this is a public service announcement

i am done fighting. not everything has to be a battle, and i am tired of fighting. if i do not get the job, it is not the right job. if i do not get the funding, it is not the right funder. if i cannot be seen or heard in relationship with a friend, that is not the friend for me. i am done fighting.

i have expected greater loyalty. i have expected a greater understanding of my pain (much less empathy). i have expected recognition, for the years of work and service and love and help and service i have already invested. i recognize now that individual/internal viewpoint does not shift due to the journeys of others/external viewpoints. i am done fighting. 

i expected you to get vaccinated in the name of protecting the community. those of you who are not vaccinated have broken my heart. i thought we could mutually understand the safety, the health, the security granted by vaccination. if we cannot protect each other, what are we doing? i am done fighting.

i have been abandoned for other peoples' ease, for their comfort, for their habits, for their preferences. my safety, my livelihood, my ability to exist in cleveland has been buried beneath others' desires for simple interactions and the ease of not having to consider history, connection, outcomes, impacts. 

if, when i am not in the room, you have forgotten that ray, kim, lavonna, amber, erika, hannah, and so many others chose to harm me in the name of ease and comfort, i will not be reminding you any further. enjoy your easy, thoughtless, vapid relationships. enjoy your path of least resistance. 

if you think i have not seen, heard, known about all the ways that you have abandoned me, you are wrong. at this point, everyone in cleveland should already been knowing who i am and the amount of what i know, can find out, will understand about you and your choices. i am always the spider in the center of the web. i feel every vibration, every repercussion you create. 

for too long i have held the burden of being untethered from my family, from my background, from old friends, from people i grew up with. i have held the responsibility for having had to move past those pieces of grounding and understanding that so many others get to enjoy, and the way you look sideways at people who make choices different than your own. but i did not come from where you come from-- my family has been active harm, pervasive toxicity, lethal in its machinations. 

i have held that responsibility because my responsibility is to myself: toward my own health, my own future, my own sense of self and community and values. i will not hold responsibility toward those who so easily abandon me. and that is, at its root, why i have walked away from family, from long-entrenched relationships. i will leave you, and i will not look back. 

not everything is a battle. i will not fight for your good opinion or your goodwill. either you can see my value, my worth, my offering of love and trust and mutuality, or you cannot. i see your choices clearly, and i will not fight any more.