“I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now” – Edna Mode
I’ve got for you a new speculative fiction along with some random thoughts below. But first, the story: Corporate Bliss – a Story Told in Emails. It’s about capitalism, life, and depression all through email conversations in an office setting. Comments welcome here or on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram…
And I’m not depressed, but Winter always makes me reflective. I wanted to post some memories my mother has shared with me. I then thought, “What about me? Who will I share my memories with?” I then thought of other LGBTQ2SA folk with no kids. Or of couples who were childless. Or even single people. Who sings their stories after they are gone?
“Who cares” but as time goes on, and the world changes, often it’s the slice of life that give colour to the past. Telling you I remember being a teenager and on a bus with school mates singing along to The Pointer Sisters “Jump” and you can say “So what?”
Yet. Point out that at the time, I was still dealing with my sexuality. I had been bullied in elementary. I was mostly ignored in Junior High, but wasn’t part of the “In” crowd. In high school, playing football suddenly made me part of the “In” crowd because I was a jock. And it was….an education in tribalism, and why it was and still is, an utter load of bullshit. Hating someone because he/she/they are not part of your religion, your family, your nationality, they don’t like sports, they look different, etc. etc.
So, with that as context, when I say it was a bus of football players in gear, singing and jumping to that song “Jump” after coming home from a football game, the colour in this slice of the past is bright, as it was a happy moment for me – I felt I was part of something, part of a crowd, a team. Yet it’s a memory tinged with sadness as I remember feeling lonely because it was also a lie: I made sure never to let my eyes linger on another guy while in the change room, knowing I was different even while on the outside I appeared to be one of the crowd.
Huh. I should post a picture of me in football gear one of these days.