I already know that the first few sentences/paragraphs I write are some dumb bullshit to ease myself into writing.

That's a consistent theme.

So what did I want to talk about today?

Legacy?

grief?

Evolving relationships and the pull of nostalgia and established bad-idea patterns?

I'm drawn to the idea of universality, the idea that we all feel the same fucking goddamn things.  In different ways, in different parts of us, absolutely.  But we're absolutely the same.

It brings me some comfort.

Losing Pogo is what sent me over the cliff.  I could cope with losing Mom, barely.  And I had warning with Meredith, time to process the changes and the familiarity that felt like... oh, fuck if I know.  It felt like pain, but it felt like familiar pain. I could know what to expect.  I could prepare myself.  But Pogo, man.  For it to happen so suddenly and without warning and right on the tail end of a vacation and an exhalation and the idea that "hey things might eventually settle and heal after all" just fucking destroyed me.  

I'm glad I watched Fleabag.  It was a deeply uncomfortable but weirdly validating experience, watching a woman lash out and drink and fuck and deny and fumble her way through rage and denial and pain.  Realizing, as a viewer, it's grief.  An unsympathetic protagonist, petty, shallow, shitty, and hurting.  I've been a shitty bitch, too, absolutely.

We're all hurting.  Some of us are actively bleeding all over the goddamn place, others try to dump selectively.  Or compartmentalize.  Or numb, so that we can see the bleeding but not feel it.

Fleabag made me cringe for a lot of reasons.  There but for the grace of some shit.
I've been her.  I've used people, callously and without regard, to erase my own pain for a little while, to feel in control, to feel something.  And I'm sorry for it.  

I don't know how to make amends, re: the AA model.  Good thing I don't agree with most of that shit.  They're onto something with the "you're only as sick as your secrets" thing, though.  For what it's worth, all the connections I've ever made were as authentic and real as I was capable of at the time.  But that's excuses.  I've hurt people.  The fact that I'm sorry doesn't change or cancel that out.