Mid-Summer Update
My therapist is unmatched.
School/Career Updates
Not much to say on this front! I know what courses I need to take in the fall, and I’m working toward that. As an MA student, I have no guaranteed funding, so I’ve been reaching out to various departments on campus for work. Waiting to hear back on some of those. If nothing works out, I’ll end up taking more student loans, which isn’t ideal, but I already have $300k, so what’s a few more? (hahahaha capitalism is killing me)
At this moment in time, I’m mostly working on the summer course I’m teaching: “Fan Communities and Internet Culture.” It’s a 7-week asynchronous course focusing on how people interact with each other on the internet (here’s the syllabus). My goals for the students are for them to interrogate their own activity on the internet and to expand their understanding of other people on the internet. I’m so happy and so lucky to have been able to interview online friends like The Judgies and Stumptgamers. I think it’s gonna be a really cool course, and I’ll update you on how it goes in August.
For the most part, that’s what’s been taking up my time.
Life Updates
Aside from that, I’ve been attending therapy every week like I said before. This week, I was asked to categorize the importance of various “virtues” in my life:
From there, I had to continuously narrow down my most important values until I arrived at these:
When it really gets down to it, it isn’t hard to show that these virtues/values are most important to me. You can look at the bigger spread and see how some values might shift, but these three are hardcore and rigid.
So what’s the problem then?
Well… one of the things I’ve been talking about with my therapist, one of the things I’ve realized is a struggle, one of the things I’m VERY bad at admitting is that I have horrendous barriers to intimacy. I talked about that in the last substack, at least slantwise, but I didn’t really explore it. My one task today is to take a risk by being vulnerable in a way that admits the faults of my constructs of friendship. That’s a bit complicated, so let me backtrack:
Look at my “virtues” above. They are overwhelmingly service oriented. I want to help people, but I refuse to be helped.
They are also self-assured. They are about self-definition, autonomy, and independence. They refuse the other. They are cynical.
There are very few people I “believe” can have this kind of convo with (my mom, hannah, sarah, ryan…), and as much I love, value, desire the rest of my friends… I don’t let them into these “weak” conversations. I don’t allow most people to know I’m struggling.
It’s difficult to admit that. I marked so many “honest” virtues as important because they ARE important to me in things like my writing/poetry. I am RADICALLY honest in my poems and I constantly harped on about that when I was teaching. But being honest in facts, in basic feelings, in circumstances, does not necessarily convey the truth beneath that: the truth that fact can be used as a shield to introspection or self-implication. I even named “self-implication” as a focus in my MFA thesis, and yet, I think I used traumatic facts as a smoke shield to avoid REAL implication.
I am trying to be honest right now and it’s difficult. Last week I spent a LOT of time lamenting the fact that I didn’t have an older male figure in my life that loved or nurtured me. I had uncles, but they were too far away. I tried DESPERATELY to make Andrew and Ryan (not nebraska-ryan) into my brothers, but they were too late—they couldn’t suddenly come in and fill this horrible void. I was/am alone. Florida was hell and I did everything I could to run away.
At the end of the day, I constantly, daily, confront the abuse I went through during my life. Because of that, I desire a rescuer, a knight in shining armor. I want a brother, a boyfriend, a saint. But you can’t erase history. Part of the reason why I describe myself as “undateable” is that I have so much fucking baggage. I’m too complicated. I have a low libido. I don’t want to merge bank accounts and bedrooms. I’m tired. I’m so so tired. Please, just let me rest.
So I push every scrap of energy into friendship. Friendship and Family simplifies life because I don’t have the same desires. I don’t need the same things. I can be service-oriented. I can ignore myself because abnegation is virtuous when it come to loving family. All I desire in any interaction with a friend is their joy. I get joy from THEIR joy. I strive toward service, toward the others’ ultimate pleasure. I am fulfilled by their satisfaction.
What does that mean?
That I deprive myself of the opportunity to receive help. I refuse to tell people I’m struggling (I’m struggling). I deprive others of the same urge to be the helpful friend that I envision myself as.
That I only allow service to be the conduit through which I connect with others. I have inherited a different kind of toxic transactional relationship I criticize half of my family for.
That I can’t even have these conversations 1:1. I have to put it in a substack because of my fears. I am so bold with my vulnerability in a poem, but if you ask it of me in life, I’ll run. I’m a coward.
I don’t really know what to do. I reject help so my task is to accept help, but how am I to ask? I hate it; I can do better. If you offer, I’ll lie to assuage you. How do you melt steel walls?
A Few Joys
I can’t leave you on these morose, maudlin notes, so here are some things which give me joy:
Food Plans with Ryan and Hannah. Expect some wild food pics on insta
Kinda looking forward to power-washing mom’s house?
Jana has challenged me to the use of jimbu for a meal on july 20th. I’ve challenged her to eating durian ice cream in turn. I will win easily.
I genuinely am excited for my internet cultures class. As long as the kids are into it, it’ll be fabulous.
Beloveds,
I suppose that’s all. Stay well. Be more honest with yourselves,
—Teo