Elucidating Questions

Fibromyalgia has been the butt of the joke for years.

Oh but don’t worry because they weren’t making fun of me with fibromyalgia, no, it was other people

So it’s fine right?

Like some Mean Girls bullshit from grade 8

You turn to these girls who were your friends and say “But I have (insert thing they’re making fun of)”

Yeah, but you‘re different

And how that “different” sits with you like a heavy weight

What about me is different?

What about me makes me above the reproach you offer others for the same traits?

And why would you think I’m different?

Why am I not like anyone else with the same things

Freckles, no boobs, boobs, red hair, being LGBTQIA2S+, short, tall

Being disabled

Having things wrong with your body

They told me and told me those other people with fibromyalgia were different

They complained

They made it all about them

They were owned by their disease

Low and behold I spent years desperately trying not to become any of these things they insisted were wrong with any other person with fibromyalgia

Silencing my pain

Working beyond my ability

Hiding my true condition from people

Why would you want someone you love to be caught in the crossfire of your antics when there are perfectly good things wrong with people to have a problem with?

I wonder sometimes why it’s okay to make fun of something, as long as you don’t like someone, even if it’s something that is present in someone you don’t want to hurt

If you paint with a broad brush you’re going to have a wide brushstroke.

I think it’s wrong to make fun of things people can’t control.

I just got a spam email “a different approach to men’s performance”

And, obviously, it’s talking about the little man but

Isn’t that it?

“Men’s performance”

Like, a performance

And I know gender in and of itself is a performance

But men seem to live with expectations of peak performance all the time

No matter what it is in their “men requirements”

Sex, strength, protection, what have you

I just wonder if they get as exhausted by the theatre as I did

As exhausted by the expectations that never asked if you were able to give them in the first place

Different expectations

Same feeling of being trapped

And some men perform like their life depends on it

Ironically embodying a man’s man’s perfect vision which conflicts with anyone who doesn’t align with

Whatever it is they’re trying to accomplish by being the biggest, loudest, person in the room

It just seems like a terrible situation to be in

I hate when people demand qualities from me I don’t have

I hope their life doesn’t depend on it

But considering the animosity I get for doing harmless things that don’t confirm

The thing is it shouldn’t be this way

Gender feels so heavy and stupid

As soon as you have one you are expected to be a certain way

I feel like gender is like race

We constructed it, used it for oppression, and it really doesn’t serve a function in society

Do you need to know the sex characteristics of the person you’re speaking to?

Surely who they are as a person is more important unless you want to have sex with them?

And then if they have parts that you don’t like just move on or deal with it

The only thing stopping you from enjoying someone’s company is their consent or your own hang ups

I wish more people had relationships without sex involved

It’s such a chore for me

Gender is just a costume

You’re this, so this

And everyone thinks “you’re male because you have a penis”

“and because you have a penis you have to act like x y z”

Where the hell did the second part come from and why didn’t we reevaluate when we realised that chromosomes and sex characteristics aren’t that cut and dry

We are all slaves to our individual internal and external chemicals

Our internal and external experiences

We may be similar in shape but we are so individual on the inside we put snowflakes to shame

No amount of people are the same due to an organ

We all have hearts and yet the similarities and differences between each person’s heart both physical and being wise

They could create a Universe of their own

I don’t think people are so simple that something like a penis or a vagina could be all there is about them

I don’t believe having one or the other makes you anything

I don’t think having a Biology’s Creativity Moment makes you anything either

They’re just our shape

They may add to our chemistry

Or not, as the case may be

But to think any one chemical in your body takes precedence over the whole

That would be an imbalance

We aren’t meant to be controlled by one single substance in our bodies

It’s a carefully fine tuned system, of stuff

So much put on to a part of us that is just tiny

Merely a piece

When it’s the individual we should look at

And expectations just lead to disappointment

It’s funny

I remember him saying so clearly

One day you will fear me

And I told him that wouldn’t happen

Like a child

But it did

And it’s with a twist of regret

Because I felt such love there

And still do

I no longer feel jealousy when others face him

Even though I find myself disappearing into the night during the day

A remembered tone

A remembered moment

Twisted

It is twisted

I don’t know what caused it

I feel at home there

But I am so afraid of the process

So afraid of what my body can create to get there

I long to tell him it’s not him I’m afraid of but he is that so it’s not a thing you can separate

But I don’t feel resentment when the clock strikes the moment

Quiet love

Something I dare not call longing

Only to make me feel the more guilty I’m sure

These wiser than I’ll ever be

Older

Perhaps more tired

Faith is a strange creature

That it can come from nothing

I want to say thank you

For not laughing when I told you it would never happen

There are so many missteps that come with being alive

And I dwell on them

And I could be brave and go back and accept that I’ve done them

But the reactions of others scare me into inaction

How do I lead with compassion when this world terrifies me so much?

