There is No Subject

I’m super conscious I’ve been quiet for some considerable time, mostly thanks to Covid and the various demands that’s put on me, but also due to my mental health.

Add to that a sense of isolation from my friends while contradictorily feeling stifled by the demands and dependencies of my family, and it’s not surprising the person I am (was?) became forgotten, lost, yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s a common enough story, thanks to our “friend” SARS-Cov-2 and it’s not an excuse, but an apology with a bit of oversharing.

Anyway, my creativity has been limited to sharing memes on Facebook (also my primary communication tool) and then I found a post: I won’t perpetuate the income stream to someone else here by reposting, basically because I’m bitter that I’m not lucky enough to earn doing something I like, but its premise is that instead of resenting the incessant demands to shit miracles and entertain two bickering, sullen, argumentative children while simultaneously toilet training a puppy and conjuring up ways to disguise anything healthy as a chicken nugget, when my head is fizzing with the unfairness that, yet again it’s me, with the unreliable bladder (no early warning system anymore, something else those kids ruined along with the soda/carpet/car/etc ad nauseum) that’s been left sans loo paper and no way of communicating to them while they TikTok in their rooms, the heart heaviness and clogged throat when I return from poo duty to discover an abandoned table and the detritus of a demanded-then-dismissed meal across most surfaces, maybe catching the tail end of a child disappearing up the stairs in my periphery, inevitably requesting speedy delivery of an ice cream; instead of feeling the resentment and tears burn at the sheer faced effrontery of the oft-uttered refrain “why should I? What have you done for me?”, I should consider it a privilege to do any kindness for people.

I’m no Karen, I didn’t comment, just scrolled on by and shared something about cats, but it does bother me. I am essentially kind, more doormat kind than respected kind, although I let people down (see opening paragraph), but boundaries seem to have become blurred since Covid. Not just in my house but generally. People seem on edge and confrontational, defensive and aggressive. Perhaps this new world is scarier than we give it credit.