it’s time to rest

fuck, it’s hard to be anything but a cishet white western man these days.

after the leaked justice alito draft regarding roe v. wade, it made me realise that i am always running on empty, and that i am tired and burnt out because of it. and that i haven’t acknowledged the accumulating mountain of stress that’s built up over the course of the pandemic and my saturn return. so i did. i said it out loud at both my individual and couples therapy sessions and of course, it should shock no one that my little scorpio moon heart unlocked the flood gates and let emotion pour over everyone in its path.

so here’s the honest truth. why am I exhausted? why is anyone like me feeling run down and burnt out?

being alive as a marginalised individual is an act of revolution and resistance. the choice to continue my life in this mortal vessel is radical when everyone else wants to either see me dead, or under strict control.

there are layers to this for every person, but in my case— living my truth as a fat, queer, gender non-conforming Asian person who has the ability to give birth is h a r d. everyone else thinks they have a say over my body when they shouldn’t. it’s mine. the only time it honestly matters is if/when my partner and I choose to have a child. and truthfully: even then, it is still my body.

i am talking openly about this because i want you to know how hard of a choice it is to compromise your own body for something that feels like the greater good. even more so, at the cost of your day to day life. i am sure there are others there who are experts in this, so i won’t bore you with those details. but i will say that the hypocrisy of those who are pro-life is evident.

no one likes abortion.

i don’t know why conservatives insist that those who make the choice to have one act as though we idolise and want to have one. just like i never grew up idealising or romanticising an ideal marriage; I also do not idealise about an “ideal abortion.” the fact is: it’s a choice we have to make when we feel we are in no place to have a child. that’s the point, send tweet. but the point is that it’s a systemic thing: abortions will happen regardless of access. losing the federal right to abortions means losing safe access to safe, life saving abortions.

when I started writing this, i was on the verge of a mental breakdown, only to succumb to a physical one later. i’m accustomed to this as someone with both raging chronic illnesses and mental health issues— but as someone who also has to slog through capitalist and corporate America makes this even more exhausting.

i took the leap and asked for two sick days. I’ll suffer the consequences later through work, but honestly? jobs are replaceable, my life is not. in the process of learning how my body takes on trauma and stress and converts it into physical symptoms, i’m also effectively unlearning years of indoctrination as a Model Immigrant Child (I’m a first gen Fil-Am, please just let me live.) i’m attempting to unlearn a lot of programming that is counterintuitive to my values and beliefs, to my entire existence.

i know i have more to write, but it’ll come. this was just a taste because i think rest in its myriad of forms is the best practice to adopt when moving about the world. rest is more important. rest gives us energy to live, to love, to fight alongside each other in solidarity and arms.

for now? rest.

I’ll write more about my processing of my body, existing and navigating through trauma, and the dramatic unlearning of lessons taught to me by society. but i need to recuperate and make sure my brain has the ability to handle it.

take some time off. On me. x