Constantly fighting because it affects somebody else

Maybe I should fight for me

It’s really ironic but so much of my anger probably comes from just how angry I am at myself

I’m not what I wanted

Not even close

When I was a teen, haphazardly wishing to be able to play video games all day

I obviously didn’t imagine what that entailed

Now it’s not that I’m able to play video games all day

But I can’t do anything else because I’m exhausted and in pain

I didn’t imagine this future when I imagined no future

And I know that if anyone had warned me that this was my future I would not be here

But now I’m here and my life has made me terrified of what dying is

I’ll cling to living as long as I can

Because the alternative is an unknown I am not willing to face

But I’m angry that I’m here

That this is my lot in life

That it won’t get better and that no one cares

I think it translates into anger at others

I should figure out how to quell this anger

It runs in my family

But it doesn’t belong in me

I don’t want to hurt people because I am hurting

How do I show compassion for a body that failed me?

Compassion for a person that has been called every terrible thing under the Sun?

But I want to show compassion before my gripes with this place

These people

It’s wrong to say something that would shape victims as at fault

It’s wrong to dismiss lives being lost

How to suspend my disappointment in the bulk of humanity so I can show compassion to the individuals

It’s something I’ll have to grapple with

I need to learn to lead with compassion.

Which is hard because this world is anything but compassionate towards me

But I have to

I need to stop leading with my pain

I need to stop that little voice in my head that thinks people should just suffer

It’s not right to think that way

They’re all just living

I can’t be corrupted by the fact that they don’t care

How can I summon it

I want to be a wellspring of love and compassion

I can’t lead with this cynical heart to do so

I don’t want to harm anyone

But I do because I’m hurting

And I know hurt people hurt people

But that’s not an excuse, it’s a reason

And I should do my best to combat it

Even if for my own sake of peace

I brood when I do something wrong

When I realise I’ve hurt someone

But that doesn’t fix it

Doesn’t prevent it from happening again

Gods give me strength to overcome my ineffectual brooding and actually solve the problem

I don’t want to be an angry person

I don’t want to interact with the world as an angry person

I wish I knew where to find it within myself

There are moments I have it and moments I don’t

It shouldn’t be so easy to dismiss people

I want to be able to know all the facts, know what caused what

And still see the aftermath as a tragedy

They whisper self compassion

How I want to call that a load of shit

But I’ve tried everything else

I don’t want to accept things like this

Nor have reasons shaped like blame

I don’t want to be what this world is turning me into

But I get so tired of being compassionate

And that’s wrong

It has to be for all

Darn obstacles

If I could erase the hurt inside me

I wish I would stop lashing out in ways tha

Humanity is so backwards

Going to space?

Sure they’ll try that

Hurtling themselves over terrain in metal boxes powered by fancy explosions?

Sure, why not?

Fly?

Yeah!

Feed the hungry and house the homeless

No

That’s too hard

We can create a machine that can spit out any knowledge it takes in

We can defeat plague and weather

Wage wars of billions of dollars and millions of people

We can build railroads and roads through mountains

Cities

But we can’t house people or feed them

Human beings are so creative they can create an uncanny likeness of a person in pencil

Paint colours that actually look like a place or creature

They invented medicine

But then couldn’t figure out how to get that medicine to all the people that need it

For what fucking reason did you create a cure and then sit atop it like a smarmy Fae and say

Just sign on the dotted line

So creative

So inventive

But can’t figure out how to take care of each other?

Can’t figure out that a hungry stomach creates a desperate monster?

Can’t figure out that sitting out in the rain overnight surrounded by shelter creates an anger you cannot speak?

Can’t figure out the difference between a hungry person who turns to drugs to just make the pain go away

And a billionaire who decided to give himself a raise with his peons’ labour

Even thinks the billionaire is more deserving than the hungry person

They did drugs, you know, and for some reason, without it ever appearing in scripture, because humans like their drugs,

It is morally reprehensible to do them and the punishment can include death, we’re fine with that

But not alcohol, or caffeine, and sometimes marijuana but sometimes not

Because “the law” “is just” right?

I have trouble seeing people who don’t see people as human

I struggle sometimes with thinking everyone should just suffer

But if a person says they are suffering I cannot ignore it

Not like these people around me

It is a failure of humanity that we went to the Moon before every belly was filled, body housed

We defiled her surface with our greed

Our mere presence

To think we were worthy of space flight while people went hungry

That we deserve to see other worlds when we cannot even love our own