I wrote a post, but I probably put too much personal information in it, so I shut the tab it was in and anyway now I’ve come back to try again. Just stuff that one down into my drafts, never to see the light of day.

It’s Canada Day weekend which doesn’t mean much to me except that I need to avoid going out on Monday when all the drunk white Canadians are roaming this stolen land. Mostly I have gotten away from being targeted for street based racist violence, but I’m not as cocky as a light skinned NDN now that I’ve got Plains Cree facial markings. I don’t think I was ever really cocky about being able to disappear in public, people could clock me for Indigenous if they cared to look closely. Lots of people asked me “what are you” even before I got tattooed on my face. Anyway, still probably gonna stick close to the neighbourhood on Monday. And the dogs hate fireworks anyway.

I felt kind of sad yesterday and today. It was a whole bunch of personal stuff, I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of insecurity I need to work on with my therapist, about love and career and those sorts of things. I don’t really feel like I’m undeserving of good things or anything, I think I just get bummed out when I consider my social status as someone who is gender non-conforming, Indigenous, Queer, Disabled, Fat. Like it’s a lot of things that are very vocally unvalued in contemporary society for it’s own fucked up reasons, and sometimes it gets to me. I know I have some kind of cultural capital as someone with two degrees, and a mostly successful art practice, and having things like stable long term affordable housing is even some kind of advantage in a place like Toronto. I guess I’m still sort of hurt when I get slighted by people who brush me off because I am a lesser person in their eyes by virtue of the identities I carry. I know intellectually that says more about who they are as people/institutions/society, but it still kind of sucks.

I mean there’s really no fixing it except to stop thinking about it I guess. It’s very frustrating. Sometimes I wish I was born into a better more loving world. Instead of this colonial shit.

But I still have my dogs, and I guess I’m healthy, and there are good things happening. Sometimes I feel like I should be further along in life than I am. Like having a partner and a family and be done my first feature already and not have to worry about my finances after October. On the other hand, I have work until mid October, and I get to travel to some places in the next few months. And next winter I’ll get to go to the East Coast a couple of times for work.

I kind of hate too this pressure not to wallow. It’s like I’m not allowed to feel sad about being marginalized in the mainstream society. Like I’m oppressed but I should be fucking happy about it because at least I’m not on the street or something, or still abusing substances to escape reality. Why do we put that on people? This expectation that people should perform happiness and gratitude to mollify any feelings of guilt more privileged people might feel? Like yeah if you have more privilege than me you should be fucking aware of that. Things don’t come as easily to me, I’ve had to work fucking hard to get where I am. And even then people are like “Why don’t you have a partner?” “Why don’t you have a teaching job?” Ugh. Leave me alone. The fact that I didn’t die in my 30’s is like, a mark of success for me.

Anyway. I guess I could talk about career stuff here but I don’t want to today. I’m still doing things, I have a couple articles coming out, something is gonna be in THIS Magazine about my fertility clinic stuff. I’m finishing post on a film. I have two more films to make. I’m waiting to get turned down for a grant. I’m just sort of doing things as much as I can to keep making money and stay relevant. I can have a pissy day. I earned a pissy day!

Mostly I’m feeling okay, I just had a weird couple of days. I’m still taking my meds, I think it’s honestly just my big fat bipolar feelings. They get messy. And people get irritated. And then I get irritated and more messy. And then I’ll go have a nap and be fucking fine in an hour. I really can’t give any specific guarantees on my mood at any point in the day, or how things will affect me. Sometimes something happens and I am like whatever. And then other times I’ll like suddenly remember someone never gave me my favourite book back after borrowing it and I’ll like just spiral into some weird thing.

I have to think about what I am gonna eat for dinner. That would probably be enough to pull me out of this slump. I mean at least the good thing about being manic depressive is that it never stays just one mood forever. I at least have some diversity of madness.