It Is Way Too Much of My Face

You can know a person their entire life and still not know the ways they’re hurting.

While I was sharing pieces of the fictional novella Senseless here on Substack, I was sharing video-replies to questions friends had asked online (verbally), so that I could heal from an operation by not typing as much.

In doing so, though, I collected a vast amalgamation of chatty footage that may (or may not) interest you to be in one place, including some responses that I did not share, but wanted to include here since I am so thankful for supportive Word Nerds.

This is bordering on a visual Podcast if you actually watch it all at once, so be warned: It is way too much of my face, but might be food for thought in terms of topics?

Thank you… and happy mid-week!

As I scroll here, mindlessly hoping to numb some part of me that can’t be numbed, I think a thought I think too often:

None of us know each other.

You can know a person their entire life and still not know the ways they’re hurting.

You can know a person their entire life and still not know who has hurt them and how (especially if they’re someone who isn’t going to show you).

You can know a person their entire life and still think that - because they’re posting online one evening- it means they’re okay.

(Sometimes, that might be true, but sometimes- maybe- the numb of digital is all they can take that day. Maybe the dalliance of a daily story is an escape they can handle… but they can’t speak freely elsewhere. Don’t want to, even. Maybe they scheduled that post ahead of time. Maybe they started to do the right thing and catch up on work or calls like they should… but then something interrupted them - and their phone took the backseat).

My phone should always be my last priority, technically.

That doesn’t mean that YOU are… you who is kind enough to still be reading this far, if you are. But I mean that to all of us:

It’s okay if our phone is our last priority some days.

If YOU know that you read your baby a story before bed or you know you met with your therapist or something instead …. It’s okay if you didn’t answer to all of us here. We know you want to. We know there aren’t enough hours in the day. We know you’re trying your best.

Hours in our day used to not be made up of being beholden to phones in this way. If you called after hours on the landline or on the weekend: You didn’t make the cut.

We HAD weekdays.

Now, we just have numb. And we have scroll. And most everything in between feels as if being monitored while you wish you could unplug, or disappointing someone else when you can’t respond fast enough. And you try. And you fail at trying. So you try at failing.

You can know a person their entire life and still not know how much they’re hurting or what their truth really is. And the wildest thing is that - even when someone “keeps their receipts”…. Most of us don’t want truth.

We want tabloid. We want instant. We want scroll.

And that’s okay because you’re trying your best too…. But damn:

I miss weekdays.

And I miss an absence of hurt.

(PS: If you can’t start your week by becoming a monthly subscriber, simply share share share to help keep this work going for free! Thank you Word Nerd friends!)