Hey All! I have been working with my inner critic and my indoctrination in a culture that programs women and AFABs to believe that love is self-sacrifice. I had a furry friend make its way to my door, and as cute as she was, I knew that my home was not meant to be hers. The longer she was around, the more I was forced to grapple with the narratives that are normalized for us around care. I realized that for me, “the cat distribution system” was just another way of saying “the lord works in mysterious ways.” The latter is a phrase often evoked in the case of an unplanned pregnancy. And though a cat is not a baby, between the meowing and the furniture scratching, I felt like I was making an equally important decision. Did this cat showing up at my door mean that I was destined to give up peace and quiet and scratch-free furniture to fulfill some divine calling as a cat mom? Four days in, I realized that I wasn’t eating. Every time I went to the fridge, the cat would start meowing in the most awful pitch, insisting that I feed her more than her requisite two meals. The sound disturbed my nervous system so much that I had started avoiding the refrigerator, thus avoiding feeding myself as well as the demanding kitten. The night before she went off to her forever home, the cat managed to get herself trapped in the jungle outside my house. I spent the night in restless sleep, waiting for daylight so that I could rescue her from the trees without fear of being attacked by whatever wild animal had been tormenting her the night before. I awoke groggy and tired, and that is when the parallels became even clearer. I was dealing with profound feelings of shame, guilt, and inadequacy over a creature that came out of nowhere and blew up my day-to-day life. I may be non-binary and child-free by choice, but the patriarchy would like me to know that it lingers in me, ready to jump out from the shadows at a moment’s notice. When I returned from bringing the cat over to her new home, I cried. Both because I missed her, and because I was relieved that she was gone. Patriarchy will have us believing that these seemingly opposing emotions cannot coexist, but in the last three years of my life, I have found that longing and relief have the most complex and beautiful of relationships. As connections fade or end, as ruptures happen and repair is attempted, space must always be made for the sadness of losing access to love and care AND the relief of someone who is not capable of showing you the love that you deserve losing access to cause you pain and replay their trauma cycles in your connection. These may seem like contradictory feelings, but the reality of actualization is that it invites you into a depth that makes it abundantly clear that our emotional landscapes are much more like contracting and expanding webs than dichotomies or even linear spectrums. These days, if I’m not experiencing at least two emotions that seem to be opposite of one another, I have to wonder if I’m even alive.
Episode 2 of A Next Day is finally live. I’m grateful for your grace and patience. And I’m grateful for mine.
With love & grace,
Jota
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