Let's set the scene: it’s October. All but one of my friends (kisses Elísa hehe) have moved back to the U.S. I have been recently evicted and now live with complete strangers I found off the Internet. I am up to my neck in a lesbian ex-girlfriend drama plotline fresh out of The L Word.1 And I am very recently laid off, looking at an involuntary move out-of-country, and nearing the end of my recently-developed savings account.
Enter Betterhelp dot com.
After a genuinely terrible experience with my first therapist (I think bad therapists are as integral to the “modern young woman” experience as bad Tinder dates2), I was matched with someone that has since become a weekly staple in my routine. To know me is to hear me say “I think I should tell Aileen about this.”
March has (thankfully) been much calmer than October, so in my post-mini-crisis therapy sessions, I get to talk a lot about all of those little things that aren’t immediate concerns to be mitigated or action plans to be developed. I’m talking about my feeeeeeeeeelings–the run-of-the-mill, everyday sort.
Like a lot of people, I struggle to see myself as the perpetrator of wrong. I am a perfect angel who has never done anything wrong and who has no flaws. Kidding, but this self-aggrandizing bit that I do is, in some ways, reflective of a genuine feeling/bias (?) that I definitely have + that I think a lot of people have: I try very hard to be good, therefore I am good.
What I mean by that is that I’m intentional about my actions + I can honestly say that most of my actions are motivated by a desire to make life a little bit more joyful for myself, the people I love, and the people I share the world with.
But I can also be kinda shitty. I can be emotional and reactive. I have a history of crafting uniquely codependent relationships3 with partners and then excusing myself from all blame when that relationship doesn’t work/doesn’t make me happy. I act from places of jealousy and bitterness and I have let resent build up for months/years instead of communicating when something is wrong. I put myself in the “hero” role and the “passive participant” role (or, god forbid, the “victim” role), but I have struggled to take ownership for several of the times that things were genuinely my bad.
And Aileen, with her janky headphones, always (gently, because I cry easy!!) reminds me of that. One of my favorite types of sessions is one where I can feel my ego being chipped down, because–try as I might! Sweat and scream and cry as I will!-I will not ever achieve the perfection I am so obsessed with reaching. Never ever. And I am fully deluding myself if I think I’m even close.
Because I am a human being! I can acknowledge the benefit of letting the soft animal of my body love what it loves, and I can also acknowledge that sometimes that animal shits in the house. It’s fine.
That doesn’t mean I am pro-shit-in-the-house. I don’t think the reality of being a flawed and normal person means that you can negatively affect others without any recourse or obligation. But I do think it’s important to know that, yeah. That was me. It was bad and I knew better (or at least wish I had), and that’s not an action I’m proud of.
Because that’s where the magic happens, you know? That’s how we learn how to love one another better. Not for the sake of being the third-ever functionally perfect human being (just after Jesus Christ and Keanu Reeves), but for the sake of trying to make things a little nicer. Cleaning up my own shit.
Obligatory nuance, re: my clickbaity title: I do not think I am a bad person. I don’t think folks are simple enough to be categorized as “good” or “bad” most of the time4. I think that I, like everyone else, am just flesh and meat with an electric system connected overtop of a collagen framework.5 I am always Being Put In Situations, and I’m trying my best. My very damned, teeth-gritted, earth sign best. And sometimes, the best I have is not so good in practice. That’s not indicative of some deep-secret-bad harboring in my black heart, in the same way that having a great “my best” day doesn’t prove my worthiness as The Nicest and Best To Have Ever Lived.
I’m just Kenn. And I am working to be honest about who that person is, and to love her the way that I want to love others.
I have never seen The L Word. Call the cops!!! I keep saying I’ll get around to it, but honestly, there are so many fun gay shows now. That’s one of the (few) beauties of modern streaming!
I have also never gone on a bad Tinder date, because I’ve only ever gone on one–hi Sol hehe ❤️
I listened to a podcast once (forgetting which so I can’t credit, unforch) about how we fail to recognize the type of codependence that motivates us to be immensely useful/helpful/maybe overbearing to someone in hopes of making a partner dependent, because feeling needed can feel more secure that opening yourself up to the vulnerability of being loved. And boy howdy!!!
There are exceptions. For example, I saw another Substack refer to a certain disgraced fraudster currently facing indictments as “Agolf Shitler,” and I thought that was both fair and fitting. And also funny–I giggled :)
Bodies are kinda yucky :/