Little dog paws

Little dog paws peek out beneath the blanket. One paw then two. Then a soft brown nose. My heart swells. My dogs look in their eyes full of love. I'm distracted now by Chris's voice coming from upstairs. This whole work from home due to "The Plague" i.e., covid-19 is something I said I wanted -having him around would feel nice, not being alone or lonely. But it also feels a little invasive, I guess. What do I mean by "invasive"? i just mean that I can spread out in solitude,be who and how I want. Another presence means I can't be totally myself. What do I mean by "totally myself"? I mean that, alone, I don't have to put on a show or worry about how others perceptions of me require me to address and adjust to their need, for their need to engage with me as they , as he sees best. I've noticed that I tend to deflect writing into a kind of "other" space, I use one might instead of I might or they when I mean he or her. Why? because I tend to believe that objective statement carry more weight. And because if I say I or he I will feel like I'm revealing too much or being selfish. The universal, voice from nowhere makes me sound important. Or it's what I think important writing should sound like. But I don'tnthink I'm even totally conscious of the floating judgments that guide my writing. I think I cam,but what structures my fears is only partly available. I must say I'm getting a little bored with myself. With talking or thinking about myself. I wish I could write a story. A yes, I had forgotten. I had the thought earlier today, this morning about writing a story about a woman named Marta. But Marta wasn't her "real" or original" name. It was inspired by seeing that Fr Danaher and his wife Claire's daughter changed her name from Thea to Rose and Claire announced it on FB that they had it done legally for her. It reminded me of how I had begged my mom to change my name to Laura and how she almost did it. The part I left out in my comment of support on Claire's post (why do I feel the need to confess this detail?) was that my Mom said she went to the City Hall or wherever and the woman at the desk convinced her to wait it out. An authority figure in a sense said I was too young and my mom should wait and see if I changed my mind. It's funny, I remember not quite believing my Mom, but she did seem pretty convincing and wasn't much of a liar so I suppose it *was* true. Anyway,the idea of spending all my life as Laura now and not Kristine strikes me as impossible or should I say unimaginable. Kristine wouldn't exist. Laura would. But  would be the same person, ostensibly. One must wonder, if my name had indeed been changed to Laura, a name, admittedly I still like though I don't identify with it strongly, if that life, would have been different merely *because* I changed my name? Would the shift from Kristine to Laura have sent me on another trajectory? The right "better" trajectory, in fact? Perhaps that's what informs my deep feeling that I kind of "missed my boat" as to what my life should look like. I should have had a life that somehow I'm just not having. That must be Laura's life. Anyway, I should try and flesh out the possibilities of what the story of Laura mixed with Rose might look like. I think it's also got a universal meaning (haha) The pressure we are put under to have "life" that society approves of and that gives us legitimacy and status and "meaning" is so internalized that the sense of having missed our "true calling" and thus our "true" identity is baked into every "wrong" turn or "right" one. Any life we live feels in a sense like the wrong one because the desire to have the perfectly lived life becomes inherently unattainable. The life you "chose" or ended up living must be wrong because we're haunted by all the contingent choices we had to make, which are in essence all the other selves we could have become. If Laura had existed instead of Kristine. Or if Thea had been forced or cajoled into remaining Thea instead of allowed to become Rose, what would Thea's life, marked by that refusal been like? It's obvious that the idea of trans or queer or gay identity is a potent place to explore the whole idea of the "life not lived." The inherent pathos of the closeted queer is the haunting sense of loss of the life not able to be realized. The ethical charge of queer theory is the claim for the authentic self to live and thus the false self to die. While admitting that there is no such thing as the true self. In a sense the hetero- dilemma is that one can't ever attain authenticity. We are , as non-queers, jealous of the whole idea of finding our authentic selves. It shouldn't be possible we think! How can queers get to a place of peace and acceptance of themselves when we never can? It's not fair! Reminder that I need to get the book, Minor Feeling by Cathy Park Hong.