I wanna say something and all I ask is that you read the whole thing before burning me at the stake.
There are always horrible things happening. There are always ppl who are suffering and dying. There are always corrupt politicians. There are always human rights violations. There are always tragedies. There is always misinformation and exploitation. War is always looming on the horizon or busting in the back gate. The world is always fucked up.
That fact does not mean that the lives affected matter any less than our own. It does not mean that we don't do what we can to help. It does mean that we cannot afford to put our lives on hold while a horrible thing consumes us.
I'm sure that, if your parent/sibling/partner/best friend had a medical emergency, you would gladly do whatever you needed to do to be there. I'm sure that you would sacrifice sleep, skip meals, call in to work, and be by their side until they were stable. You can afford to do that when those emergencies are infrequent and relatively brief.
You cannot do that with the world's emergencies. They are not infrequent. They are not relatively brief. You have to sleep, eat and shower. You have to pay your bills. You have to survive.
Daily life goes on.
It feels unjust. Of course it does. How can you possibly go about the mundane like nothing's going on? You Don't. You go about the mundane like there are horrible things happening. You make the adjustments you can sustain without sacrificing your well-being. You make drastic changes for as long as you can, when you simply can't take it anymore, and then you step back, take a breath, and go grocery shopping. You have to. If you don't, you won't survive the horrible thing.
No one who is going thru a horrible thing wants you to self-destruct. There's so much good you can do over the course of your life if you maintain that life. Adding your name to the list of casualties will prevent all of that good from happening. You have to survive.
And that includes the things that seem optional, bc those things aren't actually optional at all. You need to laugh. You need to watch movies and love your pets and go for walks. You need food that tastes good and clothes that make you feel confident. You need that show you'll regret not seeing. You need to get takeout and take naps. You need to have the weight lifted frequently, so you can heal the parts of you that get worn.
If you aren't living as well as you can, while making adjustments you can afford to make, you will not survive.
Please survive.
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In watching more interviews with Liv about Van and the escalation of Van's pragmatism to such dark degrees, I find myself genuinely baffled that anyone could ever think Van the bad guy. I mean, I'm perplexed at finding ANY of these girls The Bad Guy. The bad guy is the situation. It's being lost. It's freezing. It's starving. It's being scraped down to the barest bone of being alive. They make choices that might be snippy, or cruel, or hard-headed, sure--Shauna refusing to just hash it out with Jackie; Jackie being too stubborn to come inside; Taissa refusing to discuss her situation plainly; etc--but by the time we reach the end of season 2, it doesn't even matter. Petty bullshit doesn't matter. Jealousy doesn't matter. Those things are still going to be present and complicated, because--for all their choices, for all the distancing they're trying to do--these kids ARE still human beings. But it isn't the point.
The point is survival. Plain, simple, straightforward. Van's pragmatism is survival. It is the difference between living another day with blood on your teeth or dying pretty. It is the difference between fighting forward through the fire and the snow and the hell of it all, and laying down to die. Van knowing, in watching the ritual violence of Shauna beating Lottie nearly the death, that they will be killing and eating one another soon. Van coming up with the cards for the hunt. Van not blinking when the moment comes, Van choosing a weapon that doubles as a tool to bring the body back, Van refusing to apologize for staying alive--it's not evil. It's not Bad Guy behavior. It's purely about survival, because there is nothing else left to her--or to any of them. They can play the pretty little Sweet Angel Girl game and die, or they can get dirty, bloody, horrific and fight. Van chooses the fight. Van chooses to fight for herself, for her lover, for her team, even knowing not everyone is going to make it out...because the alternate path there is that no one makes it out. Van knew the baby wouldn't live. Van knows the rest of them won't, either. Not unless they start making the hard choices.
And, honestly, the fact that Van sees this narrative coming. Comes up with this plan. Brings out the cards. To me, that is the opposite of Bad Behavior. That is as close to justice as anyone can find in the wilderness. If someone else came up with an idea, maybe it would have come down to voting--but that would have had such a human element to it, with bitterness or hostility or whatever ultimately petty shit always comes of humans selecting who to Other. The cards don't leave room for that. It isn't fair, because the situation isn't fair, because Man vs. Nature isn't fair, but it's as close to a just system as they could possibly find. It's the kindest solution to an unwinnable game. Not to bring it back to American Gods again, but all I can think is "it's easy, there's a trick to it: you do it, or you die." Van gave them that.
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sometimes i wonder if death is all i can write about.
every poem i recite seems mournful, like i'm preparing for a funeral that i'm somehow sure will happen. it follows me, the death. its stench. the sorrow. it follows me and i'm so sick and tired of it. somedays i even think of stopping writing altogether, because what's the point? every word i put down on paper will be pitch black anyway and it will scream and weep of the same old tragedies that will make everyone's ears bleed time and time again.
but then i remember.
i remember writing about soft smiles and booming laughter. i remember writing about tears being wiped away by patient fingers, i remember writing the words, "i love you, i love you, i love you," like a hymn, a prayer, like a holy scripture. i remember writing about you. you, with your garden of water hyacinths, tiger lilies, and grins that are a little too sharp to make a person feel comfortable (just like mine). you with your poems that feel like a beating piece of your heart, with your messy hair, boundless excitement, and fingers painted with the rainbow. i remember us: sitting cross-legged in places we shouldn't be sitting in, talking about everything and nothing and feeling at home with each other ("you're my family"). i remember writing about adoration, love and friendship. i remember, then: death is not all i write about.
my writing is not about death or sorrow at all, actually. my writing is a sweet caress of words singing,
"hey, can you hear me?
i just wanted to say:
i love you. i love you, i love you,
i love you and my dear,
you make loving so painless."
i write about love time and time again, i write about you, i write about us. huh. maybe in a way, i do write about death. with us, love lives and laughs and when we're apart, dies, only to rise up from the ashes brighter than the goddamn sun when you see me the next day and we both grin.
i write and it says, "hey, can you hear me?"
and you do, every time.
and you say, "i love you."
I want to yell at the top of my lungs, "i love you i love you i love you so fuckin much i adore you"
but instead, i smile and hold you close. Instead, i write my silly little letters and hope they ring a million times louder than my voice ever could.
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