Month: January 2019
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labor pains in the final throes of my rebirth
Hey bb,
After therapy, I’m starting to realize that this is the best combination of events that could have possibly happened.
It’s not a crisis as much as labor pains in the final throes of my rebirth.
It’s official. I’m a full-time cartographer at FEMA, which I think also means I’m due another $10,000 raise!
Thank you for your support through all of this. It’s a year-long contract with strong promise of further sustainability after.
We’re finally on solid ground, after so much struggle.
Couldn’t have done it without ya ❤️
TK
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Whiplash
After the FEMA interview, all day at the Esri Conference Booth, and helping Sophia network at the mixer — I’m having whiplash from so many tectonic shifts in such proximity.
I need some time to make sense of myself again!
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My emotional executive branch
The process trended toward the ability recognize an emotion in its essentialized form and quickly understanding who is the appropriate audience if and when I need to disclose it.
In the nation-state that is my chosen family, I have a presidential cabinet of people who I’ve personally designated in my mind to support specific anxieties and stressors that fall under different categories — career, political, etc.
KP is the Vice Prez, and he has authority over and say within each of the agencies of my emotional executive branch.
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The borders of a chosen family
I agree! The practice of public naming, too, is a principal definition for me in understanding queer family. A family should be a self-chosen social container and community that serves as one’s primary repository for vulnerability in a world where it is dangerous being vulnerable.
Routine conversation about anxieties develops a common language and understanding that allows people to bring daylight to each other’s problems. Once visible, once given air, usually those problems shrivel — maybe due to a strategizing conversation discussing how to over come the issue; maybe allowing someone to know their problem is commonplace.
A prolonged history of these conversations allows continued familiarity with other people’s greatest anxieties, meaning that as time goes on, there is less lead time required in getting people up to speed on any given situation.
Family as a support system judged on its utility and efficacy rather than a social hierarchy based on grudging obligation. The borders of a chosen family are the edges where personal truth is muted by demanded cultural falsehoods.
