What do I really want?

 “You’re not here. When you’re here, you’re not here.”

I don’t know how often, how loving, or how loud I have to say certain things for them to be heard. I don’t know if we should pay someone $190 an hour so that they can be a proxy to say it. I don’t know if the silence in my meditation and my learning to let go of these thoughts would also let go of the part that made us who we were.

“At some point, you just need to learn to be happy.” It sounds like a poster on a wall of a beautiful glass house in a beautful wonderland of no one. It sounds like gaslighting to the ears of the abused. It sounds like privilege to the ears of the oppressed. 

I am lucky, and I am priviledged. The world is on fire. People are going through the pandemic, and uncertainty. And so in my privilege of being safe, and healthy, and financially safe, I need to learn to be happy and let go of this nagging feeling of numbness and isolation.

What do I really want?

Maybe I want to be alive. I want to walk out in the sun, feeling the ocean wind, feeling the blisters in my feet. I want to raise garden beds. I want to talk on the streets and look at people. 

Maybe I want to be connected. I want to have conversations. I want to laugh. I want to compete.

Maybe I want to be heard. I want someone being present when they are with me. I want to be a priority, not an afterthought. I want to be invited, not rejected. 

Maybe I want to be acknowledged, for my existence, my struggles, my contradictions, my talents, my flaws.

Maybe I want to rest. I want to not be stuck in this limbo of barely enough attention to keep my grounded, but not enough to make me happy. Maybe I want to be thriving, not surviving. Maybe I want to be loved, not just be told that I am loved.

“You don’t know what you want”

I do. Maybe I want you to listen.