two thoughts in my head right now:

  1. i am struck, repeatedly and violently, by the observation that most american parents fail in the basic test: you should show more care than derision for your children

  2. people sure do give me a hard time for not meeting their expectations, when it’s pretty painfully obvious that whatever it is i am requires a great deal of care in handling. and that i maintained a surprising amount of my good nature into my 30s, despite having been repeatedly mishandled, and then blamed for being fragile

anyway, we’re going on 6 years since my mother revealed the depths of her nastiness, and broke my heart clean open with the revelation that the sweet person who read to me every night (and hit me somewhat less frequently than that) had been fully subsumed by trumpist propaganda. there’s a big hole in my heart where the love for my parents used to live. luckily for me, the roaring wind of affection decompression as my love poured out into the void has now more or less reduced to a trickling whisper.

doesn’t stop me from dreaming about them sometimes, and quite a few times this week. but in my dreams, they are always haranguing me.

and i think it might have permanently damaged my ability to feel love deeply and truly, but who knows which indignity is really responsible for that

anyway, i just think that if you want your kids to put up with you into old age, you should try your best to be tolerable, to not insult them and their life circumstances constantly, to avoid using homophobic and ablist slurs on your sensitive children in order to scare them into conformity, and so on. just don’t be a fucken asshole. happy mother’s day to those rare few who somehow manage not to abuse the role

also fuck the supreme court and all instruments of bodily oppression. a lot fewer people should have to be parents, and that should be the easier of the options!