope you can feel nourished by the spaces I'm creating, and that you can find other women to relate to in the ways you're seeking 🤎
I'm getting old and set in my ways too. Successfully ducked a pronoun circle twice on the weekend and wouldn't have had the courage to do so were it not for Nevline's writings. I bet everyone noticed but I was also the only brown person in the circle and greeted people in the Indigenous language of the country I now live in to pay my respects, so what can they say lol. We don't have pronouns in my own language anyway which I would have happily informed anyone had they asked me.
Omg yay!!! This makes me so happy to hear that I've encouraged you. I FEEL YOU on balancing being brown and proud with the deference to gender ideology--people really back off when you don't conform in that way. There is so much to say about that. Also! I am half-Nigerian and we don't have pronouns in my family's native language either. I love that you pulled out the Indigenous card 😹 perfect time to do it.
“ Perhaps keeping one foot in the spaces where I can’t be my full self, where my light is stifled, and where I will never truly be celebrated—is just me grasping the last vestiges of my own fears and insecurities. “
I resonated with this quote a lot, when I read it.
Back in March, I was going through some of my old belongings and thinking about some massive parts of my life from when I was younger that since had completely dropped out of my life. Then suddenly my brain did this leap and it was like within 2 weeks, I spontaneously regained a huge part of myself and old hobbies/activities/interests that I liked doing. Suddenly it was like I had only been 30% of myself for many years, and I was a way different person.
My spouse didn’t really like this. Our entire relationship had been based on us being able to tell each other ANYTHING, but after this happened it was like this previously missing 70% of me was something that they really couldn’t handle being told about, at all. We had months where the best conversations that we had, were me talking about how they had hurt me after a bad situation had happened. I ultimately ended up moving out. I was genuinely worried about becoming a widower two separate times because my spouse’s mental health was way worse than I thought and despite all of this, they pinned their full self worth on me. It was and still is all pretty wild.
At my new home, I have a new partner where I can unabashedly share whatever about myself and my thoughts again. I still go to visit my spouse sometimes and I found that living with them was the BIGGEST problem … being in a space all the time where I couldn’t do basic Me Things was terribly stifling, but visiting them in the same way you visit A Friend You Only Do Certain Things With is fine. But it’s totally obvious now — when I hang out with them in their apartment: I’m thinking on-and-off, there are so many things I could never do with them. And when I hang out with them in my own home: they are sometimes completely disarmed and bewildered at how to respond to me. (Down to bare bones, even some of the basic ways I emote makes them uncomfortable now apparently.)
And I’m like, man . . . I may still come over to visit to do hobby stuff; I may still care for them enough to take care of them and stay over for a full week+ when they have their tonsillectomy in December; I may still call them up when I buy groceries to ask if they want anything and I can pick it up on a separate bill to drop it off to them; but I should never move back in with them. It’d be so bad for me.
I had actually stayed a few consecutive nights over at their apartment the morning that I was reading your article, and I had experienced the previous day kind of settling back into old habits of: irritated thoughts of, “well if I don’t feel valued for doing the housework tasks I do, then I’m just going to mentally pretend I live alone and that I’m doing it only for me and not incorporate this person at all into my mental reward system.” I had to slow myself down and remember that my situation is substantially different now, despite doing something that was such a complete old muscle memory. But it was very odd. I was like, “why do they deserve these things from me in their life, anyway? Which, I don’t know, really? It’s awkward when my “I do this thing because it makes me happy and feel enriched” activity is cleaning because, “well I don’t want to refuse to do things that do make me happy out of spite, or whatever”. Or I’m still not sure why I haven’t started visiting my other local friends more often and why I still visit the spouse so disproportionately frequently compared to said friends. Maybe it’s habit; maybe I’m subconsciously still apprehensive at losing my medical coverage if we just fell out completely and divorced; maybe opening all of these old boxes is just exhausting sometimes despite the experiences I had before opening the boxes being practically Black and White to what I experience now.
Whatever it is, life’s an adventure.
The more we develop, the more we realise that we are true individuals. As a society, we just have to go back to liking or at least tolerating people who are not exactly like us. As it was in the time before social media, a time when we weren't segmented into marketing categories.