To me, this is all about your resiliency. I do not understand it as a tale of failure in the least. Life in our post-capitalist, MAGA hellscape is hard as fuck. I see you navigating those waters and staying afloat. You are NOT a failure. You are a survivor.
Flailing ... failure ... or just a really long process that was necessary for getting it done? I get it, though. Anytime I'm tasked with cleaning things out from my past, I struggle, usually from crushing nostalgia or regret.
I think the Millennials and Zoomers (or whoever they are) have it right—they don't wrap their self-worth up in how well they do with externalities. Not jobs, not money ... they want those things, but they don't personalize them. They've known from Day 1 the game is rigged. (Evidence, very anecdotal, my three sons.) Yet folks our age are stuck thinking we're failing. We treat externalities like they're gold stars on a report card. As Rebecca says, we are not failing. Failing doesn't exist unless you volunteer to take a test. And unless the test is fair. We didn't. It isn't. You are not failing.
Have you ever read Barbara Pym? I think you could write the Excellent Women of our generation. SOOO many underemployed ladies our age, soooo many beyond-fed-up mothers, so many of us living at home, or our grown kids with us, or both! All the cramped lives, the narrowing, the detritus.
This is wonderfully done, by the way. Layered, and reading it's like an excavation.
To me, this is all about your resiliency. I do not understand it as a tale of failure in the least. Life in our post-capitalist, MAGA hellscape is hard as fuck. I see you navigating those waters and staying afloat. You are NOT a failure. You are a survivor.
Thank you so much!
You are so brave and so accomplished and write so well. Not everyone could do what you are doing.
Oh my gosh, thank you so much!!!
Beautiful work.
Thank you!
Flailing ... failure ... or just a really long process that was necessary for getting it done? I get it, though. Anytime I'm tasked with cleaning things out from my past, I struggle, usually from crushing nostalgia or regret.
Post-capitalist hellhole indeed.
I think the Millennials and Zoomers (or whoever they are) have it right—they don't wrap their self-worth up in how well they do with externalities. Not jobs, not money ... they want those things, but they don't personalize them. They've known from Day 1 the game is rigged. (Evidence, very anecdotal, my three sons.) Yet folks our age are stuck thinking we're failing. We treat externalities like they're gold stars on a report card. As Rebecca says, we are not failing. Failing doesn't exist unless you volunteer to take a test. And unless the test is fair. We didn't. It isn't. You are not failing.
Have you ever read Barbara Pym? I think you could write the Excellent Women of our generation. SOOO many underemployed ladies our age, soooo many beyond-fed-up mothers, so many of us living at home, or our grown kids with us, or both! All the cramped lives, the narrowing, the detritus.
This is wonderfully done, by the way. Layered, and reading it's like an excavation.
Thank you!
HELL YEAH. Look what you can do!!! Strong as hell. 💗
<3