The truth is that I wanted to write a new blog post for a long time, but I just couldn’t find the time or energy. When I finally passed my Master’s, I wasn’t capable of anything except staring at a white ceiling or creating badart for months. Honestly, I still spend most of my time with these activities.
The newest developments are searching for a flat next to job hunting and worrying about my uncertain future. So far my counters show:
Possible flats: 0
Submitted applications: 42
Rejections: 20
Ghostings: 2 (possibly more bc a lot of institutions take several weeks to respond to their applicants)
Despite all of it, I continue reading, even if it is just for escapisms sake. A few days ago I’ve gotten my hands on a prosaic autofiction. The main character is trans and tries to cope with reality through sex, BDSM and loads of drugs. Apart from that the writing style confused me, thr prose felt more pretencious than anything else and the main character ticked every box of the deviant, addicted, broken, fucked up trans-Archtetype. Policed, dispised and judged by the public but also secretly admired and sought after. If you made yourself a life on the rock bottom, nobody can ruin your reputation anymore. Maybe that’s as close as we can get to freedom these days…
The past few days I started seriously considering to jump on that bandwagon, turning myself into one of those queers who embrace their inner deviance and engage in fetish modelling, sex work, activism and endless DIY-projects. Fostering a hands-on mentality, taking part and later even teach certain workshops, start making zines and seel them at the local art market. Gain a reputation and social standing in my community until a publisher contacts me and offers me a contract, because of course I am a talented writer. All of this sounds at least better than my (chosen ?) reality.
Instead of using my newly gained free time to jump on dating apps, have the best hookups and sex, try out sex work, practise my non-existent domination with friends, turn myself into a trans femme fatale or become a companionship service, I sit in my flat, do bad art, support my girlfriend in her daily life and keep an eye on my godchild. Recently, I have had to read his favourite book to them in French because they know the English, Spanish, German and Dutch versions by heart. I try not to look at my bank account, even though I know at the back of my mind that the money is just getting less and less. I try to ignore the appointments with my bank and doctor, and the messages from my parents who eagerly ask how I am doing and how the job search is going. I avoid every new section on the internet so as not to trigger my nagging feeling of impending doom. Which is already ready to jump at me from the dark.
My reality checks do tell me that there is no community that will me through good times and bad. It’s wonderful when people experience this, but there’s no community of siblings or found family with whom I could process trauma, make plans for the future, or fight against the world. I never put in enough effort to integrate myself into the community. Instead, I formed a bond with a few people around me who are now very dear to my heart, and that has to suffice. Forging that bond was hard enough.
It was all the more ironic when a friend messaged me late at night to tell me about the attack at the CSD in Berlin. It was all the more ironic when a friend messaged me late at night to tell me about the attack on the CSD celebrations in Berlin. She didn’t so much describe what had happened as explain how it had affected her, even though she hadn’t been there and doesn’t live in Germany. I was aware that I should show empathy and engage with her angry rambling instead my mind opted out and I shut down. Whilst my brain was already filing the crime away under ‘stochastic terrorism’, I focused on replying to my friends’ messages without letting my emotions get the better of me. At the same time, my guilty conscience gnawed at me, asking: ‘Are you really that lacking in empathy? Monster, and not the good kind.’
When my guilty became too unbereable I texted my best friend and asked him why dealing with people wasn’t my strong suit.
His answer was short: „Patience and mercy both come with time and start with yourself.“
I frowned, secretly I hoped for something more dramatic and not something that hit too close too home. But alas… I asked, I got an answer. Jokes on me. Considering it all. I have improved over the years. I’m not a master, but I’m definitely higher than junior level, maybe even senior. For now, I’m just depressed, obsessive, grumpy, tired and in pain. I haven’t stopped eating, I try to socialise, I have healthy relationships and I no longer bang my head against walls until my vision goes black or destroy my favourite things, because I was convinced that I didn’t deserve them in the first place. See? Lots of mercy and patience here.
Instead of torturing myself physically, I continue to torture myself mentally. I’m upset about the exploitative conditions in the German cultural sector and how everything I seem to be good at is apparently no longer needed. Instead, society needs more IT workers and care workers, and as a by-product, it also gets a lot of assholes who punch down on vulnerable people. And, of course, I am also thinking about the fact (yes, again!) that my brain is everything except the thing that Iwould need the most right now: being an autodidact who thought himself all the good things because bored me and grades had zero impact on me what so ever. Surely it’s still allowed to dream, isn’t it?