Hobbling not Hobnobbing

So I had a good day to begin with today. I went to visit my cousin and we had this amazing intense conversation about so many things and it was really deep. Then I went to the festival I am attending and it was really frustrating to have a broken foot and need help and I mean staff did try to help me but also I realized there was a lot of ableist shit going on. Like I did an interview and then I had to wait to do another interview and I was standing near this couch I had been on before and there was nowhere else to sit, but these two media bros were sitting on the couch visiting each other and they could fucking SEE ME and made eye contact with me and were totally able bodied and I had fucking crutches and a walking boot on and those fuckers didn’t even get up to let me sit down and I had to ask staff to get me a chair. And like I asked three people to get me a chair, and those fuckers could hear me and STILL didn’t get up so I could sit down and I was really upset because it was so disrespectful. I did get a chair, and sat near them, and hoped my presence would shame them, and eventually they got off the couch and went somewhere else but I was thinking horrible thoughts about them all evening.

And other shit happened. Like twice I had to go use the accessible toilets and able bodied people were using them and taking a long time in them and I’m standing outside with my foot beginning to get sore and the crutches digging in under my armpits. I would have gone to the bigger bathroom but they were downstairs where the able bodied people TOTALLY could have gone but no cause that’s not convenient. Argh. Then there was a fucking after party and the staff did try to help me but still there were lines for drinks and food and I had to guard my chair because a bunch of abled bodied people were sitting in them and there weren’t many chairs and then I had to pee and I was like, obviously hobbling all the way inside to an accessible washroom which was of course occupied for a long time while I waited. So then I called a cab to go to the hotel and I’m standing in a spot for the cab to come and waiting with my damned crutches and cabs are going by and I’m on hold for like, three minutes before I get a person on the line. And then the cab that originally took the call decided not to come anymore and they had to assign it to someone else and I am standing on my broken foot feeling like I want to cry.

Anyway yeah, eventually it came and now I’m in my hotel and I am gonna hunker down for the night. I met only a couple of people tonight because I couldn’t do that bullshit networking thing and meeting people because of my foot and people didn’t really want to come say hello to me except for staff and board members. And so I feel like, really fucking irritated with ableism today. And this is only temporary. Like, my foot is going to be fine eventually, not even that far off, I can walk without the cast for very very short distances, like across a room. But I am still healing right now and even tho I am trying to do this work trip I’m really sad about my limitations and very aware of them. And like, things feel very unjust. Like inaccessible bathrooms and able bodied people using the ONE accessible toilet. Like fucking media people using the couches and not feeling a bit guilty when someone who clearly needs to sit and has expressed that need and HAS FUCKING CRUTCHES AND AN AIR CAST.

Ugh it’s really frustrating and makes me sad. And I wish I could text Jessie again, we had texted earlier while I was in the theatre, I’d told her I missed Toronto cause I was a big suck and I got our organization a possible partnership on a project with a national organization and I think I said some other ridiculous thing, oh and how I got to visit my cousin twice. And she kind of said some nice things and said I wasn’t missing anything in Toronto and then the movie started. And then later when I was sad and frustrated I wanted to text her again to talk about it, but she would have been asleep by then, it would have been after midnight in Toronto. And she’s not even my girlfriend but we still have this kind of gentle caring relationship with each other where we talk about that kind of stuff, like she tells me things upsetting her too and stuff. Only through texts tho. But still she is kind of an emotional support and I know I am the same for her in a way. I dunno, it made me sad that I couldn’t reach out to her tonight because of the time difference. I did have my cousin I was messaging. She was helpful. But I know Jessie would have understood some of my frustrations and been a good person to talk to about it. She knows film fests, she gets some accessibility things I think. I just feel like I wish I could have talked to her more. And my Mom also was asleep by the time I started getting super frustrated, and I couldn’t talk to her either. Her phones were just going straight to the machines.

I am pretty sure Jessie loves me back to some degree. Maybe it’s really presumptuous to say that. I just sense it sometimes, like sometimes when she doesn’t have work she responds to my texts so fast, and sometimes even when she does have work she gets back to me fast, and when we see each other there seems to be this really adorable shy quality she has about seeing me that feels like she has a crush, like it feels like if she didn’t have a partner things would be different. I don’t know, I’m starting to think maybe I’m just some weird test the Universe is giving her to see if she will be faithful to her partner. And she is, she’s never kissed me, she’s never actually told me she has feelings too. She doesn’t spend time alone with me anymore unless it’s to walk with me to the subway. She’s doing all the things people do to keep faithful and not cheat. But sometimes I wonder about that, the fact that she doesn’t see me alone anymore, like it hurts sometimes, but also sometimes I wonder if she knows if we were alone for any length of time, we might do something like have a long hug that is a slippery slope to caresses, or start talking about feelings, or end up kissing. Sometimes I want to ask her why she won’t be alone with me anymore. But she’s so good at being evasive. Once a while back I tried to bring up the email I had sent her last fall where I confessed having feelings. And she didn’t text back for like, an hour, and when she did she didn’t address that text, she addressed the text I had sent just before that, like I hadn’t sent that one text at all.

I had a psychic tell me I would hope that Jessie would get to a place where she could do this thing with me, like the relationship/family thing, and she was never gonna get there. And I don’t know, I know I am hanging on. It’s hard to let go of this stuff. I know I am letting go. But parts of me still wish I could write out a list of all of these things and put it at Jessie’s feet and just like, make her confront what is going on between us.

And this is probably why she doesn’t want to be alone with me anymore.

And also, I’m doubly frustrated tonight because I can’t text Jessie until the morning and because I had such a hard time at the festival tonight because of my broken foot.

And at the same time, I know other people who know both of us are starting to see this, and I have a feeling it’s going to start unravelling, and I’m terrified one or both of us are going to be confronted about it by other people and she’s gonna do that shitty thing where she just says I have a crush and she’s humouring me or something and actually really hates it. And it sucks. I don’t want to believe she would betray me like that and act like there was never anything going on for her. And yet at the same time, that’s kind of what she has done to me privately. I remember when I wrote my email to her about my feelings she wrote two very tender emails back, and the first one asked for time before responding. And it was like, a fucking week before she turned me down. She was so ambiguous in the first email, like it wasn’t a yes or a no, it could have gone either way and was really like, I don’t know. It felt like she was buying herself time to think about it. I never had someone take a week to reject me before. Like, NEVER. People who reject me can pretty much do it immediately, within five minutes, or whenever they get my emails, like it has never played out the way it did with Jessie. And she was having health issues. But at the same time, I didn’t understand why it took a week. And then when she rejected me she was very gentle and talking about how she had wanted someone like me to come into her life and stuff. But only as a friend. And she said she was committed to her partner, and respected and cared for them. But she didn’t tell me she loved them, which I found really curious. And I don’t know, it seemed weird. She barely posts photos of her partner anymore, not since then. Maybe once or twice, and it’s been nine months. Sometimes she is really engaged with my social media, and then other times she isn’t at all. It’s the weirdest thing.

I know when I have a partner, whoever she is, it won’t be this hard. She will want to be with me, she will want to spend time with me, she will seek me out and text me first and it won’t have all this weirdness. It won’t feel fucking taboo or like, tortured. Like whoever she is she will be looking for me too and she won’t take a week to decide if she wants to be with me.

I don’t know why life has to be this way. I guess I am learning something? I don’t know.

I don’t know why I want to be her friend so badly, when she doesn’t even seem capable of spending time with me in the same place, alone, doing things, or visiting, or whatever. Like we aren’t friends. We’re some kind of text buddies. That’s not even any kind of relationship