Entry tags:
this is progress, right?
1. we all want what we didn't have as children: I spent some time thinking about this aphorism (did ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cesperanza invent it or was it a thing before her?), and what I didn't have, and what I want as an adult. The words that kept drifting up were unhappy and lonely; apparently I just — "just" — want to feel safe and loved. Which is uselessly vague, frankly. (Fine has variable definitions.) WHY ARE WORDS FOR EMOTIONS SO UNHELPFUL.
2. in probably-related news, I have realized I don't even know what I've stopped myself from doing or thinking or risking because I'm afraid of my mother being disappointed in me and/or criticizing me. It's a fear that's so engrained in me I don't know where the fear starts and the rest of me begins. I don't know which of the voice(s) in my head are echoes of the real her and which are the ones my fear has made me project and which are actually me.
So. I continue to have feelings! I continue to mostly-not-understand my feelings! I continue to not die from having feelings! I am calling this progress.
Edited like five minutes later to add, because I forgot to type this up before: among the things that sparked these thoughts is the realization that I have two directly opposed desires around my new apartment: I am hurt that my mother has shown no discernible interest in coming to see it and I want it to stay a safe comfortable space that I don't have to make perfect by her standards. See also: the tangle of yuck that is my mother's apparently-better relationship with my sister and my feelings about seeing that from a distance and oh look, that entry is super-relevant because it talks about feeling lonely and unloved, unlovable, and ALSO suddenly I am damp-eyed and I don't really know why because I am NOT GOOD AT FEELINGS. Sigh.
cesperanza invent it or was it a thing before her?), and what I didn't have, and what I want as an adult. The words that kept drifting up were unhappy and lonely; apparently I just — "just" — want to feel safe and loved. Which is uselessly vague, frankly. (Fine has variable definitions.) WHY ARE WORDS FOR EMOTIONS SO UNHELPFUL.2. in probably-related news, I have realized I don't even know what I've stopped myself from doing or thinking or risking because I'm afraid of my mother being disappointed in me and/or criticizing me. It's a fear that's so engrained in me I don't know where the fear starts and the rest of me begins. I don't know which of the voice(s) in my head are echoes of the real her and which are the ones my fear has made me project and which are actually me.
So. I continue to have feelings! I continue to mostly-not-understand my feelings! I continue to not die from having feelings! I am calling this progress.
Edited like five minutes later to add, because I forgot to type this up before: among the things that sparked these thoughts is the realization that I have two directly opposed desires around my new apartment: I am hurt that my mother has shown no discernible interest in coming to see it and I want it to stay a safe comfortable space that I don't have to make perfect by her standards. See also: the tangle of yuck that is my mother's apparently-better relationship with my sister and my feelings about seeing that from a distance and oh look, that entry is super-relevant because it talks about feeling lonely and unloved, unlovable, and ALSO suddenly I am damp-eyed and I don't really know why because I am NOT GOOD AT FEELINGS. Sigh.