being human

I wish

I were

capable of it

On Equality

I am not really an activist. Not an active activist, anyway. More passive.

But I will not be okay with someone using a perjorative term to express discontent. And I will say something about it.

I was unfriended yesterday by someone I've known for, oh, five (?) years. We have bonded over music; the writing, the performing, the enjoyment thereof.

Then he littered a facebook status (of all things) with the word "fag" accompanied by various suffixes.

An update a moment later corrected one of the MANY misspelled words in the previous status but failed to address the used-three-times slur.

I called him out on it.

He told me to grow up and unfriended me. Which of us is the child?

I am not gay, but I will take this personally.

What I am is a girl with friends who are homosexual; friends for whom I would GO TO THE END OF THE EARTH. Friends for whom I would do whatever it took if it meant they would be forever treated with the respect and love they deserve but are not afforded due to bigotry.

Maybe I'm making a bigger deal out of it than I need to, but maybe it needs to be a bigger deal than it is. All I know is that I would never have expected that from the un-friend in question. I would have defended him had anyone even suggested that he were a homophobe.

Maybe he's not homophobic, just ignorant.

Either way, I think a bullet was dodged. I don't need hate in my life, and I will not associate with childish, pseudo grown-ups.

2010 is the year of the purge. I hope 2011 is the year of equality and tolerance.

s.a.d.

I have Seasonal Affective Disorder.

After suffering through bouts of seriously deep depression and seeming to have overcome them, being faced with something colloquially referred to as "winter blues" is disheartening to say the least. Because, although I am familiar with this feeling of lethargy and utter hopelessness, and I know it will most likely pass, it's still all-consuming.

I was mis-diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and medicated accordingly at the age of 10. I have been quietly trying to kill myself since I was five; sitting in my room, carefully unscrewing the blade from my pencil sharpener, and hacking at my wrist until I saw blood. I had a stash of painkillers in my desk for that day when things just got a little too tough, though I preferred to cut open my wrist instead. Strangely, the only evidence of any of this is a 2.5 inch white scar at the base of my left thumb where I violently slashed myself 15 years ago. Nothing remains of the semi-annual attempts to disappear.

How something so emotionally-charged could leave such a tiny mark, I'll never understand. But there it is.

My point in all of this, I guess, is that I abhor being back in that headspace where I'm desperate to feel something, ANYTHING, that I haven't felt before. Maybe some happiness, if my life would allow it. Because this darkness, these pinching tears while at work, this disgust for humankind, this poisonous anger I feel toward everyone for no particular reason, this grinding of my bones as I pull myself around and go through the motions is enough to make me want to kill myself. I mean, I hate my "friends," I hate my body, I hate my job(s), I hate people I see on the street, I hate the racists and the sexists and the rapists and the parents and the stupid children, and I hate the very fact that someone (mommy and daddy) decided that this planet wanted/needed any of us, let alone me, and that we are worthy of it in any way. I hate people who tell me to smile when I'm not, or who tell me I "look tired/sick/angry/sad."

I hate that I can smell the orange on my desk and it's grossing me out. I hate that I think I've gained a few pounds. I hate that I actually might have. I hate that the new boots I ordered cost me $66.01 for customs and that my calves are too wide for them to fit anyway. I hate that I'm alone. I hate that I want to not be. I hate that people were right about me. I hate that the phone on the neighbouring desk keeps ringing and ringing and ringing and then *bloo-BLEE* goes to voicemail. I hate that I can smell tinned tomatoes everywhere.

ALL OF THIS because the sun's not fucking out.

What a waste.