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[This Year's December Days Theme is Community, and all the forms that it takes. If you have some suggestions about what communities I'm part of (or that you think I'm part of) that would be worth a look, let me know in the comments.]
When I do December Days, often times there's at least one of the topics that's either heavier or significantly more negative than the other ones in the lot. Because my culture is at least a little triskadecaphobic, I usually reserve slot number thirteen for that topic. In some other space, it would be number four, or whichever part of the numerology that is the unlucky number.
This is the heavy topic, because this is a community that I wouldn't want to join, if i had the choice to avoid it without negative consequences. I suspect many of the other people in this group would not have chosen it, if they could have avoided the situation without negative consequences.
( I survived. )
I am a survivor, and someone can argue that membership in that community is chosen, but it is the kind of choosing that leaves permanent marks on you and fundamentally shifts the way that you experience and see the world. It is often the choice made when the alternative is unacceptable, whether for self-preservation, for spite and malice, because there are other people still there and you can't leave them behind, or because there's some other principle that has a deeper hold on you than the desire to find a way out of the situation by whatever means will make the hurting stop.
These are selfish tales of survival. These are stories of falling into holes that turned out not to be the grave, and then finding my way out of those holes that are not the grave, but not before contemplating whether this hole should be the grave. This is not a place of honor. No great deeds are immortalized here. Do not read strength or heroism into this story, it is not there. My survival is not necessarily a thing to be lionized. It is not necessarily a thing that gives me superhuman strength, endurance, or perspective. I am not forged in greater stuff because of it. That which did not kill me did nothing but give me trauma. ("That which does not kill me makes me stranger.") If you seek a narrative of "Nevertheless, they persisted," seek elsewhere, for this is a story chiefly of disappointment, self-blame, and negative self-worth. There is no happily ever after. If there is any virtue that comes from having experienced this, it is by accident, by the influence of chaos and randomness. My story is not done, but only because I survived. There is only a semicolon. The end of a clause, but not the end of the sentence.
When I do December Days, often times there's at least one of the topics that's either heavier or significantly more negative than the other ones in the lot. Because my culture is at least a little triskadecaphobic, I usually reserve slot number thirteen for that topic. In some other space, it would be number four, or whichever part of the numerology that is the unlucky number.
This is the heavy topic, because this is a community that I wouldn't want to join, if i had the choice to avoid it without negative consequences. I suspect many of the other people in this group would not have chosen it, if they could have avoided the situation without negative consequences.
( I survived. )
I am a survivor, and someone can argue that membership in that community is chosen, but it is the kind of choosing that leaves permanent marks on you and fundamentally shifts the way that you experience and see the world. It is often the choice made when the alternative is unacceptable, whether for self-preservation, for spite and malice, because there are other people still there and you can't leave them behind, or because there's some other principle that has a deeper hold on you than the desire to find a way out of the situation by whatever means will make the hurting stop.
These are selfish tales of survival. These are stories of falling into holes that turned out not to be the grave, and then finding my way out of those holes that are not the grave, but not before contemplating whether this hole should be the grave. This is not a place of honor. No great deeds are immortalized here. Do not read strength or heroism into this story, it is not there. My survival is not necessarily a thing to be lionized. It is not necessarily a thing that gives me superhuman strength, endurance, or perspective. I am not forged in greater stuff because of it. That which did not kill me did nothing but give me trauma. ("That which does not kill me makes me stranger.") If you seek a narrative of "Nevertheless, they persisted," seek elsewhere, for this is a story chiefly of disappointment, self-blame, and negative self-worth. There is no happily ever after. If there is any virtue that comes from having experienced this, it is by accident, by the influence of chaos and randomness. My story is not done, but only because I survived. There is only a semicolon. The end of a clause, but not the end of the sentence.
