I’ve been down the slumps again for a while. Neglecting myself. My house. Everything but my son, really. It’s hard and I think I really need to get a job soon. Not just because thing are getting unaffordable but also, my sanity.

I’ve also struggled a lot with feeling constrained in gendernorms lately due to having a son who is starting to get affected by the whole “this is for boys” and “this is for girls” bs.

I can tell he wouldn’t care if it weren’t basically being shoved down our throats on a daily base. It’s such a subtle sort of brainwashing and I don’t want him to go through the same struggle I went through.

I don’t want him to feel wrong while growing up. I don’t want him to unlearn years of messed up coping habits because of some distorted view on what is manly or not.

For the longest time I never really felt like I fit the norm of what a woman is. It never mattered to me and I never paid attention to it either. But, the older I got, the worse the whole gender divide became and people were forced to shove themselves in a constrictive box with far too many bans.

I realise I never asked myself “how to be a functioning woman” but always thought about “how to be a functioning adult”. Because what does gender mean anyway when you look at the bare essentials of being?

Why would you put so many restrictions on gender? Why are there so many rules on how to be? Why is being perceived feminine an insult? And why do you even care what’s in another persons pants? There are so many why’s that I don’t even have the emotional space to mention it.

What does it really matter how I’m perceived by others? I don’t exist to make other people happy. And if I’m not happy, how can I even think of spreading happiness to begin with?

I still feel a bit disorganised with my thoughts but that’s not really important. I’m just glad to finally get rid of another bit of that weird feeling of being “wrong”.