volatile.

another ill advised confessional

♤

a cop came to my door this morning and served me with a summons for December 17th.

I didn't register Willow which apparently is a thing, and the notices they sent either didnt make it to my mailbox or my memory, so now there's a court date.

thankfully the cop was nice enough, not his usual beat, helping his buddy catch up with paperwork, and his hazel eyes were pretty to look at once he realized I wasn't going to make his life harder therefore making him put his big cop pants on.

I came inside to breathe and regulate, I fucking despise dealing with police and always have no matter how kind or pretty they are, but this isn't world ending, it's just another hit, I opened my email to check a project thread and I see a headline from the Substack Post.

"I've never been anyone's muse"

I knew better, I screamed at myself not to, but I opened it anyway, read the first pull, the world around me shattered and im still picking up the pieces.

"someone who loves me enough to keep looking"

I wonder if that man knows how lucky he is.

♤

VOLATILE.

I have been called volatile.

by more than one person.

what does that word even mean?

has my tone on Substack been that off key?

it's entirely possible.

but this is an internet front.

it was never meant to be taken all that seriously. how could it?

I am very much dying the long way around, why would I force people to take that on without keeping the brutality at arm's length?

all of this is me, but it isn't all of me.

"entropic absurdity" was chosen with the utmost intent.

the Ducks are not an accident. they're a construct to explain the way I think.

Duck 1 is the person I choose to be in my day to day life, although my reactivity has made it much harder. It's why you hear from her the least, she's always in the spotlight. Radical kindness, altruism to an actual an absolute fault, ego so absent I actively hurt people by minimizing my place in their worlUd because I struggle to regard myself as someone with value if I'm not actively participating in an act of service, and I still don't know how to fix it.

Duck 2 is who I should try harder to be. It's the part of me who knows she needs to put herself first if she's going to balance Duck 1, a completely foreign concept to the first twenty years of my existence. I wasn't permitted to put myself first, I was told to be patient and wait for things to get better so early for so long it's become the defining characteristic of my pathology. But I'm also very good at being patient. Until I'm not.

Duck 3 is not very patient. This is where I hide my spine, my wild theories about the world, the trial by fire confidence in my strengths that allows Duck 2 the opportunity to exist at all. It's the part of me that gets world weary the quickest, which is why I called her the Duck who does what's right despite everyone, because sometimes people are idiots..

..especially Duck 4, who speaks for himself. most of his takes are terrible, I don't truly believe in the truth of them but I often believe in the way they make people think about the world, because altruism is boring and people ignore it unless they're benefiting from it, that's just basic human nature. Duck 4 refuses to allow hypocrisy and thoughtlessness to go unchecked and he'll throw everyone under the bus to set the world straight. He gets almost no play in the real world, he is my internal reactivity that I've built Ducks 1-3 to manage. He is 100% performative and I feel like that's obvious but maybe it wasn't so now we have to ruin his fun and put it in writing.

For the record Duck 4 is not meant to be trans coded or gender fluid, he would just rather be mistaken for an asshole than a Karen (please refer back to the terrible take point).

Duck 5 is who she is and I don't think she would appreciate being misrepresented so I won't bother, pretty clear she's my madness. but the Neo-Kardashianism bit was born from my short lived stint pseudo-harassing Neo-Passeism, who were absolute gents about playing along. I don't actually know much about the Kardashians except something about OJ Simpson and the Armenian genocide, insert Oxford comma at your leisure.

so that's the big secret behind my "volatility". i allow the loud parts of myself that I usually keep quiet a stage because that's what amuses people the most. Ducks 1 and 2 swoop in at the end of heavy essays to make sure folks know I'm going to be okay but I am so tired of lying because I don't know that, I don't know it at all, which is why I've allowed a few minor rants of vulnerability to leak through because the news I have to drop is really fucking bleak and I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO DO IT.

I do not know how to tell people so new to my life that the world we built might not have any options left for me simply because the reality is too complicated.

I hate being a source of agony.

Trust that the choice to post those notes was calculated, not volatile.

I had to warn the people who care that these next few updates are going to be pretty bleak and that was the only way that felt safe.

Yes, even the notes I posted and deleted and apologized for.

I meant them, I did regret posting them, and I felt sorry I did, and I knew all those things would happen before I hit post.

It still felt like the only way to segue into the darker parts of these crises.

The only unchecked volatility I've allowed was privately with one individual I trusted.

The only unchecked volatility that's gotten past these 40 year old firewalls this year has been in the aftermath of what I'm disclosing here.

I have a record of all of it, because none of it was that volatile in context, and I won't be led to believe otherwise.

There is much I haven't spoken of at any length.

Realities that are far, far more volatile.

The people who turned their back on me in the throws of madness because I couldn't live up to their expectations.

The lover who left me behind when I found out I was dying but didn't have the courage to tell me despite being one of my best friends, leaving me struggling to accept the inevitable alone for the first six months of my brutal new reality.

The daughter I'm trying so desperately to put an a strong facade for so she moves out before she starts feeling beholden to her sick mother and disabled brother, she's going to her first protest alone today and I'm so goddamn proud and so fucking terrified.

My little guy, who I can't not talk about, but the worst fears I keep locked away because they're too real and too tragic and I won't let my son be written into a tragedy like I have, he has joy and curiosity and passion and creativity and I will bury myself with a shovel in each hand before I allow the world to compromise him anymore than it already has.

My future.

god.

the future I have to build from scratch while worrying whether or not talking to an audience about my life isn't just alienating people further and making everything harder.

a future i literally do not know how i am going to survive while desperately trying to be a good mom to a boy with no place in the world.

A future I realized the other day I've been quiet quitting since June because I no longer recognize my life and I don't want the one I have now. I haven't been eating, my drugs run out for days, the only obligations I've been meeting are my son's. All the security I built to leave my old life behind has crumbled in the wake of this new reality. I haven't moved but my life looks nothing like it did two years ago and there's too much to grieve on my own, I don't know how to process what I've become, I want to be Ducks and absurdity and reach for joy and pretend that everything is the way it was the day he told me he loved me because that more than anything is bringing me to my knees.

I didn't need to be reminded of what I'd be missing for the rest of my life. I don't want to remember what it was like to feel wanted, I spent the last five years of my loveless marriage insulating myself with the love of my family and friends and i was fine with living that way, it gave me the strength to leave. now that armor is gone and I want it back but there is absolutely no way to reclaim it.

I do not talk about these things because I am trying to keep myself whole while falling apart in every way.

I do not talk about these things because I am tired of being a tragedy.

Last night I felt humiliated.

I want to disappear.

I want to forget I made the choice to have a presence on Substack and leave the internet and keep quiet quitting what's left of my life.

But I swore I wouldn't.

I promised I would stay.

So I'm stepping away from the internet in general to figure out what staying means.

Unplugging as much as possible.

If you have my phone number you are welcome to use it at any time, I am not turning away people, I'm taking a break from the audience so I can recalibrate without the noise.

In the end I have to choose to believe my voice matters.

Too many people are dying alone in the dark because we aren't strong enough to face them.

If I can shine a light while keeping myself afloat I will.

for as long as I'm able.

leave your light on.

♤