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One of the most painful aspects of growing up is that we hit certain life or age milestones&are gradually deprived of nurturing&care under the assumption we no longer “need” them but we all kind of need& want some aspect of that forever & finding that in adulthood is very hard.
The older we get, the less acceptable it is for us to need sustained gentle care from the world around us, but that’s not dictated by our internal need for it.
The only real outlet for this need for most people is within the context of our romantic relationships, which means that if you’re a single adult shit can be extra hard and lonely, and if you have a partner who takes more than they give you’re double fucked in this regard.
I absolutely have exceptional friendships where this is a possibility but it also feels like the kind of thing to reserve for special occasions - you’re sick, your mental health is bad, you have an injury, you’re heartbroken. It feels like too much to ask for regularly.
It just feels so unfair that the world is so brutal, so rough, so exhausting and heartbreaking, and we’re all just expected to sigh in resignation and then watch TV about it, when what we WANT to do is cry with our head in someone’s lap abort how much everything hurts!
It’s reasonable for us to manage our emotional needs on a minute to minute basis! But it feels unreasonable that we hit an age where asking for care from the people around us feels so out of the question because society has told us we’re supposed to be 100% self-sufficient by now
ALSO unreasonable that modern capitalist society creates a harsh environment where parents don’t have the emotional or financial resources to fully nurture their kids to emotionally healthy adulthoods, then those sad adults are expected to cobble together some sense of stability.
ALSO fucked that we’re all so stretched to the limits of our endurance by the cruelty of modern capitalist society that even if our friends have the courage to ask us for nurturing or care our ability to support them is tremendously limited, because we have so little left over.
Anyway. Just feeling ill equipped to exist in the modern world!! Feeling like I wish an “adult” would talk me through my problems and maybe call my metaphorical teachers to ask for a metaphorical extension on my metaphorical homework assignment!!
