Fresh Blog Post with Some Great Life Things

I grew up in a household with constant conflict. My mother yelled at everyone for the smallest infringements, ranging from my brother for looking at her the “wrong” way to me for walking with too much bounce in my step to my father for wearing a t-shirt outside instead of covering his psoriasis-affected skin. I remember sitting in the basement listening to every creak of the floorboards upstairs, to see if I could sneak into the kitchen to get some orange juice to drink without having to see her and risk her wrath.

Now, I live in an apartment on the basement level where no one screams at me. My life feels conflict free. Though I do love me some drama and gossip, I wanted to write a blog post to celebrate this quiet period of contentment in my twenties, because as writers we tend to gravitate toward the bad stuff, the pain and the conflict and all of that. I want to capture this time of great self-love and love of friends and love of community, so I and others can look back on it when I write blog posts about my future crushes inevitably disappointing me  I grow older.

I saw this tweet on my timeline the other day and I thought, like, relatable. Except I am a therapist, and I’m working toward the idea of going toward what gives me pleasure (e.g., stability in the face of a white supremacist patriarchal society).

I feel like writing a list exudes an air of not caring enough to invest the energy into not writing a list and writing in paragraphs instead. But, I subjected myself to a Hemingway seminar in undergrad so now I get to do whatever I want after surviving that misogynist homophobic dumpster fire’s writing. So now, a list of some great life things in this period of stability, contentment, and happiness:

1. Lizzo’s iconic song “Truth Hurts” for inspiring us all to love ourselves and not waste time on men who do not deserve us! I modified the lyric “fresh photos with the bomb lighting” from the song to make the title of this blog post, because I wanted to have some of Lizzo’s internal and external beauty rub off on me. My little cousin said the first time she heard the song and every time she listens to it she thinks of me, which is basically like saying she thinks of me whenever God comes up.

2. My best friend Bri is in town and is blessing me with her presence twice! I went to her family barbecue yesterday where the two of us literally talked for five hours straight about everything personal and societal, and tomorrow we’re getting dinner and ice cream with my newer close friend in the DC area. I don’t think the three of us necessarily agreed to the ice cream part but I’m obsessed with Jeni’s ice cream so that’s that. Whoever Jeni is, she could step on my face, especially if I get a scoop of Brown Butter Almond Brittle afterward.

3. Ugh okay I hate to give space to men on this blog but I just played three hours of tennis and two hours of those hours I played with the cutest guy and I’m still swooning. His name rhymes with “molten,” he’s tall with a lanky yet firm build. He has a super gentle tennis demeanor which I’ve noticed I find attractive in tennis players because toxic masculinity is so 10,000 BC. His first serve comes into the court like a rocket and I’m just like, could you serve your “tennis ball” into my “court”? At one point I volleyed a winner into the far left corner of the baseline and he said “nice placement Thomas” and I was like, can you “place” your “mouth” on “mine” (the quotations are unnecessary in this second debauched thought, idk, emphasis makes things smolder I guess)? I friended him on Facebook ten minutes ago and he has a girlfriend and I think he’s 20 years older than me, so, man whose name rhymes with “molten,” please forgive me if you find this blog post somehow, you have an amazing personality and I definitely will respect all the  boundaries you enact if we play tennis together in the future and I’m also not always this weird, even though I am.

A post tennis selfie from about an hour ago! Gotta capture this authentic,  sweaty, unshaven lived experience. I’m holding juice in my hand.

4. Juice, because a lot of juice is fruity and sweet and tastes good, like me. Also Lizzo has a song called “Juice” which is a bop.

I open the carton of juice, I pour some into my cup, I take a sip, I look down, and the juice hasn’t abandoned me, so unlike the men in my l- oh wait, I already shared this joke/raw truth of my lived experience in my 2019 birthday post. Anyway.

5. I do feel connected to the tennis community where I live, where most people know my name and my red hair, and I also feel connected to my close friends, my social justice-oriented book clubs, and my online communities! We have to stan meaningful connections to others outside of romantic contexts in this patriarchal romance-obsessed society! Why are there so many exclamation marks in this blog post, I’m literally on the edge of passing out and falling asleep as I write this in my apartment!

6. Speaking of attractive men even though I wasn’t speaking of attractive men, I haven’t had any new active romantic possibilities over the past couple of months, but I have read a bunch of iconic queer books. We all know books are more fulfilling and stabilizing than dating men; I’m sure there’s a peer-reviewed study that proves that somewhere. Two books that stand out so far include Mean by Myriam Gurba and Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala, both by people of color, because I’ve had enough of white cisgender gay men dominating the queer community and perpetuating racism. I’m going to read Ocean Vuong’s new novel soon soon even though I’m apprehensive because he’s also a queer Vietnamese man and I know like 1.5 queer Vietnamese writers so it sucks to put all this pressure on his work, and it’s like, wow, white people are so lucky that there are one billion white published writers out there so not every single white person’s books is reflective of the quality of every white person’s book. Whew that was a long sentence. The main point is that the publishing industry is racist.

7. I feel excited to start providing therapy again in mid to late-August or early September because I miss that space of vulnerability, compassion, and connectedness.

8. As I wrap up this blog post and the time approaches midnight, I feel grateful for my grandmother who taught me how to embody kindness, my feminist inspirations for helping me see the value of my femininity and fighting the patriarchy, and my own perseverance in the face of life obstacles. I know I broke the rules of this whole list thing by including three things in this one list item. Anyway, I also feel grateful for Rihanna and this tweet that is a perfect personality pic moving forward for the rest of the year:

Rihanna: an icon. 

What gives you stability in your life? What are some things you’ve felt grateful for lately? What keeps you coming back to reading this blog despite this post erupting into 17 different spontaneous directions that may or may not really form a cohesive whole? What will it take for me to die and enter an afterlife where I live in an independent bookstore with a Jeni’s Ice Cream inside of it? Please feel free to answer any of these questions or share your thoughts on life or this post in general, and until next time.

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