Tiny Lifeless Wings

 There are so many dead flies in every windowsill of our house.

It doesn't matter what windowsill or what place you're in, this is where all flies end up, if not swatted or caught in webs. They end up, eventually, in the windowsills of buildings. It's not really that it's a fascinating thought, or even a really original one, or even really something only I have noticed. I'm certain everyone is aware of this fact, they have to be, but god it's so sad. They try so hard, continuously, to break through that glass barrier and return to the world they're suited for, and yet they cannot achieve this goal, and they finally die in the windowsill, having never gotten anywhere. I don't want this blog to become nothing but a place for metaphors for the unnaturally unmetaphorical, but...

...I feel like this is a pretty good example of people in general.

We all work so hard all the time to get somewhere else, but like snow boots stuck in thick ice, we cannot get past this glass that surrounds and encases us inside its grip. Like flies, we buzz around, doing the same things, seeing the same things, forever wishing our reach could extend beyond the home we live in, but often this is not achieved. All they wanted to do was leave. All a lot of people want to do is leave. Lord knows I've left many times only to still get absolutely nowhere, and I find it amazing how someone can make so much physical effort and get so far distance wise and yet get nowhere at the same time.

Life is like a treadmill; endlessly going nowhere anytime soon.

🐷

Time, even if you do nothing with it, marches ever forward.

This is something I've sadly learned the hard way, from looking back at the last ten years and recognizing that I've done essentially nothing with my life except create things. What's even worse is that this is only doubly terrible that after so long of not doing anything, you're unsure of how to start, and so you simply don't, and then you get scared to try because you're scared of failing and so you continue to do nothing and nothing ever changes. So instead, I sit around and I think about changing, because it's much easier to fantasize about doing something than actually putting in the effort to do it.

Except this is only partially true.

A lot of flies have to make it past those windows, right? They must. Otherwise that'd mean their failure rate of survival would be at 100%, which we know is clearly not true because they're still around, so obviously they have to get outside once in a while. This means that surviving, changing, thriving, these are things that are not impossible to achieve or ridiculous to attempt. These are things that we should strive for, and theoretically, should each achieve, but a lot, if not most, of us don't. Sometimes there's very clear reasons why a lot of us don't achieve our goals; society being deadset against who we are being the number one clear cause. If you aren't mentally well, white, straight, cis (and generally male), etc then your possibilities are simply achieving anything are already cut down a lot. This isn't fair, but it is sadly the truth. But, there's also a lot of people who don't achieve anything for no goddamned reason, and that's where it all breaks down.

If there were clear concrete reasons as to why someone isn't achieving something, such as the stated reasons above, then things would make a lot more sense, at least in terms of their supposed failures. But to simply fail for no reason? To fail just because? That's where it gets lost on me.

I'm not one to talk. I'm queer, I'm a woman, and, judging from this blog, I am very mentally unwell...and yet I persist, only to fail time and time again. I don't face the same issues those who are POC face, so there is that, but still. Certainly white privilege is on my side, no doubt about that, but that can't be the only thing that nets you success, especially when you continue to try and continue to fail from trying constantly. There has to be more to it, there just has to be. There has to be a reason why I'm failing that isn't directly correlated with who I am as a human being. Yes, society has made who I am actively work against me, and that is not fair, but as much as I said I don't try or haven't done anything in the last ten years, I recognize that I have. I've done quite a lot, actually. I've moved to four different states, I've made a lot of creative work and I've actually done a lot of work on myself and progressed into a much stabler version of me than I ever was before, I think. So then...why am I still failing?

I'm so bad at succeeding that I can't even recognize when it happens. I said outright at the start that I haven't done anything in the last decade, despite knowing that full well to not be an absolute truth. That's how bad I am at success. Or perhaps it's not even so much what success I gain, but more so the amount of it. Maybe I want so much success in every aspect of my life, something that realistically nobody should be able to achieve no matter who they are, that I cannot see the places where I have succeeded.

Which, at least in my case, is worse for me? Not succeeding, or not recognizing success?

I can't say I know, and that worries me too.

🐷

I am dead on arrival. I failed to launch. I am a day one patch.

Long before kids were living with their parents regularly enough for it to be recognized as an epidemic, I knew that I would likely never succeed in anything, no matter how much effort I put in. Either the people around me weren't going to try either, or I was just flat out going to be unlucky, but I never, in my whole life, expect to be what I am today. A confused mess of a mixture between failure and success.

I have success, but not the kind of success I want, nor the kind that others can plainly see and be envious of, nor the kind that allow me to be independent and happy. All my successes are small successes and in most peoples eyes, including my own, they are instead viewed as failures because they aren't grandiose levels of success. I don't own a home. I don't have a family. I don't have a real "job". I don't own a car, nor do I even know how to drive. I have no money to my name, essentially, and have no credit or bank accounts. I essentially do not exist as a person in society, and because of this, I am viewed as a failure, even if the many successes I have managed to eke out say otherwise. I've self published books. I've been in multiple long term relationships. I've recovered from a lot of trauma and abuse and pain. These are successes. They're just not socially viable successes, and thus, they are inherently less meaningful.

But they're not less meaningful. Not really. They're just not what you'd normally categorize as success. As progress. As achievements. Hell, for someone as fucked up as me, to have survived what I've survived growing up and still be sane enough to write this blog and reflect on all that...that's a success. That's the biggest success I'll likely ever attain, is simply my survival, and you know what? At a certain point, that has to be enough, even if others tell me, even if my own brains tries to tell me, that it shouldn't be. Because survival is success, especially for those of us who are bogged down by societies ills, by societies hatred and division towards us. People who are severely mentally ill, people who are women, people are of a minority of any kind, whether it's skin color or sexuality, have to accept that simply surviving in a world that so clearly tells us it doesn't want us here, that continues to try and fail us even if we do everything right, is such a goddamned success. I shouldn't be here, but I am, continually banging my head against the glass, hoping to one day reach the other side.

The things I have done are not successes. I myself am the success. I am still alive, and still somewhat functioning, and that is success. And maybe someday I'll be more than that, but I cannot continue to base my entire worth on 'someday', especially a someday that may never happen. I have to base my worth on what I am, who I am, right here and now. Sure, I can hope for a someday. I can fantasize and continue to right even when I know I'll crash, but I have to accept that for the time being, surviving, simply surviving, is success enough.

And who knows...

...sometimes even flies make it out the window.