In an effort to get writing again I’m going to try and get out something short at least once a week, long form will still come as it comes.
I’ve been bridging the gap between therapy appointments with GPT lately. It helps.
It uses the word heartbreaking a lot. Often in italics.
Some of the amazing moments have happened over the past few years. There was a dark recess inside me, during those moments, that whispered with caution: This is too good to be true.
It’s hard not to view the moments a large language model has labelled as heartbreaking as validation of those words. With a side of you should have known.
Heartbreak is default-world flavoured. If there’s a through line for me, it’s finding out humans are what I thought they were before embarking on a short side quest with the positivity people.
That gives a lot of emo livejournal angst, but a definition like ‘unfocused dread about the human condition’ resonates for me. Events happened that convince me the better angels of human nature fled a long time ago.
I wonder if end states like ‘fixed’ or ‘whole’ are not the only progressions for heartbreak. Is there another option, something else you do after things break?
If something becomes chipped, do we always put it back together? I don’t think so.
Sometimes the chip is too difficult to put back together, and/or you know people can still see something is broken.
Most people want to be smooth porcelain, and not that surprising sharp crack in an otherwise pleasing surface.
I’ve been able to see, due to some unique circumstances, what things might have been like were I a cis woman. Knowing that my cracks are due mostly to being transgender fits heartbreak pretty well.
I would have liked to have been smooth, but I think my time is better spent not fixing cracks that people will always be able to see.
