do not disturb
the political importance of women spending time alone
As I mentioned in my February Orbit, the best thing I read last month was a bell hooks essay that my friend showed me one morning in Café Nero (my current favourite liminal space!!) She was like: this sums up everything you’ve been talking about recently, and placed the book on the sticky, beige table. Accompanied by the sounds of the barking sausage dog I’ve grown to hate and the local Etsy witch that always talks to us about the AI-written book she’s ‘working on,’ I read it.
In the essay, bell hooks talks about the necessity of women’s isolation whilst creating things, and about the guilt we often experience when we assert (or even consider) this desire for space. She discusses the impossibility of being creative when we’re constantly siphoning off our energy to other people. For the record, I have never ever ever ever been a fan of the ‘prioritise your peace’ narrative that the internet has dredged up over the last few years. Recently, however, I’ve been thinking about how much I’ve normalised this constant expulsion of my own energy and attention outwards, in any direction but towards what I actually want to be focusing on. bell hooks’ essay was alarming to me because, whilst I could recognise this tendency in myself, I hadn’t factored in how gendered this self-abandonment is.
I find it disturbingly easy to redirect my energy towards other people, and then still expect myself to write, read, and be creative with whatever dregs of energy I have left after tending to everybody else. I’ve created this strange standard of mandatory availability for myself, which makes it feel as if I don’t have the option, or luxury, to do what I want to do. This habit not only reinforces the unimportance of my own time and creativity, but has also created a state of hyper-vigilance where I am so primed for distraction that I find myself spending the day expecting disaster, waiting for the crisis of the day to reveal itself.
So, I’m having a bit of a realisation at the moment, which the bell hooks essay underlined in the perfect way. I’m trying to practice ignoring external distractions and recognising that whatever I’m doing is equally important as what other people are asking of me. I’m also trying to do this without being a ‘prioritise your peace’ wanker, so it’s a been a bit of a balancing act so far. I am not suggesting that we should ignore the people we love (my relationships are literally the most important thing to me in my life!) but I do think the normalisation of women’s self-abandonment is pretty horrifying, and that women’s scarce time alone should be something worth protecting.
It’s (obviously) important to be there for your friends and family when they need you and let your ‘boundaries’ be pushed when they need to be (within reason.) BUT, I also think it’s suspicious how fragile and malleable women’s boundaries seem to be, whereas any ‘boundaries’ men set seem to stay intact. I think that women’s ‘boundaries’ (a word that has become almost meaningless through overuse on the internet) feel especially futile when we’re trying to pursue something creative. It feels impossible to prioritise our time alone to do something we’re so accustomed to undermining, trivialising, abandoning, and feeling guilty about. I want to strike a new balance between maintaining the space I require to do what I want to do, and also not being a wanker. Here’s some ways that I’m doing that:
Writing for 1-2 hours as soon as I wake up. It’s the absolute first thing I do every day
Keeping my phone on Do Not Disturb as much as possible
Not committing to plans I’m ambivalent about in advance because I think I should do it
Not cancelling last minute. I think ahead and ask myself: is this something I actually want to do? Is this where I want my energy to go?
Detaching from the outcomes of people’s drama. I LOVE gossip and fun stories but I am trying to remember that I don’t always need to be emotionally invested in things I have no control over
Not replying to people as soon as I see it. I’m taking my sweet time
Being there for people when they need me, but not overextending myself
Ending phone calls and interactions politely. I didn’t realise this was an option — you can just say ‘bye’ and leave!!!
About a month ago, Lizzy (who gets a lot of airtime here) told me to watch Florence Given’s new videos, which I think are so fucking good!! I am so IN on this new era for her <3. There is one particular episode titled ‘are you the therapist friend?’ which, in a similar vein to the bell hooks essay, clarified and articulated so many of these thoughts I’ve been having about people’s unlimited access to my energy recently.
Perhaps the most interesting point she makes in the video is pointing out how we are often complicit in these dynamics, and continually choose to reinforce our roles as ‘therapist’ or ‘confidant’ because there must be something we’re getting out of the exchange. I thought about it for a while, and I think that, for me, it’s this: I have become so accustomed to distraction that I find this state of hyper-vigilance more comfortable than being left alone. I can get easily caught up in distractions, in the form of people’s drama or problems, as a form of avoidance.
I’ve recently started therapy again, and one of the main things I’ve been working on is recognising and pursuing what I want, rather than attempting to appease other people and keep the peace. I have loooong declared that I do NOT identify as a ‘people pleaser’ (see every GWS episode Wing & I have ever recorded where I say this lol.) Whilst people being ‘pleased’ with me feels pretty uninteresting to me, I do undeniably feel an obligation (for reasons I won’t discuss right now!) to restabilise unstable people. So in a way this ignoring of my own ‘boundaries’ is a form of ‘people pleasing,’ it’s just that the people don’t ever seem very pleased, just momentarily pacified.
What I’m slowly realising is: whilst I feel a desire to establish a sense of calm, it’s not always my job (and perhaps it’s not even possible.) My energy is not a resource for other people to tap into, and my time is not something I have to give to the next person who asks for it. I’m enjoying (at least for now) living and working undisturbed.
✩⋆｡° Thank you so much for reading! If you’d like to support my writing and become a paid subscriber, it would mean sooo much to me and help make my writing on here possible. Thank you again and I hope you’re having an amaaaaaazing day!!! Love from Sephy ⋆｡°✩
Love youuuu
so good sephy <333 smiled reading the GWS bit because i could hear that conversation playing out LOL