07.06.24 [on the J train]

biden's disastrous debate appearance last week and the supreme court's even more disastrous ruling on presidential immunity this monday added up to the first time in a long time that i've truly felt the kind of liquefying panic i felt the night of the election in 2016, the kind that meant self-care also performed as self-care, like hey look at how productively i'm thinking about and processing this: i signed up for this morning's clinic-defense shift, reactivated my account at ye olde get-out-the-vote letter-writing site and claimed 100 prospective voters, started running a few miles every time i feel like throwing up, and so on. it is not really working. i tend to lean on or at least talk this stuff out with joe when apocalypse feels extra-imminent, but he has...i want a metaphor that gets at how bad things are without blame or rancor, and i don't really have one. i am tired of meeting him in brooklyn for movies and feeling like i'm coming home alone even though i'm not. i'm tired of waking up from a nap after one of these clinic shifts and realizing i'm eating dinner alone even though i'm not. i understand that we are more than our most pernicious afflictions—god i'm grateful that people who love me have been able to see me through mine, because there have been some doozies in the last few years, thanks for nothing, brain chemistry and alcohol—but it's really hard to accept, as my therapist says i must, that the person i love isn't going to change for the better and the best i can hope for is to become someone who can get by without expecting anything from them. i have never been able to handle being left or feeling like i've been left, and here i am, with the only obvious relief i can see planted on the other side of my acting the way i've always told myself no one ever would, not if they really loved you or if you were really worth loving. is this like the sensitive new-age version of living long enough to become the villain? it is hard to watch the world and your partner fall apart at the same time and feel like there's essentially fuck-all you can do about either one.