Does anyone remember a post circulating back in April about an LGBTQ bookstore in Ann Arbor? They posted a status on Facebook about how they didn’t have any books sales that day?
The post circulated tumblr for a couple of days and their Facebook page was swarmed with likes and support, suddenly they had more online orders than they ever had before. They announced that had roughly 700 online orders with only a staff of three people and a dog to fill them, and even with the deluge of orders they would still be struggling to stay open.
Unfortunately, that’s how the story is winding up for them. They recently announced that they would be closing and I thought it’d be nice to send them off with one last hoorah!
If you have the available funds, then maybe consider helping them out. Here’s a link to their website. It may not be a great start to the New Year, but it may make it easier for them,
selfies are CANCELLED until no one knows what i look like anymore and everyone just associates me with this abstract & sentient virtual entity that has transcended the physical realm indefinitely
You either hate Nazis or you’re on their side it’s easy as that you can’t be morally grey on this
You can’t even say something like “I’m not into politics” or even the #woke version “I’m not educated enough on this matter to have a side” or something because even children know Nazis Are, like, Bad
Shout out to people like me who have parents who are loving but are black holes of emotional labor… It took me a long time to realize that it’s okay to have mixed feelings about your parents, about your relationship with them.
Sometimes parents can love you but be somewhat toxic to you and your growth, and that’s a very hard realization to come to if you, like me, grew up extremely close to them.
Sometimes parents can love you genuinely but lack emotional maturity, forcing you to perform disproportionate amounts of emotional labor. Some parents manifest symptoms of their mental illness in ways that are toxic to your mental illness.
Some parents, like mine, try so hard to be good parents but fall back on habits of emotional manipulation because they haven’t processed their own traumas and are modeling behavior they grew up with. That doesn’t make their behavior acceptable, and it’s okay to feel exhausted and hurt when they betray you. You don’t have to forgive every mistake.
I want you to know that it’s okay to protect yourself, to need some space apart from them. The love you have for your parents is still valid, and you are making the right decision.
Placing a safe emotional distance between myself and my parents has been one of the most difficult, heartbreaking processes I’ve ever gone through… it hurts to try to curb the strength of your own natural empathy around people you love. It feels disingenuous to your heart’s natural state.
But I promise you, you are not hard-hearted or ungrateful, and you are not abandoning them. You are making a decision about your own emotional, mental, and spiritual health.
I know what it’s like in that confusing grey area of love mixed with guilt and anxiety, of exhaustion and quasi-manipulation and unreciprocated emotional labor, and I promise you, you are not alone.
