A Mixed Bag

I'm trying hard to be open and honest about how I'm feeling. For so long I thought keeping things bottled up would make me seem more mysterious, that I'd have more layers if I silenced myself. I wanted my “true self” to be something others had to work to uncover (See also: Manic Pixie Dream Girl combined with reading too many John Green books). I'm slowly deciding that I think that's fucking dumb, and I'm trying to not do that. And maybe being "open and honest" is kind of negated by the fact that I'm doing this on the internet where everything is a curated image of itself, but I'm not sure how else to go about it on a grand scale. 

The best part about this blog for me has been the people who have reached out to me to talk about something I've written. I've had conversations I never would've imagined and been asked questions I've never thought of asking. In a world full of technology and fads and easily forgotten friendships, I feel more connected to the people around me than ever. And I'm still not sure if this blog feels too self-indulgent, but right now I think it feels ok. 

All this is to say that the next couple of paragraphs are unedited from a few nights ago when I was having a really bad time with things. I was going to edit it just in case I sounded like a whiny white kid, which I'm sure I do most of the time anyway, but I decided it's not as real if I do that. I don't want to play down the anxiety or panic or fear I was feeling, even if a lot of it comes from a place of privilege. 

At the end of this post, I ask for ideas. The thing is that I know what I need to do. I need to talk to my friends and my family and the people around me more. Suffering in silence doesn't add layers of "complexity" to my personality, it just makes me lonely and isolated. Which is exactly how I don't want to be. That being said, if anyone has any other ideas about something that could help, I would love to hear it.

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                Studying abroad got hard recently. I had a Big Grand Adventure during break, and I came back to a lot of essays I had to write without much promise of an escape. I’ve been in the library nearly nonstop. I went on a hike one weekend to try and get out of the town my university is cemented in, but the hike was more difficult than I bargained for, and sleeping outside resulted in my feet turning to icicles, and talking to people led me to feeling tokenized and othered and just tired. The weekend exhausted me more than if I had stayed and stared at the same row of old, red books for another 15 hours straight.

                So this past weekend I stayed home, and I tried to get work done but only ended up breaking my laptop charger and adding another stress on top of everything else. And this weekend I’m heading out for a day to get rowdy at a rugby game, but even discharging some energy by shouting at a bunch of strong dudes all piled on top of each other didn't do the trick.

In short: I broke today!

                Before leaving for New Zealand, I decided my goals were to be myself entirely and not apologize for it. I was going to stand firm in my identity, and only associate myself with those who accepted it. I wasn’t going to change myself or my beliefs for anyone. I refused to water myself down for the comfort of others. And for the most part, I’ve done that. I’ve spoken my mind as often as I could. I’ve told complete strangers my pronouns (they/them, btw). I’ve spoken up against prejudices I’ve seen from strangers, teachers, and friends. I’ve been pretty proud of myself, to be honest. I haven’t been compromising.

                But the thing is, it’s really, really hard to keep getting othered by those around you. As a non-binary person, as someone who “presents” like a woman, as an American, as someone with strong opinions- there’s somehow always something about me that’s “out there”. It’s been summed up best by a friend of mine from Indiana who told me that they don’t have “people like me” where they come from. I’m still not sure what that means. Nor am I sure where they got their data. Most of the time, I can expend endless energy defending others. Someone said something racist? I’m on it. Someone body shamed someone else? I got it. But when someone invalidates my own identity, it suddenly feels like a punch to the fucking stomach. Because it’s personal, and because it feels vulnerable to defend myself to someone I don’t necessarily trust or even know very well.

                I’ve had a lot of assignments due in the past five days, and I know I tend to get extra anxious during times of academic stress. But everything kind of culminated for me today for a very silly reason. Someone stole my shittake mushrooms from the fridge, used them, and put them back in a different fridge. Granted, this is a VERY small offense. If they just needed some mushrooms, whatever, I’m glad I could help feed you. Wish you had asked me first, but whatever, I get it! But for some reason, this got me today. I got pissed off. All of a sudden, every single injustice I’ve witnessed over the past three and a half months came flooding back, and I found myself fucking furious.

I went to my room and cried about it.

                I know that Goucher is a “liberal bubble” or whatever you want to call it. I know that I’m sheltered. I know I’m privileged in my everyday life, and incredibly so that I get to be here, in New Zealand. But today, I just want to go home. I’m sick of being tokenized as the only Jewish person in my Religion class. I’m sick of being interrupted by that same Religion professor as if he hadn’t JUST asked for my opinion. I’m sick of no one (except my few close friends) even pretending to try to use my pronouns. I miss not being the only non-binary person in the room (specifically, I miss not hearing “you’re the first person I’ve met who asks for they/them pronouns!” every week). I’m sick of people who are afraid to use the phrase “white supremacy”, even when it’s the only phrase that fits what they’re talking about. I miss not feeling like I have to be on guard in every social interaction. And yet missing all of that shows my privilege even more. I’ve gotten to experience a world without all of those things, when most people don’t have the option to fly back home to a nice bubble that accepts them for who they are.

                I don’t know what I want to happen from writing all of this. I know that I’m tired. I know that I feel like I need a break, to take a breath, to settle myself and my feelings down for even just a brief moment. I know that I miss the community I have back at home. I miss the resources I have that would usually help me through things like this. I miss my cats.

                Right now, I feel very disillusioned by the lack of social justice or accountability I’ve seen from other American’s studying abroad and from Kiwi’s themselves. I feel disheartened, I feel shattered, and I feel burnt out. I know I’m privileged to feel this way in the first place, but at the moment, that isn’t helping me to pick myself back up again. Realistically, I’m not sure if I can really have much of an impact on the people around me. I’m not sure that my speaking out does anything to shift their world view. I don’t know if my friend will ever open their eyes enough to meet someone “like me” in Indiana. I don’t know if my professor will ever shut up about how great Missionaries are enough to listen to someone else’s point of view. I don’t know if the bravery and strength my friends showed by standing up to a racist incident at the university will ever actually be addressed by the administration. I don’t know if any of this will pay off in a tangible way.  

                If anyone’s got any ideas, support, kind words, or good memes, I could use ‘em.

                Thanks for reading.