On Spinning Plates

It's hard describe the feeling of being under constant stress and lingering doom. I once likened it to the idea of trying to hold the doors closed against a horde of rabid zombies. Eventually you're going to be too tired and you're going to lose everything.

That, is sort of the summation of how I've felt for about the last six months. I'm watching the slow drain on my finances and see how I draw negative income month after month, and seeing the deadline approach for when I can't make my rent payment. Then the holidays came and my parents gave me some cash to push the date back a bit, but, the problem still remains. In less than six months I'll not have enough money to pay my rent. This has never happened to me before, and I'm terrified. I have no real backup option solidified, though there are some options that are being discussed. Neither of the two are ones I'm particularly fond of, but hey neither am I much of a fan of living on the street.

I have lived off the kindness of strangers before, having lived for a time exchanging manual labor for rent (in this case cleaning/cooking). But then I had my own room and a shared bathroom (not a bad gig all things considered). The balance there was that there was enough space for me, among relationships I was ambivalent towards.

Now my options are much more precarious. Both involve putting the bulk of my possessions either up for sale or in storage. One sacrifices personal space for relationship security. The other the reverse.

I'm hate the idea of someone having leverage over me in situations that require discussions of sensitive topics. It's hard to have an honest discussion about your feelings, and navigating poly and kink dynamics and relationships when your partner has the ability to make you homeless. It isn't that I think that is a likely scenario, It isn't and I don't, it's that it is a possibility, and in the back of my mind that chills the conversation and silences things. I begin to police the words I use and when and how I say things because I don't want to risk that conversation being brought up.

If there is anything I've learned about myself these past few years, it is that I absolutely cannot stand being inauthentic to myself, and "playing the game". You know, that "I know, that you know, that I know, but we won't say anything about it" bullshit. You see it in job interviews (Why do you want to work here? Oh because I just absolutely live to make cheeseburgers for assholes for minimum wage) and in family shit holiday dinners (we all know uncle jack is a homosexual, so we just don't ask about his life at all).

Both of those new situations feel like some version of the above. I have no idea what to do about it other than just, deal with it. Compartmentalization is how I dealt with trauma as a child, and it's apparently how I deal with things now. I'll put all those terrified feelings and emotions (along with all the rest) in a small little box and deal with them later, because right now I need to solve the issue, and I can't do that if I'm in a catatonic depression wanting to end my life.

I think this is why I find anytime someone asks me direct questions about my status or how I'm feeling to be so jarring or upsetting (since we as a society can't use the word triggering in a serious context thanks to fucking shitbag man babies on the internet). It's someone asking what is inside the box (WHATS IN THE BOX! are you happy now?) it's someone asking me to open the container and let those emotions out, that have been stewing and compounding this whole time.

Meanwhile, the relationships I'm in that require access to those emotions is suffering, and while I can keep those plates spinning now, the stress and emotions that come from that also then need to be compartmentalized. You can see how this cascading system of boxes starts to eventually pile up and explode.

Which leads me to here and now, in which I want to burn everything down and run away to join the circus. Though, I doubt I could afford the rent there either.