Worrying about keeping up with the Jones.<\/p>\n
For the last week, I have wanted to tweet something about gift giving. I did make an earlier statement about how gift giving wasn’t a big deal ever, so I didn’t feel like I lost anything. But I hesitated and hesitated over and over again. Because people would be like…well, it matters to me and it hurts a lot this year.<\/p>\n
And I would feel yet again that I wasn’t heard. What’s the point?<\/p>\n
And so I remember there was a moment earlier this year where people were talking about the After Times and I literally panicked. I didn’t want to have to keep up with the Jones. I was literally tired of performing. I was tired of doing all that. I wanted to just do my job quietly. I wanted to just be me. I wanted to do all of that and not feel like I had to do more than I wanted.<\/p>\n
And wanted is that hard thing. I don’t like it at all. I don’t know about it all.<\/p>\n
And yes, I might see every relationship as transactional but recoil if others find it very cold. But I still see it as that way. Every social invite that I accept means that a relationship is strengthened. Every time I say hello it means that something is bettered. It means that I will be kept on top of mind. It’s literally exhausting.<\/p>\n
And all of that is the feelings that I don’t want.<\/p>\n
On top of the fact that all the societal judgement will come too. If you aren’t doing this<\/i>, then you’re not good enough. You’re not good enough if you don’t hug. If you don’t give gifts. If you don’t small talk. If you don’t say hello. If you don’t say how grateful you are. All these performative acts.<\/p>\n
And it’s no wonder that I crumble. I don’t want to be out there feeling so put on display even if they say that others aren’t even paying attention. But that’s why I crave my cocoon.<\/p>\n
And yet isn’t this the biggest hypocrisy of all. I want to live in a city, not because I want to be close to my friends. But because I actually do enjoy the excitement of being around other people, but anonymous. I like people watching. I like seeing what others are doing. I don’t want to be enclosed in some safe environment. I want to experience. But I don’t want people to experience me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Worrying about keeping up with the Jones. For the last week, I have wanted to tweet something about gift giving. I did make an earlier statement about how gift giving wasn’t a big deal ever, so I didn’t feel like I lost anything. But I hesitated and hesitated over and over again. Because people would … Continue reading Worrying about the After Times<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637,"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions\/637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}