At Least 2022 Had Elden Ring
Nov. 13th, 2022 07:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingIt’s only the middle of November, but I’m going to call it: 2022 sucked. Content warning for serious life talk.
Probably the most significant thing that happened this year was that my husband and I bought a house. That’s usually something to be happy about, but I feel that the quality of my life has significantly decreased. I think where I live now could charitably be called a “low-income, inner-city neighborhood.” There are no trees, and there’s a lot of crime. Before we moved here, I used to love to go on walks, and I would go jogging every morning. Now I feel trapped inside the house. It’s really, really terrible. I try to drive to other neighborhoods, but I don’t have time for that every day, and I can’t overemphasize how awful it is to feel like you can’t just go outside.
Still, “there’s a lot of crime in the neighborhood” doesn’t mean that I don’t get along with my actual neighbors. We have collectively been working to try to get the city to plant trees on our block, but it’s impossible. It’s all concrete, and you can’t plant anything without a permit and heavy machinery. It doesn’t matter how often you call or write or show up at City Hall in person; this just isn’t a neighborhood the city is interested in helping out. Also, despite the efforts of everyone on the block to go out and clean the street every Sunday morning, the neighborhood is literally covered in trash. There are just no city services here.
Like, I’m not saying that I hate “low-income, inner-city” people. What I’m saying is that I am one of many “low-income, inner-city” people in my neighborhood, and it feels like the city of Philadelphia hates us. It’s awful. It’s like I can feel my hope for the future draining away week by week.
I ended up losing one of my best friends because of this. She’s a lawyer, and even though I knew I shouldn’t have done this, I guess I made the mistake of asking her for legal advice. Or rather, I asked her opinion on whether it would be worthwhile to seek legal advice. Specifically, if the people on my block collectively hired a lawyer to represent us to the city, would that help us be able to obtain the necessary permits to plant trees.
She told me that I was a white person being uppity, and that I was trying to gentrify the neighborhood. There wasn’t much I could say to that. I didn’t reply and sort of quietly left the conversation. She hasn’t been in touch since. I get the feeling that she’s removed me from the list of “close friends” who can see her posts on social media, so I feel awkward about reaching out to her.
For what it’s worth, I understand what she means, but I also feel like, historically speaking, gentrification happens at the level of deals made between corporate landlords and city planners, not at the level of people in a small inner-city neighborhood getting together and talking to each other and trying to achieve community action. And in any case, I’m just supporting an ongoing movement, if you can even call trying to get a tree-planting permit a “movement.”
But it’s not like I can say this to my friend. If she thinks I’m the sort of wealthy and entitled person who would deliberately move to a low-income neighborhood and disrupt the community in order to raise property values, there’s nothing I can say. Whatever is going on with her isn’t about me, but it still sucks. She was one of my oldest friends. I don’t have a lot of friends to begin with, and now I have fewer.
I also somehow managed to lose the group of friends I’ve been a part of for almost ten years, and I have no idea how it happened.
It’s actually a very short story: one of them got married and didn’t invite me to the wedding. Her justification was that her fiancé’s family is very traditional and conservative, and that I would make them uncomfortable. Which I guess would make sense if there weren’t several hundred people invited to the wedding – and also if I were the sort of person who insists on presenting as queer, which I absolutely am not and never have been. To be honest, I’m probably the most normcore person in that group.
I didn’t make a big deal out of it, but then another person in the group got married and didn’t invite me. I didn’t say anything or block anyone, but I quietly left our Discord group, where everyone was making plans for the wedding. I think it was fair for me to leave, especially given the overt… I’m not sure what to call it. Homophobia?
These people have been my solid bedrock friendgroup since grad school. It’s always been good times and good vibes, and we really helped each other out during the pandemic. There weren’t any arguments or awkward moments or anything, and I really have no idea what happened. I don’t think anyone disliked me, and there didn’t seem to be any malice involved. I guess sometimes people just move on, but it hurts to be the one left behind.
And meanwhile, my family still won’t really talk to me. I always suspected that they only tolerated me because I was able to help pay their bills, and it sucks that my suspicions turned out to be correct.
And on top of that, the fact that I’m “just a lecturer” at work means that I’m all but excluded from the department. I’m not sure which is worse – being constantly harassed in my old department, or being aggressively ignored in this one. This especially makes no sense to me, because I’m very chill and friendly to everyone and also very fucking good at my job without being obnoxious about it.
And it goes without saying that social media is an ongoing dumpster fire. I feel like Twitter especially punishes you for reaching out and trying to make connections with other people, and this ridiculous business with Elon Musk isn’t helping.
I am constantly full of bad energy, and there’s no way to get rid of it. It’s really intense. Every day. All the time. I do my best to hide it, but I’m afraid that eventually it’s going to get out. And when it does, people will be like, “Oh, so this horrible and upset and angry person is who they were all along.” And that will be true, because I truly am upset and angry.
This is all very negative, but I think it’s worth acknowledging that this is where my life is right now. Hopefully next year will be better. I mean, it has to be. Something has to change, and I need to figure out how to make that happen.
ETA: This post comes off as way more depressed than I actually feel, so let me add something good to balance it out: It's quite nice to live in a world where laptop hard drives just keep getting bigger every year, which means that I will never have to delete any of the Final Fantasy VI fan art I downloaded from DeviantArt in 2006. Personal relationships may come and go, but those jpegs are forever.
