Big Feels on being Yelled at by Men, and Other New Things in a Huge City

9.9

Listen to Big Feels on Spotify, pals.

As it has for the last year, it continues to feel strange and dystopian to post anything while genocide is unfolding in our world, on our newsfeeds. My therapist says to try to keep things in separate boxes, but it does all still feel mixed up into one big box, doesn’t it? So, to make it clear, always, #FreePalestine. I am grateful to be free to live a little life, but none of us are really free until we are all free. My heart is with each of you as we navigate this horrific time. </3

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Big Feels on Small Revelations in a Huge City:

Small:

1. One day a week there will always be too many people in the street(!), in the park(!), on the bus(!). One day a week there will be too much shit(!) in the street(!). 

2. If you walk long enough in any direction: new city, new people. 

3. Everyone I meet will give their life for me in person. No one will ever text me back. 

4. Go to karaoke, especially if it is a lesbian bar and you are a lesbian. Say yes to singing a duet with a stranger; why not, you are fun and this is meant to be fun.

5. A martini is $20. It is worth it, on occasion. You will be beautiful, and you will be free.

What I wore to have my first ($20!!) martini, haha. The shirt was from a neighbour’s garage sale. :)

Medium:

6. I went for a walk in High Park. I was angry and sweaty. I passed a woman, four feet tall, black tank top, light blue jeans, long hair down. I am 5’11”. I was also wearing a black tank top, light blue jeans, long hair down; her towering doppelgänger. After she passed, I said out loud to myself, to the trees, “Oh, I’m huuuge.” Ukrainian nesting dolls stumbling upon each other in the wild. The next evening while washing my face side by side with my old friend, my new (temporary) roommate, M, she says, “Do you ever have those moments where you realize how big of a human you are?” We are tall together, thank god. I say, “Literally yesterday at the park!!”

7. I have been yelled at by two (!) strange men on two separate days: once because I interrupted him yelling at someone else, once because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Both times I took small satisfaction in the fact that they couldn’t quite get their personalized insults rolling off the tongue for me. One called me “glasses,” aside from “bitch,” of course. The other called me “butterfly,” aside from “bitch,” of course. It’s true: I do wear glasses. It’s true: I do have a butterfly tattoo. I don’t know, them fighting for their life trying to find something to call me makes me giggle. The bitch is unclockable: sue me. 

Huge:

8.

I had the distinct realization the other day that I never wanted this life. It’s hard to fight for something that you don’t want. I only wanted to be close to my family. I did everything I could to be close. I am not close. I only wanted to be married to the person I said I do to. I did everything to stay married. I am not married. People are very kind and call me brave. I wonder if you can be brave if you did not fight for it. I haven’t wanted any of this. A confusion of a life. I am here. How and why. People ask how I did it. I don’t know. One day I did it. The day before I couldn’t. I do not feel brave as much as I feel inevitable. 

My sister sent me a podcast episode with Andrew Garfield, the actor. She sent it with no additional comment, a classic/cryptic move by my busy and brilliant sister. It was fun to listen to it and to try to find the parts that made her decide to send it to me. Garfield is tender and quotes someone else, asking, “How do we surrender to our fate so we can live into our destiny?”

I am sometimes so mad at myself for not walking a straight line. I put together my LinkedIn profile page and in one moment I am proud of everything I have managed to cram into the last ten years; the next moment I am cursing myself and the stars for having such a chaotic transcript of time passed. I look at other people’s profiles and the path seems logical, sequential. 

I am trying to entertain the idea of surrendering to my fate. I wonder what it will look like to live into my destiny. I could not have arrived at this moment faster. I could not have arrived any slower. 

I am still waiting to see if this huge city will hold me. I have my emergency exit queu’d up, but so far, every time I tap into what I can only understand as my own deep knowing, it says, “Hang on, calm the fuck down, distract yourself with a little project if you must. The inevitable is coming. It will be good.”

Talk soon,

Natahna

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The Recommends: The Modern Love podcast episode, “Andrew Garfield Wants to Crack Open Your Heart.”