Something I’m exhausted of lately:
The kind of drama that comes from people who want more from you than they’re willing to give.
Sometimes that drama comes in very polite packages, and it’s only when you step back can you assess what’s not being done or said and strip the message down to its core content,
“But me.”
Sorry for vaguebooking, but this has come to me from multiple fronts over the last few days, and I had to hit the pressure release valve a couple of times (or the button under the counter that the bank tellers press when someone starts doing something suspicious?). But really what gets me is how much of this type of behavior I’ve had to purge from my daily life over the last year. It started out with bullying, openly troll-like behavior, bullshit “logic” presented just to spin up my wheels, controlling behavior, behavior designed to hurt my self-confidence (especially from freelancing clients), sexist bullshit, racist bullshit, and so on. And now I’m down to, “You don’t get to use me for your agenda, especially not to prove you’re a ‘good’ person.”
A long road? One I should have set out upon years ago?
The cool thing is what it leaves behind. I feel a lot more free to like people, because I know I can boot out the ones who aren’t here for friendship and company and good cheer all the more easily. Even if I still like them. Because they’re not good for me.
And it’s far, far easier to get over stupid things. “You’re a good person but you put your foot in it.” “Ayup.” “Moving on.” I’ve been on both sides of that lately. It’s nice.
I still spend some quality time every morning flipping off the news. That hasn’t changed. And I’m still pretty vinegary. But I don’t feel like I have continuously flinch away from the world, either.
Although honestly it’s probably more like signing up for online newsletters than anything else, where you have to go through an unsubscribe for all the crap you signed up for, yet again, about once every six months.
…
New stuff out!
- Very Mysterious Christmas Bundle: Available for preorder, on sale for 99c. My story “Old Friends, Annoying Houseguests, and Christmas Ghosts” is featured: a mystery/ghost story told by a not-entirely-trustworthy old friend.
- UbiquiCity: Tales of the Fractopian Future: I keep calling it UbiCity, after UbiSoft, but noooooo…anyway, cyberpunk a hundred years in the shared-world future. Featuring “To Summon Mountains,” in which a monster meets her only living kin.
- Stars in the Darkness: Stories of Wisdom, Justice, and Love: an anthology of SJW-appreciation stories, profits going to the SPLC and the Human Rights Campaign. I’m in with “The Page-Turners,” an alternate-realities metafiction story that made me cry to write.
A busy Friday 🙂