I wake up every morning with a low dose of guilt. It exists in the background, before I’ve even done anything. I feel guilt for waking up at whatever time I wake up, for the dirty clothes still on my floor, for what I did last night, for what I might do today. I look at my phone first thing and feel guilty. I’m not being mindful, guilty. My unanswered texts, guilty. My internal instagram judgments, guilty.
I wrote a bullet point list of all the things that make me feel guilt: stuff like talking behind someone’s back, double-tapping a message instead of giving it a thoughtful reply, experiencing corporeal pleasure & having desires of any kind. I read it back and it was kind of funny but also sad. I was going to post it here but I didn’t know if it would make sense to anyone, this feeling that I have done something wrong all the time.
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Guilt is justified when you’ve actually violated your own values and morals. My brain gets confused about what values are mine and which were bestowed upon me. It was laid out clearly when I was young. Things God loves: when you’re nice to other people (especially the mean ones), when your body is pure, when you don’t cause trouble, when you’re a good little girl.
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I watched The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and realized I’m more repressed than all of them. They sucked down XL sodas with their asses hanging out of their jean shorts. They took ketamine and augmented their bodies. One woman dressed as a sexy bowl of cereal for her best friend’s Halloween party. The Queen Bee had a heart to heart with her ex-friend about their shared experience in the bedroom, fucking their husbands in front of each other before the world shamed them into oblivion. They described it as humiliating. I was jealous of all of them.
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In the Catholic church, impure thoughts were a problem. Pride, greed, lust, envy, wrath. My child brain became fertile ground for sin.
Thinking: another reason to feel guilty.
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At last month’s Fountain meet up, we were asked to write from the perspective of an internal part that drains us. From the perspective of my childhood shame, I wrote: “I’m curious about sex, but it’s bad. I don’t want to be bad because if I’m bad, I’ll go to hell.” I realized then why this all feels so high stakes. My guilt is protecting me from eternal damnation. Like wow, I guess, thank you guilt. But of course I don’t still believe that exploring my sexuality will send me to hell. Like, of course.
And yet.
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Erika and I have been talking about the anxiety that comes from being seen after publishing intimate work. For me, that anxiety often feels like guilt for taking up space, for being “too honest.” Guilt for caring what other people think of my writing, for wanting it to be loved. Why do we still publish, knowing those feelings will follow?
I have come to believe it’s necessary. To express my deepest, realest truths in writing and present them to the world to be witnessed: it heals the part of me that felt she had to be nice, quiet, good. I want to evolve. I want to see how real I can get, how far I can push it, how much I can let you see me. Then I want to look around at my life with all those rippling consequences and see that the world didn’t end, that I’m still good.
Carrying the weight of unwarranted guilt and shame—that’s living hell, that’s the real eternal damnation.
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A few years ago, I realized that every time I say “I’m sorry” about something small—I’m sorry you’re cooking dinner again for the third night in a row, I’m sorry I didn’t fill up the gas tank—I’d be better off saying “Thank you.” Thank you for cooking dinner again, thank you for getting gas. I call it “turning guilt into gratitude.” Stewing over my badness for not running an errand feels like such a waste of energy when what’s available to me instead is love. A thank you, a hug, a moment of appreciation. That’s God to me now. That makes me feel good.
+ Recommending:
“I was excited to meet John Hinckley Jr., all things considered. I was going to make the perfect tweet about this.” My friend Zachary Kocanda published a very fun, chaotic short story called House Show, which you can read here!
“For the first eleven years of my life, my last name meant nothing special to me, but down the road, two small towns over from ours, the name Gallion still echoed with scandal.” If you haven’t read Erika Gallion Velasquez’s award-winning essay Paradise is Ours, you must. A super compelling, tender examination of the legacy of family trauma. Read here!
+ Reading: Unfortunately no one sent me queer longing recs after last week’s begging so I had to take matters into my own hands!! Bought Marisa (Mac) Crane’s A Sharp Endless Need, which I will read after finishing Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino.
Please note I receive a paltry commission if you use my affiliate link to buy these novels & I am working out how to legally disclose this in an unobtrusive, cool way.
+ Writing: I am still writing. Oh God, I am still writing!
Gods… this is so accurate. Sometimes I feel guilty for being, for just taking space in this world. Beautifully written!
I identify with this so much and I get it. So many little moments of guilt all add up and being able to write our truth is like therapy in a way.