Heart
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Thoughts on a Saturday Morning
🕑 Added 2022-07-02 18:50:42 +0000 UTCThere’s a dude on the balcony across the street smoking a cigarette. He’s sitting on a shitty lawn chair. The plant and the fancy hanging seat beside him have blown over in the wind. He doesn’t pick them up. He stares out at the view. The leaves of the toppled fake palm tree slap the concrete floor now and then as the breeze picks up.
He doesn’t make a move to fix things. Just butts out his cigarette and goes inside.
A few days later I see him again, smoking on his balcony in that same chair, eyes fixed on the view while he stands in the carnage of his expensive condo patio accents. The sad artificial tree and the chair with chains and a stand are still dishevelled, the giant pillow from the chair poking out the bottom of the balcony railing. He doesn’t even look down at the carnage. He butts out his cigarette and goes inside.
What is it like to be that way? It’s not even my shit and I want to fix it. I wish I could float across the divide and secure the tree with a bungee cord, maybe find an attractive weight for the base of the fancy hanging chair, something to make it more sturdy when the wind whips off the lake. It’s not even mine and I want to make it better, come up with solutions, try something. He doesn’t even acknowledge it, doesn’t even step over the debris. Walks across it like it doesn’t exist. He butts out his cigarette and goes inside.
Max is like me, a do-er, a fixer, a “let’s make things better”. I love that about her. For so long I was partnered with people who were happy to leave things in disrepair. People who would stand on all of our debris, butt out their cigarette and go inside. While we sit on her balcony with our morning coffee and tea (and I keep an eye on the negligent neighbour) she googles show times for the werewolf movie she wants me to see. It came out in the ‘80s, the year I was born, old horror movies are her favourite and she knows how I feel about werewolves. “We can go to that haunted mansion restaurant too,” she says, knowing she has my full attention, “It’s close to the theatre.”
Love requires attention. It requires attention and mindful care. It requires learning your lovers’ languages. Love requires maintenance, it requires an investment of time. You must tend to love, prune it and water it, consider how it’s growing.
I am grateful that she tends to me. She bathes me in her attention. She shows me with her words but also her actions. I always know where I stand. I think of past lovers who liked having me uneasy, liked it when I was working overtime to please them, liked taking me down a peg. If I was busy scrambling over some perceived slight, or tidying someone else’s messes, then I had no time or energy to address the bigger issues.
The dude across the street has a girlfriend who will come home from work and put everything on the balcony back where it belongs. I know that, and so does he. I think of all the brilliant badass women being bogged down by a man’s bullshit and I remember that our communities (and our world) suffer because of this. When women sink all of their energy and gifts into dealing with childish or abusive male behaviour they have nothing left over for advocating, for organizing, for building and creating, for rest. Make no mistake, this is by design. This is patriarchy at work.
Leave anyone who makes a sport of draining your resources or wearing you down. If your partner is happy to let you pull all the weight, leave them in the dust. Imagine what might happen if you could funnel all of that effort and energy into your own happiness. Your whole life will transform.
(Another significant drain on women’s resources is the attack on reproductive and health rights. Forced birth is a horror and abortion access is critical and life saving. This month thanks to your generous support I’ve made a donation to a local agency that improves abortion access. I urge you to do the same in your own local communities. Check out agencies like Keep Our Clinics, National Network of Abortion Funds, and for Canadian patrons Action Canada.)
Comments
Emily Stewart
i'm in this boat too. i've managed to carve out a couple areas that i'm pretty good at keeping relatively tidy, but the vast majority of our apartment is just a fucking disaster. i wish i could just throw out like 3/4 of what we have that we never touch. i've also, pre-transition, been *that guy*, whether or not i had a partner who would clean up after me (or in the case of my ex-wife, berate me until i cried!). and it was for the same reason as it is now. so, idk. i know the way men are conditioned to not care, and i also know that sometimes caring is really hard, regardless of external factors. it's really complicated. i feel bad for the neighbors, regardless of their particular reasons, and i feel bad for Heart having to watch it and clearly having some strong Virgo feelings about it, and i feel bad for me and my partner, and for you, and for everyone else who this modern life is built to fuck over.
Heart
I’m so glad you mentioned this. I have absolutely been depressed enough, or overwhelmed enough in my life, to just walk over debris for sure. But I think situational scenarios, or instances where you have a disability or diagnosis that interferes with executive functioning are totally different than the common and acceptable kind of effort some men in our culture get away with as a lifestyle. I agree, it *is* seen as cute sometimes, or even quaint that someone loves him enough to look after the details, and women or folks with disabilities don’t get the same positive spin. It’s infuriating. I too have absolutely been too bogged down by life to see the finer details, and I understand the shame involved in that. Asking for help is so difficult, especially when the help comes with a heaping side of judgment. But there’s likely strengths or gifts you have that you share in kind, even if organization isn’t one of them. Sending you compassion and a reminder that getting help from your partners in a healthy reciprocal relationship is wonderful and good. 💘
JM Katzz
Hoo boy, this made me cry. I am currently surrounded by mess and disrepair, because depression and ADHD have partnered to run my brain; sometimes you learn not to see the debris because it all just feels like too much. Ignoring domestic shit is seen as acceptable and even “cute” behavior for men, and some woman usually comes along to take care of it for them. As a woman, I know that I’m judged on the condition of my domestic space; my inability to keep on top of things will never be seen as adorable. I did not mean to get so maudlin. I am finally learning to ask the people who love me for help, but I don’t know that I’ll ever stop feeling shame for needing to do that.