Probably the most significant thing that happened this year was that my husband and I bought a house. That’s usually something to be happy about, but I feel that the quality of my life has significantly decreased. I think where I live now could charitably be called a “low-income, inner-city neighborhood.” There are no trees, and there’s a lot of crime. Before we moved here, I used to love to go on walks, and I would go jogging every morning. Now I feel trapped inside the house. It’s really, really terrible. I try to drive to other neighborhoods, but I don’t have time for that every day, and I can’t overemphasize how awful it is to feel like you can’t just go outside.
Still, “there’s a lot of crime in the neighborhood” doesn’t mean that I don’t get along with my actual neighbors. We have collectively been working to try to get the city to plant trees on our block, but it’s impossible. It’s all concrete, and you can’t plant anything without a permit and heavy machinery. It doesn’t matter how often you call or write or show up at City Hall in person; this just isn’t a neighborhood the city is interested in helping out. Also, despite the efforts of everyone on the block to go out and clean the street every Sunday morning, the neighborhood is literally covered in trash. There are just no city services here.
Like, I’m not saying that I hate “low-income, inner-city” people. What I’m saying is that I am one of many “low-income, inner-city” people in my neighborhood, and it feels like the city of Philadelphia hates us. It’s awful. It’s like I can feel my hope for the future draining away week by week.
I ended up losing one of my best friends because of this. She’s a lawyer, and even though I knew I shouldn’t have done this, I guess I made the mistake of asking her for legal advice. Or rather, I asked her opinion on whether it would be worthwhile to seek legal advice. Specifically, if the people on my block collectively hired a lawyer to represent us to the city, would that help us be able to obtain the necessary permits to plant trees.
She told me that I was a white person being uppity, and that I was trying to gentrify the neighborhood. There wasn’t much I could say to that. I didn’t reply and sort of quietly left the conversation. She hasn’t been in touch since. I get the feeling that she’s removed me from the list of “close friends” who can see her posts on social media, so I feel awkward about reaching out to her.
For what it’s worth, I understand what she means, but I also feel like, historically speaking, gentrification happens at the level of deals made between corporate landlords and city planners, not at the level of people in a small inner-city neighborhood getting together and talking to each other and trying to achieve community action. And in any case, I’m just supporting an ongoing movement, if you can even call trying to get a tree-planting permit a “movement.”
But it’s not like I can say this to my friend. If she thinks I’m the sort of wealthy and entitled person who would deliberately move to a low-income neighborhood and disrupt the community in order to raise property values, there’s nothing I can say. Whatever is going on with her isn’t about me, but it still sucks. She was one of my oldest friends. I don’t have a lot of friends to begin with, and now I have fewer.
I also somehow managed to lose the group of friends I’ve been a part of for almost ten years, and I have no idea how it happened.
It’s actually a very short story: one of them got married and didn’t invite me to the wedding. Her justification was that her fiancé’s family is very traditional and conservative, and that I would make them uncomfortable. Which I guess would make sense if there weren’t several hundred people invited to the wedding – and also if I were the sort of person who insists on presenting as queer, which I absolutely am not and never have been. To be honest, I’m probably the most normcore person in that group.
I didn’t make a big deal out of it, but then another person in the group got married and didn’t invite me. I didn’t say anything or block anyone, but I quietly left our Discord group, where everyone was making plans for the wedding. I think it was fair for me to leave, especially given the overt… I’m not sure what to call it. Homophobia?
These people have been my solid bedrock friendgroup since grad school. It’s always been good times and good vibes, and we really helped each other out during the pandemic. There weren’t any arguments or awkward moments or anything, and I really have no idea what happened. I don’t think anyone disliked me, and there didn’t seem to be any malice involved. I guess sometimes people just move on, but it hurts to be the one left behind.
And meanwhile, my family still won’t really talk to me. I always suspected that they only tolerated me because I was able to help pay their bills, and it sucks that my suspicions turned out to be correct.
And on top of that, the fact that I’m “just a lecturer” at work means that I’m all but excluded from the department. I’m not sure which is worse – being constantly harassed in my old department, or being aggressively ignored in this one. This especially makes no sense to me, because I’m very chill and friendly to everyone and also very fucking good at my job without being obnoxious about it.
And it goes without saying that social media is an ongoing dumpster fire. I feel like Twitter especially punishes you for reaching out and trying to make connections with other people, and this ridiculous business with Elon Musk isn’t helping.
I am constantly full of bad energy, and there’s no way to get rid of it. It’s really intense. Every day. All the time. I do my best to hide it, but I’m afraid that eventually it’s going to get out. And when it does, people will be like, “Oh, so this horrible and upset and angry person is who they were all along.” And that will be true, because I truly am upset and angry.
This is all very negative, but I think it’s worth acknowledging that this is where my life is right now. Hopefully next year will be better. I mean, it has to be. Something has to change, and I need to figure out how to make that happen.
ETA: This post comes off as way more depressed than I actually feel, so let me add something good to balance it out: It's quite nice to live in a world where laptop hard drives just keep getting bigger every year, which means that I will never have to delete any of the Final Fantasy VI fan art I downloaded from DeviantArt in 2006. Personal relationships may come and go, but those jpegs are forever.
