Grumblecakes

I don't want to fucking write about class today. I had such a good day not thinking about class, except when worries about Davey interrupted my thinking. If I were not me, and I were giving myself advice, I'd remind myself of the importance of taking time off. But I am me, and this conversation with Davey is happening soon. Really soon. I can take time off after that.

I started to tell him about Aeryn, and my relationship to guilt, but he already knew all that, so I didn't bother. Aeryn is mad at just about everybody in the world he doesn't worship, including Davey, but I didn't know that when we knew each other. We were trying to be activists together, building queer youth community space, and it was failing so hard because he would rage at me (the only young person with class privilege in the group) and other people with privilege, and I'd let myself get caught in the net of his rage. Not to say that some of it wasn't directed at me - I probably triggered a bunch of it - but it also was mostly not about me.

It was horrible sometimes - he'd get red in the face and yell and curse a lot, and I'd freak out. Gender was probably playing into it too, him trying to assert his hard won masculinity, his ability to pass, to belong, and me being such a girl about it. In fact, gender made it even more complicated. If he'd been some bioguy, without the experience of being raised female, screaming at me, I would've fought back harder. But it's hard to fight like that with someone who's convinced that my life has been a piece of fucking pie, and people like me are to blame for his life having been hard. It's especially hard when I'm trying to agree with him and not agree with him at the same time.

So how to handle this? Davey says he doesn't want his feelings/emotions to scare people away. Once, he too let me see his emotions, even though he doesn't remember it. And I ran away, almost literally, so overwhelmed by the intensity of it. And this is about class, about wanting to keep emotions out of serious discourse, even as my brain knows it's valid and legitimate and belongs there. My training - my class training, my gender training - says to shut it out, and to shut out other people's too.

White middle class women are hugely responsible for policing other people's emotions. But I don't think I completely fit that, because queers and Jews - two communities that taught me a lot about communication - value, welcome, and incorporate intense emotions. It's a bit of a struggle.

So what happens if we get into emotional territory? I want to be able to take care of myself, without making Davey turn on his inner counselor. I want to remember that we are doing this because our friendship matters. We both want to see it improve. This is part of the mess to navigate so that can happen.

(Did I mention the part where I asked him to tell me our friendship mattered, and he said very seriously, Dane, our friendship matters. That's why we're doing this.)

And what emotions might come up on my end, besides guilt? Hurt, fear, sadness, anger, frustration? How do I deal with that? And how do I deal with the guilt, when it inevitably comes?

I can start by acknowledging it. By saying, "I feel" and putting it out there, but not in a way that shuts out his space to tell me how he feels. If he does tell me how he feels, that is. And maybe I can say "hmm, guilt. I see that. I feel that. Now, can I put it to the side and move past it so this conversation can get somewhere? Guilt isn't going to make things better. But moving past it will."

And what of the risks? The risk of our friendship disintegrating as the conversation progresses. He says if our relationship is at that point of disintegration, that if one conversation is all it takes to undo it, then we're past the point of fixing it. I agree. And what would it mean to take that risk, to pull an Evil Knievel and try to fly over the Grand Canyon, not knowing if we're going to make it to the other side?

And what is the question that would launch us?