I wanted to write a post about the magazine that I am creating. I wanted to write about how it is almost finished, and how it’s been so exciting and unexpectedly soul soothing to create. I wanted to write a post about the portfolio website I am thinking of putting together, and about how I am getting into film photography in a big way, and really, really enjoying it.
I wanted to write about all these things, but I didn’t.
I spent Friday afternoon and evening in a dark fog of sorrow and hopelessness. I lost my temper on Friday afternoon at work with a colleague who proclaimed that he had “no times for the blacks or the gays.” I know I should learn to keep my mouth shut about these things (I managed it, barely in my last place, but it felt like I was swallowing something black and poisonous, something that was killing my insides), to keep my job and my precarious position as a temp, but I couldn’t. Before I knew what was happening there were hot tears pricking my eyes as I furiously ordered him not to express those opinions in front of me again.
I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the afternoon, staring listlessly at the photos of my friends on my cubicle wall, of the beautiful people I know and very much love, that this awful man dismissed out of hand for nothing more significant than the colour of their skin.
If I hear one more person tell me that I should just “let it go”, I think I shall scream and I don’t know if I will be able to stop. I do not want to ignore him, to let him think that the things he is saying are okay in any way, shape or form. I do not want to give him the satisfaction of riling me up, but rather that than my silence, god forbid he take it for approval.
I fear that I am too sensitive to these things. I thought I would feel better once I got home, but it wasn’t until Saturday afternoon that I managed to push it out of my mind, and many a tear were shed between Friday and then. I don’t read newspapers, I don’t watch the news, and I try to avoid the online newsmongerers at all costs. Not because I don’t believe what they say (altho let this be clear, I do no believe what they say) but because I cannot take on the sadness of the whole world. It is too much.
I find it too hard to distinguish, to separate myself from the horrible things that happen every hour of every day. I think I need to work out a better way of coping, because at the very least it will continue to get me into trouble and it might well end up breaking my heart.
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